The leader of the PS/Açores, Vasco Cordeiro, who was defeated in the last regional legislative elections, will not run again for the leadership of the party at the congress to be held from September 27 to 29, the leader announced.
“I’m not running again in the next election for president of the PS/Azores,” Vasco Cordeiro told reporters at the end of the meeting of the PS/Azores Regional Secretariat, held on Friday evening in Ponta Delgada.
The Socialist leader also clarified that he will not be the candidate nominated by the PS/Azores to be part of the party’s list for the European elections on June 9.
Vasco Cordeiro was tipped in several political circles as the natural candidate to join the PS/Azores list for the European elections.
The former PS/Azores leader is currently a member of the regional parliament and president of the Committee of the Regions.
Vasco Cordeiro said that André Rodrigues will be the PS/Azores candidate on the list for MEP, and safeguarded that, “what we have from the PS secretary-general is the guarantee that the party’s candidate will be eligible”.
André Rodrigues, the PS/Azores candidate for the party’s national list for the European elections, who was elected by 75% of the votes cast in the Regional Secretariat, said that “the challenge for now is to increase citizen participation rates”, and that he is setting out on a “great day of enlightenment”.
“I have tried to be a firm voice, an ambassador for the interests of the Azores in Brussels if the Azoreans place their trust, as I wish, in the PS project,” said the Socialist leader.
André Rodrigues is 47 years old, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Azores and vice-president of the PS parliamentary group. He was an advisor to Vasco Cordeiro during his two terms as president of the Government of the Azores.
He has a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, is a member of the PS/Azores Regional Secretariat and Coordinating Secretary of PS/São Miguel.
In the last European elections, the Azores were left without a representative in the European Parliament, with the PSD/Azores refusing an ineligible seat on the party’s national list. At the time, Mota Amaral, former president of the Assembly of the Republic and leader of the Azorean government for 19 years, was nominated.
In the case of the PS/Açores, its candidate, regional leader and MP André Bradford, died shortly after taking office as an MEP.
Traditionally, two MEPs from the Azores have represented the autonomous region in Strasbourg, with a few exceptions.
At the meeting of the Regional Secretariat, the next party congress was scheduled for São Miguel, to be held between September 27 and 29.