“It is, without a doubt, the only leftist tendency I have. I was born left-handed, I am left-handed, and that’s where it ends,” smiled Mariana Leitão, moments after painting a tile with her left hand at the studio of painter Bráulio Figo, in the parish of Pereira, during the municipal election campaign for October 12.
“I see you’re left-handed like my daughter, it’s more difficult that way,” warned Bráulio Figo, as he gave the IL leader instructions on tracing the design and painting the tile.
“Left-handed people aren’t very skillful,” the artist remarked, an opinion the politician did not dispute. “For me, it’s certainly easier to give speeches than to paint,” she acknowledged.
However, painting the tile is “relaxing,” commented Mariana Leitão, under the watchful eye of Bráulio Figo.
In the end, addressing the journalists after advocating for IL’s list for the Montemor-o-Velho Municipal Assembly, Mariana Leitão reiterated that she does not view politics with a “left-handed perspective” and only uses her left hand “to write and use a spoon.”
Politically, she is even more radical in her rejection: the “left has a completely statist, state-dependent, collectivist view of society,” while “we have the opposite vision.”
“We trust the individual, we believe in people, we think people shouldn’t have the state as a parent looking over them every minute,” but they have the right “to be free, to be able to fulfill their dreams and follow their own path without those restraints and restrictions,” she added.
She continued her criticism: “We don’t want the state interfering everywhere” and “constantly dictating how people should live,” but rather “responding to essential issues and stepping out of people’s way elsewhere.”
Speaking to journalists, the IL leader argued for the importance of Municipal Assemblies and their role in overseeing the work of municipal executives, recalling that her first elected position was as a municipal deputy in Oeiras, in opposition to Isaltino Morais.
Next to Bráulio Figo and at the end of the statements, he promised the politician he would bake and deliver the tile that Mariana Leitão promised to display in her home.
