“This result was obviously not what we expected; we hoped for a more significant vote,” admitted the candidate in statements to Lusa.
After the final parish of Lumiar was counted, it was confirmed that Chega secured third place in the race for the presidency of the Lisbon City Council, with Bruno Mascarenhas’s list leading the CDU (PCP/PEV) by just 11 votes.
The social-democrat Carlos Moedas, who was running for a second term with the PSD/CDS-PP/IL coalition, achieved 41.69% of the votes, securing eight mandates.
The PS/Livre/BE/PAN coalition, led by socialist Alexandra Leitão, garnered 33.95% of the votes, securing six mandates, while Chega obtained 10.10% of the votes with two elected officials, followed by the CDU (PCP/PEV), which received 10.09%, earning one mandate.
“Clearly, we were heavily impacted by the phenomenon of tactical voting, which is somewhat incomprehensible to us, given the state the city is in and how the voters still decided to give a new vote of confidence to engineer Moedas. In our view, he did not deserve it; however, we fully respect the will of the people of Lisbon,” he added.
Earlier in the evening, Bruno Mascarenhas had admitted he would not be pleased to finish behind the list led by communist João Ferreira, but after confirming the narrow victory, he assured that he took no satisfaction from being ahead.
“Working in a logic of competing with the PCP is something that in itself displeases me; therefore, I take no satisfaction from being ahead of the CDU,” he emphasized.
“I feel no interest in this dispute with the CDU because our competition is naturally with the PSD and the PS; these are the parties we truly want to defeat, not the CDU,” he insisted.
Once in office, the primary priority, according to Bruno Mascarenhas, is oversight.
“This is something that is currently lacking and is essential to regulate a number of sectors in the city,” he stated, adding that he also intends to “combat the corruption that exists in the Lisbon City Council, in municipal companies, and the nepotism.”
