Throughout the election campaign for the upcoming municipal elections on Sunday, Nuno Melo conducted a national tour, focusing many activities in the North and Center of the country and visiting the six municipalities governed by the centrists.
The president of the CDS-PP toured the three municipalities managed by the CDS in the district of Aveiro: Vale de Cambra, Oliveira do Hospital, and Abergaria-a-Velha, as well as Ponte de Lima, governed by the party since 1975, and Santana in Madeira. He reserved the last campaign day for a trip to Velas, on the island of São Jorge, Azores.
The CDS’s municipal campaign was also notable for the presence of former leader Paulo Portas, who, without appearing alongside Nuno Melo, was in Vale de Cambra and Lisbon with Carlos Moedas, who is running for re-election as Lisbon’s mayor, now with a coalition that includes the IL alongside the centrists. Portas is scheduled to visit Vila Franca de Xira today to support the candidacy of parliamentary leader Paulo Núncio.
In Vale de Cambra, Portas avoided commenting on how Nuno Melo approached the flotilla headed to Gaza attempting to break Israel’s blockade, which was intercepted by Israeli forces who arrested its occupants, including BE coordinator Mariana Mortágua, actress Sofia Aparício, and activists Miguel Duarte and Diogo Chaves.
The flotilla topic surfaced in the comments made by the centrist leader to journalists during the election campaign, with Nuno Melo initially responding to the detention of the Portuguese, describing their action as propagandistic and irresponsible, towards “a territory occupied by a terrorist organization responsible for an attack that claimed over 1,200 lives in Israel.”
On that occasion, in Mondim de Basto, Vila Real, the CDS-PP president further emphasized that the Islamist movement Hamas “oppresses minorities, whether they are religious or based on their sexual orientation.”
When the activists returned to Portugal, Nuno Melo stated he no longer wished to comment on what he described as a “performance,” again labeling it as propagandistic.
The PSD president, Luís Montenegro, later advocated for the balance in the government’s position on the Gaza issue, asserting that everyone should “respect each other and avoid extremism in expressing ideas and opinions.”
Nuno Melo, who is also the Minister of Defense, indicated he did not feel corrected by the social-democratic leader and prime minister, stressing that the CDS-PP “is fully supportive of the coalition” in the government but is also a “party that stands on its own.”
The centrists’ leader had already pointed out during the campaign that “the CDS has the right” to have an opinion.
“The CDS is a political party that contributes to the right-wing political space, but as a political party, the CDS has an opinion, the CDS has the right to have an opinion, and the CDS expresses that opinion, which is what I do as CDS president,” he stated on Friday during a campaign dinner in Covilhã, district of Castelo Branco.
The passage of three F35 planes through the U.S. base in Lajes, Azores, en route to Israel, was another topic related to the Gaza conflict that emerged during the campaign. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted a procedural error, leading the minister, Paulo Rangel, not to be informed of the aircraft’s layover, which could have allowed him to express opposition.
BE and Livre called for Nuno Melo’s resignation over the jets’ passage but also argued he was unfit to remain in the government due to his remarks about the humanitarian flotilla and for displaying “loyalty and obedience” to Israel, according to leader Joana Mortágua.
Regarding the jets, Melo stated he neither had nor needed to have a role in the process and expressed satisfaction that parties he considers radical were calling for his resignation.
