After all, the PS, the Bloco and Livre love the PCP and the CDU! This is the conclusion I draw after hearing so many lamentations from the candidacy led by Alexandra Leitão, so much crying of “betrayed love” for João Ferreira having refused an electoral marriage proposal for the local authorities in Lisbon.
The basic political argument is this: if the CDU had allied itself with these left-wing parties, Carlos Moedas, the current president of the Chamber, who leads a right-wing coalition (without Chega, please note), would have been defeated… “Treason! Treason!”, they shout all the time.
I don’t understand…
How is it that this PS+Livre+Bloco alliance, which, if it had existed in previous municipalities, would have won the Lisbon City Council, is now afraid of losing to Carlos Moedas, who has shown, in four years, consistently and spectacularly, to be a bad mayor? How is so much insecurity justified?
Alexandra Leitão’s fear of losing the elections has nothing to do with the CDU. Alexandra Leitão’s problem lies in her inability to show that she can become a good mayor and, thus, win the vote of those who, in 2021, mistakenly voted for Carlos Moedas.
João Ferreira showed precisely the opposite: any non-sectarian mind must recognize that, in television and radio debates (which Leitão and Moedas, significantly, whenever they could, were lacking), the preparation, knowledge of the problems and the sensibility of the solutions proposed by João Ferreira are light years from what Leitão and Moedas demonstrated. He would clearly be a better mayor.
More: Alexandra Leitão did not want to break with the “misdeeds” to the city that, during this term, the PS councilors did or allowed Moedas to do. He also did not want to break with the serious mistakes of the previous PS administrations, Fernando Medina and António Costa. How could the CDU and the PCP, my party, align with this whitewashing?
Do you want to talk about municipal “betrayal” in Lisbon?
I remember when, in 2013, António Costa “betrayed” the CDU and negotiated with the PSD the redesign of Lisbon’s parishes, which went from 53 to 24, in order to electorally benefit the “centrão” and prevent the CDU from maintaining the presidency of five parish councils. And I remember how the PCP, my party, did not hesitate to “swallow the frog” and proposed, on the election night of October 4, 2015, a political agreement to prevent the right from governing the country again – the origin of the “contraption” that, in 2022, the same António Costa once again “betrayed”.
This left, which now loves the CDU so much, not long ago called the PCP activists “criminals”, because of their positions on the war in Ukraine or for having held the Festa do Avante! in the year of the pandemic. Do you think this helped?…
And this left, which is asking for a useful vote from the CDU in Lisbon, did not propose to unite with the communists and the Greens, for example, in Setúbal, to guarantee that candidates supported by the right do not win the chamber. Anyway…
Furthermore, it is different to govern the country and govern a local authority – as, in fact, the electorate has demonstrated for decades, voting differently in legislative and local government bodies.
Why, if voters conclude (as seems inevitable) that it is the CDU that has the best proposals for the city, wouldn’t the best vote in Lisbon be the vote for João Ferreira? Can anyone explain?
Journalist