Socialist MP Alexandra Leitão was today elected parliamentary leader of the PS with 90% of the vote, having obtained 65 votes in favor and seven blank votes.
According to information provided to the Lusa news agency by a PS source, 72 deputies – the parliamentary group has 78 – voted for a single list for the leadership.
Alexandra Leitão succeeds Eurico Brilhante Dias and will be the second woman to lead the Socialist bench, after Ana Catarina Mendes (2019-2022).
The list of the parliamentary group’s leadership has 12 vice-presidents, including four ex-governors who recently left António Costa’s executive.
These include former Minister of the Presidency Mariana Vieira da Silva, former Assistant Secretary of State to the Prime Minister António Mendonça Mendes, former Minister of Housing Marina Gonçalves and former Secretary of State for Regional Development Isabel Ferreira.
This list represents a renewal in relation to Eurico Brilhante Dias’ bench leadership, with only Francisco César, João Torres and Pedro Delgado Alves moving on.
Ana Paula Bernardo, João Paulo Rebelo, Luís Graça, Maria Begonha and Tiago Barbosa Ribeiro are the new additions to the list that will be put to the vote today, to which will be added: Elza Pais (president of Socialist Women), Miguel Costa Matos (secretary-general of the PS) and Paulo Cafôfo (president of PS-Madeira).
Alexandra Leitão is a member of the PS National Secretariat and was the coordinator of the party’s electoral program in the last legislative elections.
She was Minister of State Modernization and Public Administration from 2019 to 2022 and, between 2015 and 2019, Assistant Secretary of State for Education. In the last legislature, as a member of parliament, she was chair of the parliamentary committee on Transparency and the Status of Members of Parliament.
In 2022, the then PS leader and Prime Minister, António Costa, had already proposed the post of parliamentary leader to Alexandra Leitão, who ended up refusing.
