The leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Luís Montenegro, made a notable entrance on his second day in Faro at the Festa da Pinha. Arriving in a trailer pulled by a tractor, he was accompanied by Environment Minister and PSD head of the list for Faro, Maria Graça da Carvalho, as well as deputy Cristóvão Norte and former Mayor of Faro Macário Correia, among other party members.
The parade towards the festival location—a pine forest straddling the border between the municipalities of Faro and Loulé—included people on horseback, horse-drawn carts, and tractors. During the journey and upon arrival, some young attendees expressed their discontent with the political nature of the event.
When asked by journalists if he was already in the midst of an electoral campaign for the May 18 legislative elections, which officially begin on Sunday, Luís Montenegro commented that there is no official timeframe for engaging with voters.
“The campaign has already started, that’s what was missing. There is no official hour, regardless of what the law prescribes, for us to be in contact with the voters and to clarify them, and that is what we are also doing,” he stated.
Journalists also sought a comment from the PSD leader on a request by a deputy to the Parliamentary Committee on the Register of Interests to approach the Transparency Entity for a record of those who accessed data about the prime minister. However, Montenegro refrained from responding.
This request by social democrat Hugo Carneiro followed the disclosure of new details involving companies with which Spinumviva had dealt, subsequent to reports that the prime minister had filed an updated declaration with the Transparency Entity listing additional companies.
“We are here to experience a great journey of camaraderie and tradition of what is our culture, our way of being, and I am very pleased to be in direct contact with the people of the Algarve and feel what is, on one hand, the good part, the joyful part, the strongest part of what is the human and social component of a community, while at the same time looking at the part that requires public authorities’ intervention to solve the main problems,” said Luís Montenegro.
At the festival venue, the PSD president shared kisses and hugs, fulfilled requests for photographs, and conversed with some attendees, having lunch with his delegation without making further statements to the press.
The Festa da Pinha also saw the presence of several candidates for municipal elections from various councils, both from the PS and PSD. These included Hélder Martins (PSD) and Telmo Pinto (PS), candidates for the Loulé City Council, António Miguel Pina (PS), candidate in Faro, and Bruno Sousa Costa (PSD), candidate in São Brás de Alportel.
The Festa da Pinha, celebrated annually on May 2 and 3 in the village of Estoi in the Faro municipality, is a tradition that reenacts journeys once made by “almocreves”—individuals who transported goods with pack animals between the Algarve and the Alentejo.
During the event, a procession featuring animal-drawn carts and tractors adorned with palms and flowers, as well as people on horseback in traditional attire, covers an 18-kilometer route from the village to a part of Ludo located in the Almancil parish (Loulé) near the Faro border.
By the day’s end, the procession returns to Estoi, repeating the festival’s motto, “Viva a pinha,” and is received in front of the main church. The celebration concludes with a parade to Ermida do Pé da Cruz, where torches and rosemary are cast into a fire in honor of the patron saint.
