The plenary session has been confirmed and will appoint a new leader and candidates for the National Board and Political Committee.
This gathering is set to occur approximately a week after Mariana Mortágua announced in a letter to BE members her decision not to run for the party leadership again, citing the leadership’s inability to “generate new political and electoral momentum.”
The meeting is to be held in Coimbra, where potential leadership candidate José Manuel Pureza was born. It had been scheduled there, centrally located in Portugal, before Mortágua’s announcement, according to sources close to motion A.
On Saturday, in a statement, José Manuel Pureza expressed confidence in finding a solution that would “strengthen” the party at the upcoming convention, though he advised against acting prematurely.
Proponents of this motion include several core party leaders such as Fabian Figueiredo, Jorge Costa, Joana Mortágua, Marisa Matias, Catarina Martins, Adriano Campos, and Pedro Filipe Soares.
Names like José Manuel Pureza, and founders Francisco Louçã, Luís Fazenda, and Fernando Rosas are also among the signatories.
Motion A, titled “Resist to Change the Game,” gathers around six hundred signatories, the most among the five existing motions, which criticize internal democracy and call for greater grassroots involvement.
The 14th BE National Convention is scheduled for November 29 and 30 in Lisbon, where orientation motions and lists for the party’s National Board will be voted on. This board is composed of members from the various presented lists, proportional to the votes received.
The leader of the most voted list typically assumes the coordinator position, a role that is not formally recognized in the party’s statutes.
BE is navigating a challenging period in its history after achieving its poorest result in legislative elections this May, reducing its representation from five to one deputy, and losing local election representation, dropping from five councilors and 94 municipal representatives to one councilor in Lisbon and 17 municipal and parish deputies.
