“Today I submitted exactly 9,490 signatures to the Constitutional Court, with voter certificates attached. What drives me to this candidacy is the poverty of many Portuguese people; that is the main reason, and my primary proposal is about housing, specifically Article 65 of the Constitution, because the biggest problem for the Portuguese people is housing,” stated Humberto Correia, speaking via phone.
Running without any support, Humberto Correia claimed to have collected the necessary signatures for submission to the court over four months by himself, sending more than 3,000 letters across the country, including Madeira and the Azores.
For his campaign actions leading up to the January 18 elections, Humberto Correia plans to start distributing his pamphlets on the streets from the 20th of this month, dressed as Dom Afonso Henriques.
The campaign will begin in Viana do Castelo, followed by Guimarães, Braga, Vila Real, Bragança, and the plan is to move down to the Algarve, much like Dom Afonso Henriques in the conquest of Portugal.
The main theme of his candidacy will be the housing crisis, which he considers “the greatest problem of the Portuguese people,” asserting that the President of the Republic should “use the influence of the magistracy” to pressure the government to resolve it.
“The State must build social housing and rent it at affordable prices because people, even while working, cannot afford a house rent,” emphasized the candidate.
Humberto Correia believes, “it’s necessary to build smaller to be cheaper,” arguing that a young person living alone “only needs 30 square meters and would only pay a monthly rent of 90 euros.” “It’s a way to keep them here,” he stressed.
Humberto Correia was born in 1961 in Olhão, Faro district, where he resides. He is a father of two, having emigrated to France, where he worked for about 10 years in various factories and 15 years in construction.
He returned to Portugal in 2003 and dedicated himself to painting on the streets in Faro’s downtown for 20 years.
In 2017, he was a candidate for the Faro City Council and is also the author of the book “The Fleas of My Childhood,” about a boy growing up within a poor family in Portuguese society during the 1960s and 1970s.
