The weekend brought significant changes for the Left Bloc (BE) as it elected not only the successor to Mariana Mortágua but also 19 new party leaders during its National Commission.
The primary victor of the BE’s 14th convention was Motion A, led by José Manuel Pureza. With 62% (372 votes), it was the most voted motion, thus electing the former deputy as the new coordinator of BE.
With the new elections, the party’s National Table now has 27 members (six more than the previous term), with 19 new presences and eight holdovers.
Maintained in the body are known leaders like Isabel Pires (nominated for party organization secretary), former parliamentary leader Fabian Figueiredo (expected to take over Mariana Mortágua’s parliamentary seat in 2026), presidential candidate Catarina Martins, Joana Mortágua, and former MEP Marisa Matias.
Among the new entries, noteworthy are new coordinator José Manuel Pureza—who was not part of this body—and bloc members like former MEP Anabela Rodrigues, former national parliamentarian Maria Manuel Rola, and former advisor João Curvelo.
New coordinator advocates for building bridges within the Left
In his final speech, at the end of the convention on Sunday, the new BE coordinator emphasized a “Left of bridges,” committed to dialogue and pledging “all necessary dialogues for the Left to regain initiative and strength in Portugal”.
“We want a Left of bridges, that knows how to dialogue, finds convergences, never forgets priorities, and looks to the future, where every worker feels an integral part. What I say to the country is this: here is a Left of confidence, that does not give up on the fight for wages, housing, hospitals, climate, and the rights that define us as a community. We are your force for equality and freedom”, José Manuel Pureza stated.
The bloc leader highlighted that in two days of the convention, the party members he now coordinates analyzed “the path of the last two years” under Mariana Mortágua’s leadership, “the defeat” she experienced, and what lessons they must learn from it.
“And after this assessment, I want to say something essential: on behalf of the Bloc, I apologize to our people because the Left has not yet managed to overcome the extreme right that is strangling the country. But I assure you that the Left Bloc will fight with all its energy”, he assured.
Despite Mortágua’s “defeat”, Pureza also expressed gratitude to his predecessor—who supports the new coordinator—praising her visit to Gaza and describing it as a “pride”.
Mortágua speaks of mistakes that were “probably not decisive”
Mariana Mortágua, stepping down from the party leadership after two years as its central figure, also addressed the convention at its start on Saturday.
The then coordinator admitted mistakes during her term, but considered that “very likely they were not decisive for something much bigger than us” which is “the powerful advance of the Right and its ideas”.
“If you ask me whether my leadership and my mandate were capable of countering this advance of the far-right, no, it was not”, she acknowledged, adding that “the Bloc needs change”.
The former coordinator also said in farewell: “This is the last time I address you in the role of coordinator of this party and I start by telling you that taking on this responsibility with you was the pride of my life”.
New leadership aims to combat the labor package and political issues
Among the speeches from the new party leaders, Isabel Pires’s was particularly applauded by the bloc members. The new secretary for organization identified the “immediate task” of the party as “defeating the labor package” and called for “everyone to the general strike”.
“Defeating the labor package is the immediate task emerging from the convention. We will work for street mobilization (…) We will make the cost of the wage theft too high. On December 11 we will stop the country, and until then, all to the general strike”, she emphasized.
Meanwhile, former parliamentary leader Fabian Figueiredo vowed to combat the “path politics in Portugal has taken”, asserting that the party will “hold its head high”, recognize its mistakes, and “elevate politics in Portugal”.
“In this convention, we recognize what we need to do better, what we did wrong, but we’ll hold our head high. We will leave this convention to elevate politics in Portugal, to build unity in the general strike, to ensure that in Portugal what matters is debated, wages, housing, schools, so the Left gains the streets, voice, consciousness, and the hearts of the Portuguese”, stated the man who will replace Mariana Mortágua in the Assembly next month.
Catarina Martins defended utopias
Meanwhile, presidential candidate Catarina Martins, who remains in the party leadership, defended utopias against “those who profit from the system of maximum exploitation” and urged the Left to listen and “join forces” against “exploitation and indecency”.
The candidate for January’s presidential elections, who energized the second day of the convention and was met with a standing ovation, criticized those who want to convince “that if someone stumbles next to us, let them fall and step over” and stated that “maximum profit crushes many lives.”
She concluded: “To the Left, our power is knowing that when we lend a hand to protect from a fall someone who stumbles next to us, or when we are stumbling and someone reaches out to us and supports us, at that moment when we hold hands, we raise our eyes from the ground and look into each other’s eyes. And there is hope because there is empathy, solidarity”.
