Pedro Santana Lopes will run as an independent candidate leading a coalition of PSD/CDS-PP, contrary to the announcement in February by the movement Figueira a Primeira (FAP). This was confirmed by the municipal political committee of CDS in a press release detailing the formalized agreement between the two political forces.
The agreement between CDS-PP and PSD stipulates that both parties will run jointly in the 2025 local elections, presenting unified lists for the Municipal Council, Municipal Assembly, and all parish assemblies in the Figueira da Foz municipality, with Pedro Santana Lopes as the candidate for municipal leadership, according to a press release sent to the Lusa agency.
This agreement received approval from the National Council of CDS-PP on July 21, after the National Political Commission of PSD endorsed in February the former prime minister’s re-election bid for the Figueira da Foz Municipal Council.
The CDS-PP states that the coalition will be named Figueira a Primeira, the same designation under which Pedro Santana Lopes won the Figueira da Foz municipality in 2021.
Legislation prohibits independent movements from joining political party coalitions in local elections.
Pedro Santana Lopes, when questioned by Lusa, mentioned that the composition of the lists is not yet finalized but confirmed that he would have “full freedom” to assemble the team contesting for the Municipal Council.
“There could be elements from all parties, but there doesn’t have to be. In the Council, there is no condition,” he clarified.
When asked why he chose to lead a coalition instead of running again under the Figueira a Primeira movement, Pedro Santana Lopes stated that this would be clarified when his re-election bid is announced.
This marks the first time Pedro Santana Lopes will run with PSD since leaving the party in 2018, after having led it from 2004 to 2005, during which time he also served as prime minister.
The former prime minister has been governing the Figueira da Foz municipality since 2021, his second term after initially serving as the Municipal President two decades prior, from 1997 to 2001.
In the recent local elections, he was elected as an independent without an absolute majority, securing 40.39% of the votes and four mandates, the same as the PS (38.39%), which previously headed the municipality in the Coimbra district.
Given the executive’s composition (nine councilors), Pedro Santana Lopes made an agreement with the then-local PSD leader, Ricardo Silva, the sole social-democratic councilor elected in the Figueira da Foz Municipal Council, to ensure an executive majority from June 2023 onward.
At that time, PSD received 10.83% of the votes, while CDS-PP was the least voted force in the municipality, with 1.16%.
