The second vote took place Thursday night, strengthening the initial position of the candidate, as in the February procedure, Luís Canelas received only 18 votes in favor compared to the 12 for competitor Nuno Almeida. This, combined with two null votes and four abstentions, resulted in what the district jurisdiction considered a technical tie. This time he secured 22 votes, with only two blank ballots.
“Support for my candidacy was clearly strengthened, with 91.6% favorable voting, legitimizing the continuation of a firm, ambitious, and deeply committed project to the future of the Espinho municipality,” Luís Canelas told Lusa today.
When the district jurisdiction annulled the initial vote in May, claiming that the procedure held in February did not collect the minimum 50% of present votes as required by the party’s statutes, Canelas appealed, and the matter also proceeded to the national PS counterpart.
His argument at the time was that the February vote was technically a “designation of candidate for political office” under Article 67 of the PS Statutes and “not an internal election—a distinction explicitly provided for in the party’s own statutes and Internal Electoral Regulation.”
Since a month after the annulment, both the district and national jurisdictions continued without issuing a definitive opinion on the matter, Luís Canelas decided to reconvene the Espinho municipal commission for this Thursday to repeat the vote.
“I made the decision to unblock the existing political impasse following the lack of response from the Aveiro District Jurisdiction Commission and the National Jurisdiction Commission regarding the appeal filed by the Municipal Political Commission on May 20, 2025, a situation that created an unwarranted halt to the local political dynamics,” he explains.
Luís Canelas now proposes, as head of the list, to “resume a planned, coordinated, and oriented path towards the interests of Espinho and its inhabitants.”
Alongside this candidacy, there are three other announced heads of the list for Espinho City Hall: Ricardo Sousa, who, although indicated as the choice of the local PSD, faces a similar situation to Luís Canelas due to disagreements between the municipality and the national structure of the party; Pilar Gomes, from CDU; and Maria Manuel Cruz, who, being the current mayor on a PS list, will run as an independent.
From January 2023 to February 2025, Luís Canelas was vice-president on the team of Maria Manuel Cruz, who rose to the executive’s first position following the resignation of Miguel Reis in the context of the Vórtex criminal investigation. However, the mayor withdrew political confidence in Canelas and disconnected from PS herself after being informed that the national structure of the party chose him as head of the list.
