In an interview published today by Rádio Renascença, the PAR stated that they are “very institutionalized, as is known,” unable “to shed” their “role,” (…) which is “very demanding,” and regarding the Presidential elections, considered it necessary “to maintain this reservation.”
“In the position I am in, as PAR, I must maintain a certain discretion regarding my choice, especially being three months away,” they said, adding that they think “there might be too many candidates,” but that, “in any case, they well reflect the various sensibilities that exist in society.”
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco classified the communist António Filipe, the bloquist Catarina Martins, and Livre’s Jorge Pinto as “Left-wing candidates.”
The previous day, in an interview with RTP, former PS Secretary-General and also presidential candidate, António José Seguro, corrected earlier statements made to the newspaper Público, saying that the Portuguese “know” his “origins” and “values,” admitting not having been at his “best moments.”
“I belong to that moderate Left, that modern Left, which asserts itself with concrete solutions to people’s problems,” he clarified, noting that “there is not only one left.”
“From what I have been hearing, the candidates have been very careful to show that they are a plural expression both on the left and the right. This is what I have heard from Marques Mendes, António José Seguro, Gouveia e Melo, Cotrim de Figueiredo. They want to give — rightfully so — a cross-partisan and suprapartisan expression to their candidacies,” they stated.
The PAR preferred to obtain more “elements that allow for any conclusion.”
“Let’s see who the elected candidate is, and then I will be here, as PAR, to articulate with the next President [of the Republic] to possibly answer your question,” they said when asked if they feared that the next presidential cycle might contain “temptation to pull executive powers to the Palácio de Belém.”
