The presidential candidate Luís Marques Mendes stated on Friday that, if he were the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), he would not support Isaltino Morais in the municipal elections, set for October 12.
In statements to SIC Notícias, Marques Mendes expressed he would remain “consistent” and that the stance he took 20 years ago, during his tenure as the leader of the social democrats, would be unchanged today.
“If it were my decision, I would make the same decision I made 20 years ago. That is, a decision different from the one that was made,” he stated.
“But since I am not the one making a decision, I merely note and mark my difference of opinion. It’s an exercise of coherence and an exercise of independence,” he reinforced later.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, the PSD announced support for Isaltino Morais’s independent candidacy for the Oeiras Municipality.
The PSD announced today support for the independent candidacies of Isaltino Morais in Oeiras and former CDU mayor Maria das Dores Meira in Setúbal, while also confirming Luís Filipe Menezes’s bid for re-election in Gaia.
Lusa | 15:42 – 15/07/2025
On the following day, Wednesday, Isaltino Morais reaffirmed the independence of his project but acknowledged that “all support is welcome,” and that PSD’s support recognizes the municipality’s “social-democratic policies.”
“My candidacy is independent and it is based on this that we want to maintain the trust of the Oeiras residents, but naturally, all support is welcome, and this support from the PSD indicates that the party identifies with the social-democratic policies that have been developed by this independent movement over the past years,” declared Isaltino Morais in a written statement to Lusa.
Isaltino Morais, who also served as Minister of Cities, Land Planning, and Environment, was first elected president of the Oeiras Municipality in 1985 on the PSD lists, renewing his mandate in the elections of 1989, 1993, 1997, and 2001.
In 2005 (when he was a defendant in a legal process) and 2009, he again won the Oeiras Municipality, this time as an independent, but paused his mandate in 2013 to serve a sentence, after being convicted of tax fraud and money laundering.
In 2017, months after confirming he was invited by the PSD to join the party’s lists, which he declined, he re-ran for the municipality as an independent and won again, as he did in the 2021 elections.
Due to term limits, this year’s municipal elections will be the last in which he can run in the municipality.
Isaltino Morais was part of the PSD/CDS-PP government from 2002 to 2003 but left the executive, arguing he did not have the conditions to hold political positions following an investigation into undeclared Swiss bank accounts.
In 2005, he requested to leave the PSD.
Isaltino Morais governs with an absolute majority – the current executive of Oeiras includes eight members of the IN-OV movement, a PS councilor with attributed portfolios, a PSD councilor also with portfolios, and an independent councilor nominated by BE in a coalition.
