Bebiana Cunha, a former member of the Portuguese political party PAN, announced her departure from the party, citing a lack of ideological coherence and expressing disillusionment with the party’s direction. “To me, when there’s no longer ideological coherence, it makes no sense. I’m facing the impossibility of remaining affiliated with a party that, in my view, has distorted its values. In 2011, PAN spoke of ‘Valuing Values,’ bringing ethics to politics, and to me, that project failed. I cannot consciously remain associated with a project where quantity becomes more important than quality,” Cunha stated.
In remarks to Lusa, the former deputy and PAN volunteer since 2011, who had served in the Porto Municipal Assembly and was elected the party’s parliamentary leader in 2021, emphasized that her decision was not made lightly or overnight, summing up her reasons with the word “disillusionment.”
“I believe there is disillusionment among us with a project, with a political ideology as ethical as PAN. To see it be distorted through various coalitions, based on the idea that quantity matters more than quality,” she explained.
When asked about the current party leadership, Cunha criticized the “lack of self-criticism” regarding issues such as the loss of voters and representativeness, stating that “there is a denial of reality.”
“There is a lack of in-depth analysis, as with PAN, which ideologically was a party defending deep ecology and has shifted to surface ecology,” she noted.
This wave of resignations follows a public open letter in July, also signed by the former PAN deputy and other ex-leaders, calling for an evaluation of the party’s leadership “without fear of change,” accusing the current leadership of deviating from the “founding values.”
The letter included 35 signatories, among them former leaders Anabela Castro, Nuno Pires, Miguel Queirós, and Carolina Pia, who emphasized that they all “have their history within PAN” and recalled the launch of the People-Animals-Nature project’s foundations in 2009.
A statement released today and signed by five former PAN members, including Cunha and Miguel Queirós, who chaired the National Jurisdiction Council and now steps down, reads that “PAN stopped being what it was — the only platform where causes and committed activism once converged in a politically organized representative structure.”
“Recall that Inês Sousa Real was elected in 2023 with about 73% of the congress votes, on a list that has since lost several members who repeatedly pointed out a lack of internal democracy. Moreover, according to the party’s current statutes, the elective congress should have been held in May 2025, which has not yet happened, nor has it been announced for 2025, keeping PAN in illegality despite the insistence of the members and the National Jurisdiction Council’s opinion,” the text sent to Lusa states.
This announcement was made symbolically today, World Vegan Day, described by the signatories as a “collective resignation” with a “symbolic and ethical character,” appealing for “the reconstruction of truly horizontal, empathetic, and democratic political spaces, to which this group of over thirty people will contribute.”
In a statement, the PAN leadership noted that “the resignations of members who were already distant from the active life of the party for several months and years naturally formalizes personal disconnections that occur naturally.”
“However, some of these individuals, despite being formally affiliated with PAN, participated in candidate lists opposed to PAN, in other cases publicly supporting other parties in the last municipal elections, violating the statutes and disrespecting the work of other members. The decision to leave now formalized reflects only the natural closure of a personal and political cycle that was already exhausted,” the party stated.
