The leader of the Liberal Initiative, Mariana Leitão, announced this Friday (7 November) the withdrawal of political confidence from the councilor elected by the party in Sintra.
At issue is the fact that the president, Marco Almeida (from the PSD, was even present at the liberals’ municipal meeting), included Chega’s elected officials in the municipal executive, thus enabling governance in a minority scenario.
This opened an internal war in IL, since, it is now known, “on October 21, the Executive Committee of the Liberal Initiative decided in a meeting not to accept the integration of Chega councilors into the municipal executives where it is integrated into the governance in coalition with the PSD“. The note sent this Friday morning states that “this position was approved with just one vote against and no abstentions”.
Even so, Mariana Leitão states that the elected councilor, Eunice Baeta, informed her of the “decision to integrate an executive under these conditions”, which goes against the “decision taken by the IL Executive Committee”.
Therefore – and noting that the decision is “a prerogative that belongs to the elected councilors, since the mandate they exercise is personal” -, the IL leader took the decision to “withdraw political confidence from Eunice Baeta, ceasing her mandate to be exercised” as the party’s representative.
But the consequences go further. In the note, Mariana Leitão states that taking into account this decision, Eunice Baeta was asked to “present her resignation as member of the Executive Committee”considering that “the conditions of political trust are not met to continue exercising it”. The councilor elected by IL accepted this request.
Still according to the president of IL, the party “always said that it would never join any government with Chega”. The party “does not share or tolerate the populism, authoritarianism or hatred that Chega amplifies and represents”. Therefore, “there is no possible compromise between those who defend individual freedom, responsibility and the rule of law with those who live off division, demagoguery and attacks on democratic institutions.”