In a campaign event held on Tuesday, the social-democratic mayor accused the lead candidate of the coalition uniting PS, Livre, BE, and PAN of having “a project of hatred.”
“Does anyone believe that?” Alexandra Leitão protested today, emphasizing that the coalition she leads “is not united by hatred, it is not united against anyone, […] it is united solely […] by the will to improve Lisbon and by love for Lisbon.”
Carlos Moedas, current Mayor of Lisbon and candidate for re-election by the PSD/CDS-PP/IL coalition, has repeatedly criticized the PS for embracing the “radicalism” of the Left Bloc in the Lisbon coalition.
With Left Bloc coordinator Mariana Mortágua by her side, Alexandra Leitão responded, “Unable to discuss Lisbon, because every time he talks about Lisbon he loses votes, Carlos Moedas resorts to bogeymen, like the Left Bloc, and myself.”
Reacting to the “technique,” Alexandra Leitão recalled that, as a European Commissioner, Carlos Moedas “praised the government supported by the geringonça” (PS, PCP, and BE).
“I didn’t imagine Carlos Moedas’s despair about his term in Lisbon would be such that […] he would find every excuse not to talk about the state he left Lisbon in,” said Mariana Mortágua, who joined the Lisbon municipal campaign today after returning from Israel, where she was detained following the interception of a humanitarian flotilla heading to the Gaza Strip.
“Carlos Moedas finds all excuses and opportunities not to talk about Lisbon,” she pointed out.
“I fully understand why Carlos Moedas does not want to discuss Lisbon. And I do want to. I want to discuss the Lisbon he leaves and the Lisbon we are going to make,” echoed Alexandra Leitão.
“In our coalition, we are all in, no one is out,” she emphasized, speaking to journalists outside the Anjos Social Support Center, where she discussed “emergency solutions” for the homeless, for whom “a mere 100 beds were created” in the last four years.
Rejecting the “concentration that was done in the Beato parish,” the socialist advocates decentralization: “instead of people being crammed in one place, having smaller, more humanized, more proximate solutions.”
Also supported by Livre’s co-spokesperson Isabel Mendes Lopes, Alexandra Leitão and Mariana Mortágua noted that the number of homeless people “increased by 43% under Carlos Moedas’s governance.”
“Many of them had a home yesterday, were evicted, and could no longer afford it or unfortunately faced a divorce situation or any life situation that now says they are living on the street,” noted the BE leader, stressing that “a society is measured by how it treats the most fragile” and that Carlos Moedas did so “with contempt.”
In one of the parishes with the most migrant population, Alexandra Leitão also responded to Carlos Moedas for accusing her of advocating that “Portugal should not have regulated immigration.”
“It is not worth bringing up another bogeyman, the immigration bogeyman, the deregulation and wide-open doors bogeyman,” she refuted, arguing that the municipality must have “an active role in the integration” of those who are legally in the country and that “this involves helping to teach the language, also dealing with the dignity of housing.”
In the first campaign action of the day, a street event through the parishes of Alvalade and Areeiro, the “Viver Lisboa” coalition sang a version of the popular song “Ó Laurindinha,” with the line “A Carlos Moedas/let him go/To the people of Lisbon ai ai ai/he is lying.”
They also distributed carnations in October, suggested by the candidate for the Alvalade parish, as a good, albeit expensive, “conversation opener.”
Rui Tavares, Livre’s co-spokesperson, joined Alexandra Leitão on the route from the old King cinema, which the coalition aims to rehabilitate, to Alameda Afonso Henriques, where he criticized Carlos Moedas for lacking “political weight” with the Government to solve Lisbon’s problems.
Livre leads the coalition’s candidacies in the parishes of Areeiro, Alvalade, and Avenidas Novas, presented as “a model of good city management,” and is confident that Alexandra Leitão will assume a different stance and will dialogue with all parish presidents.
In addition to Alexandra Leitão, candidates for the Presidency of Lisbon’s City Hall include Carlos Moedas (PSD/CDS-PP/IL), João Ferreira (CDU-PCP/PEV), Bruno Mascarenhas (Chega), Ossanda Líber (Nova Direita), José Almeida (Volt), Adelaide Ferreira (ADN), Tomaz Ponce Dentinho (PPM/PTP), and Luís Mendes (RIR).
