“I cannot help but be optimistic when witnessing such a significant mobilization, when we have a candidate we are so proud of like Hélder Sousa, who deserves to be… I will rephrase: Porto deserves to have a councilor like Hélder Sousa,” expressed Rui Tavares during a campaign event for the municipal elections on the 12th in the center of Porto.
Accompanied by around twenty supporters, including candidate Hélder Sousa and the deputies to the Assembly of the Republic elected by Porto, Jorge Pinto and Filipa Pinto, Tavares praised the “attention to detail, the knowledge of the city, the willingness to respect the culture of the city” shown by the Livre leader.
Highlighting that Porto “has treated Livre well,” Tavares expressed absolute certainty that the people of Porto “will not let this opportunity pass.”
Around 48 hours earlier, also in Porto, the Prime Minister and PSD president, Luís Montenegro, emphasized the importance of increasing police visibility and regulating immigration, stating that the Government’s policies align with those of Pedro Duarte (a candidate supported by social democrats, CDS-PP, and IL) who has already proposed a “special plan to strengthen security” for the city.
Responding to these statements, Tavares considered it reflects “a very small idea of what Porto can be” and “a debate confined to somewhat petty terms.”
“What is needed is to understand in Porto, as in other cities in Portugal, that our wealth comes precisely from this dynamic, this tension between smallness and greatness: a country that is relatively small but has connections with the entire world,” he argued.
Moments before visiting the Stop shopping center in the heart of Porto, Rui Tavares crossed paths with a smaller delegation from Pedro Duarte at the entrance.
The two greeted each other and discovered that they had meetings scheduled at the same time with different entities in that building, recently classified as a monument of municipal interest.
For Livre, Stop exemplifies a proposal they wish to see replicated across the country: creation houses, artistic spaces aimed at energizing communities and promoting integration.
In a space housing hundreds of music artists, with numerous studios, Tavares could not resist playing the drums a bit but stopped there.
“The history of Porto’s music over the past decades is the history of Portuguese music over the last decades. Portuguese music wouldn’t be the same without GNR, Rui Veloso, Clã, Ornatos Violeta, Repórter Estrábico, and so many others who have been here,” he praised.
When questioned about why, unlike in Vila Nova de Gaia where Livre formed a coalition with the left in the morning, there is no such coalition in Porto, Tavares reiterated, “each case is different.”
“Here in Porto, we considered that to have all this ambition, to have this advanced program, to do things in Livre’s way, this candidacy had to be autonomous,” he emphasized.
