In a statement, party secretary-general Élvio Sousa highlighted a renewed team in Santa Cruz, the only municipality currently governed by the JPP, emphasizing that the aim is to maintain the leadership and “focus on Funchal without disregarding the other municipalities.”
The JPP is presenting individual lists for the Madeiran municipalities of Funchal, Calheta, Câmara de Lobos, Machico, Ponta do Sol, Porto Moniz, Ribeira Brava, and Santa Cruz.
The party is also running independently in the municipalities of Paredes, Maia, and Gondomar, in the Porto district, but it is in Madeira, specifically in Santa Cruz, where JPP has the most influence.
In the Madeira archipelago, the JPP is not contesting Santana, São Vicente, and Porto Santo, but supports the citizen movement UNE – Uma Nova Esperança in Porto Santo, which includes members of Juntos Pelo Povo.
Filipe Sousa, a party founder and current member of Parliament, left the Santa Cruz Council this year, which he had led since 2013, following his election to Parliament and just months before completing his third and final term.
The Santa Cruz Council is currently presided over by Élia Ascensão, who will be the lead candidate in the October 12 municipal elections.
In Funchal, the main municipality of the autonomous region with 105,782 inhabitants (Census 2021), the party has nominated Fátima Aveiro, former president of the Food Bank Against Hunger in Madeira, who left her position to focus on her candidacy.
“The priority is to expand the movement in the region, particularly on the mainland, without haste,” Élvio Sousa stressed.
In 2008, a group of citizens, including brothers Élvio and Filipe Sousa, founded the PPG – Pelo Povo de Gaula, a parish in the Santa Cruz municipality, located in eastern Madeira.
The following year, the PPG adopted the name Juntos Pelo Povo, and in that year’s municipal elections, it ended the PSD’s absolute majority in the Santa Cruz Municipal Council and won the Gaula Parish Council.
Four years later, in the 2013 municipal elections, the JPP won an absolute majority in Santa Cruz, a municipality historically governed by the Social Democrats.
Filipe Sousa assumed office as the council president for the first time, later re-elected with an absolute majority in the 2017 and 2021 elections.
The JPP, the 21st political party registered with the Constitutional Court on January 27, 2015, currently holds the Santa Cruz Council and the five parish councils within the municipality.
The JPP is also the principal opposition party in the Regional Legislative Assembly (with a PSD/CDS-PP majority), with 11 deputies, having surpassed the PS in the last regional legislative elections on March 23.
