The PSD National Council approved this Wednesday (8), with one abstention, the holding of meetings to choose the party president on May 30th and Congress on June 20th and 21st, at the Sangalhos Velodrome, in Anadia (Aveiro).
According to the approved regulations, candidacies for president of the PSD must be submitted by May 18th and all active members, that is, those who have paid a quota in the last two years, can vote in direct elections.
As stipulated in the party’s most recent statutes, it is no longer mandatory to have the quota up to date to elect the party president, it is only necessary to be an active member (have a quota paid in the last two years), and the electoral roll has already been closed on March 30th.
The regulations also provide for the possibility of holding a pre-congress convention if there is more than one candidate for direct elections, another statutory change ratified at the last main meeting.
Candidates for party leadership must be presented by May 18, be signed by a minimum of 1,500 members with electoral capacity, and be accompanied by a global strategy proposal, as well as a campaign budget.
“If more than one candidacy is presented for the presidency of the party, there will be a National Convention, to be held on May 23, 2026, at 3 pm, in Lisbon, in a location to be designated for that purpose”, says the regulation.
Thematic proposals must be submitted by June 15th and can be signed by the PSD leadership, the Social Democratic Youth, the Social Democratic Mayors, the secretariat of the Social Democratic Workers, the PSD delegation to the European Parliament, the Regional Political Commissions, the District Assemblies, five Sections of the Portuguese Communities or 1500 activists.
At the last National Council, held on March 4, the president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, announced that he would propose holding elections in May, in order to coincide with the four years of his first election, on May 28, 2022.
On the occasion, Montenegro recalled the date on which he was elected president of the PSD for the first time and expressed the desire that direct elections could return to this calendar, after having slipped to after the summer in 2024 due to the European elections.
The social democratic leader then challenged anyone who had a “different and alternative path” to come forward, in what was interpreted as a response to former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, at a time when he made a series of critical interventions against the government.
Two days later, Passos Coelho repeated that he was not a “candidate for anything at all”, saying that, if he ever became one, it would only be due to an “imperative of conscience”.
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