In the election, all 89 PSD deputies voted, resulting in 86 votes in favor, two blank ballots, and one null vote.
In the previous legislature, Hugo Soares had been elected leader of the Social-Democratic parliamentary group with 98.7% of the votes (with only one blank vote) on April 9 last year.
Hugo Soares will have 12 vice-presidents in the caucus, including four new ‘vices’: former secretaries of state Cristina Vaz Tomé and Paulo Lopes Marcelo, the Lisbon-elected deputy Bruno Ventura, and Guarda-elected deputy Dulcineia Moura, who was already the group’s secretary.
The remaining eight vice-presidents continue from Hugo Soares’s previous leadership: former President of the Order of Physicians Miguel Guimarães, former Deputy Secretary-General Hugo Carneiro, former Secretary of State Regina Bastos, municipal coordinator Pedro Alves, former mayor of Rio Maior Isaura Morais, former JSD leader Alexandre Poço, Lisbon-elected deputy António Rodrigues, and Porto-elected deputy Andreia Neto.
The new secretaries of the parliamentary group are Fernando Queiroga, former mayor of Boticas, and João Antunes dos Santos, elected by Leiria.
From the previous direction of the parliamentary group, Cristóvão Norte, who will run for Mayor of Faro, Hugo Oliveira, candidate for Mayor of Caldas da Rainha, and two other members who left the group to join the government: João Valle and Azevedo, Secretary of State for the Presidency, and Silvério Regalado, Secretary of State for Local Administration, are departing.
PSD parliamentary leader Hugo Soares announced his intention to run again for the position at the first meeting of the new caucus, on June 2.
“It’s where I feel comfortable and where I think I can continue to help the country first and the Government second,” justified the PSD’s secretary-general.
Hugo Soares had previously served as the social-democratic parliamentary group leader, elected on July 19, 2017, with 85.4% of the votes, succeeding Luís Montenegro.
However, only seven months later, in February 2018, he called for early elections for the parliamentary group after the new PSD president Rui Rio expressed a desire to work with a different group leadership, with Fernando Negrão succeeding him, elected with less than 40% of the votes.
Hugo Soares hails from Braga, born on March 2, 1983 (42 years old), and has been Montenegro’s right-hand man over the past few years.
President of the Social Democratic Youth between 2012 and 2014, he served as a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic from June 2011 to October 2019 and again since 2024.
A lawyer by profession and business administrator, he returned to the forefront of political life with the victory of the current PSD president in the 2022 internal elections and assumed the role of secretary-general. In the legislative elections on May 18 of this year, he was re-elected as a deputy, leading the list for Braga.
[News updated at 5:16 PM]
