“For the right to claim victory in a district where it holds seven out of ten deputies, it is natural. We are here to tell the story differently, that is, to say that it is possible in this district to re-elect deputies from the Left Bloc, as has happened three times before,” stated Fernando Rosas to journalists in Marinha Grande, Leiria.
The historic founder of the Left Bloc (BE), who last served as a deputy over a decade ago in 2010, remarked that he “never abandoned the fight” but decided to return to the party lists in these early elections as the lead candidate in Leiria due to what he perceives as a “democratic alarm situation in the country and around the world.”
Moments before speaking to the journalists, Fernando Rosas had acknowledged the challenge he faces during a conversation with shift workers from the glass industry, whose struggles he aims to represent in the Assembly of the Republic.
“We are fighting. Some will say it is an uphill battle, difficult, in a district where the left must engage in tough fighting, but well, that is our destiny,” argued the historian.
Rosas wishes for many problems faced by Portuguese workers to be debated in parliament, something he believes is not currently happening.
Asked if he has the energy for the electoral campaign, Fernando Rosas replied with a question: “What do you think?”
“Fighting, swimming against the current, has always been the purpose of my life and that of the Bloc when it was created, that’s why we’re here,” added the Left Bloc member, who, in 1972 during Salazar’s dictatorship, was one of the political prisoners kept for about a year in the Fortress of Peniche.
In addition to Fernando Rosas, the Left Bloc’s campaign for these elections also features the candidacies of two more party founders: Francisco Louçã, for Braga, and Luís Fazenda, who leads the list in Aveiro.
The Left Bloc has not elected in Leiria since 2022, at which time it lost parliamentary representation in this district, initially won in 2009 and again in 2015 and 2019.
