Célia Pessegueiro was elected as the new leader of PS/Madeira with 98.78% of the votes from 1,138 party members who participated in the internal elections.
She becomes the first woman to lead PS/Madeira and the first female leader of a party with parliamentary representation in Madeira since the establishment of democracy.
The Madeira socialists emphasize that the new leader aims to unite the PS and prepare it for the future.
One of her campaign’s slogans is to build the party by increasing membership and creating strong local party structures, especially in areas where the PS had poor results in recent elections.
Pessegueiro proposes establishing a Laboratório de Ideias da Madeira, a platform for political debate and participation, to keep the PS open to civil society contributions and update its political proposals to meet new challenges. She will serve as the leader for the next two years.
Her political strategy includes regular, direct engagement with residents of Madeira and Porto Santo.
With no elections scheduled for the next two years, she sees it as an opportunity to strengthen the PS in society, encourage political participation, combat populist hostility, and develop alternative policies to address the challenges facing Madeira and Porto Santo.
In today’s internal elections, 300 delegates to the XXIII Regional Congress of PS/Madeira, scheduled for January 10 and 11 at the Madeira Congress Center, were also elected, in addition to Cátia Vieira Pestana as president of the Madeira Socialist Women with 82.4% of the votes.
Born in 1980 in Ponta do Sol, Madeira, Pessegueiro holds a degree in Classical and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from the University of Madeira. She is also an editor and cultural events organizer.
Pessegueiro was the first female leader of a youth political organization in Madeira (2002-2008), the first woman elected president of a municipality in 2017, and has served as a deputy in the Madeira Legislative Assembly and as a councilwoman in the municipality of Ponta do Sol.
She lost the leadership of the Ponta do Sol Council in the last local elections, a position she held for eight years.
Outgoing leader Paulo Cafôfo states that he is at peace at the end of his term, without regrets or burdens, and openly supports Célia Pessegueiro.
The socialists lost the Ponta do Sol Municipality to the PSD/CDS-PP coalition and also lost representation in the councilors of four municipalities, retaining government only in Machico and Porto Moniz.
In Funchal, Madeira’s main municipality, PS’s presence dropped from five councilors to one, in an executive comprised of 11 members, including six from PSD/CDS-PP, two from JPP, two from Chega, and one socialist.
