Jorge Pinto advances to the race for Belém and says he is “present” after “a lot of reflection and excluding the possibility of the existence of a single and unifying candidacy on the left”, arguing that “the political space of the ecological, progressive, European, regionalist and libertarian left cannot be left without representation.”
The decision, which places Livre in the Presidential elections, as Rui Tavares, to DN said was the intention, will have one of the founders of the party and, therefore, will be a consensual choice among militants, who had raised the possibility of an Assembly to define the direction.
Without Isabel Mendes Lopes or Rui Tavares wanting to take on the task, Jorge Pinto, the first deputy elected in the Porto constituency, is considered, say sources close to Livre, one of the great thinkers of the structure.
Jorge Pinto asks Livre activists for their support after the left-wing solution failed and the PS supported António José Seguro, a candidate who does not please the Livre electorate due to his neutral positions in several aspects. Namely, in the willingness to accept minority governments with the most votes, without seeking alliances between those with the least votes. Assuming the positioning strategy, in view of the six deputies in the last Legislatures, who rejected possible support for António Filipe and Catarina Martins, coming from PCP and Bloco de Esquerda, the internal challenge was accepted.
One of the central points of the differentiating speech, DN knows, will be the Europeanist position, which hears more criticism from both the PCP and the Left Bloc.
Jorge Pinto is part of the current leadership, known as the party’s Contact Group, and was part of its foundation. At 38 years old, he is from Amarante, a district of Porto and that is where he also intends to captivate the electorate. Seguro has not been convincing in urban areas and Catarina Martins, from Porto, would be an asset for many inhabitants, but also for the Bloc in winning over this electorate, since the party has been losing strength, for example, in metropolitan areas. Jorge Pinto will enter into a direct fight for these votes in this regard.
Graduated in Environmental Engineering, the deputy elected in 2024 and 2025 also has a doctorate in Social and Political Philosophy, with a thesis on “republicanism, ecology and post-productivism”. He has written several books, including the work “Unconditional Basic Income – A Defense of Freedom”, published in 2019, and “The Freedom of Futures”, where he develops the thesis of “how a policy based on the promotion of autonomy can contribute to a fairer society on a sustainable planet”.
Despite his public positions in Parliament, it can be said that he is one of the most anonymous names in the race for Belém. Now, he will have his own space, less in the shadow of the contribution he makes to the parliamentary group and the entire Free Party organization.
With this name, the 2026 Presidential Elections will reach a record number of candidacies, in the ten of 2016. Seguro has the support of the PS, Marques Mendes of the PSD, André Ventura of Chega. Gouveia e Melo remains without support in Parliament. Livre now joins Bloco (Catarina Martins), PCP (António Filipe), Liberal Initiative (Cotrim de Figueiredo), ADN (Joana Amaral Dias) and Volt (Manuela Magno).
The PAN met on Tuesday, but no final decision was made. The CDS-PP schedules a meeting for this Wednesday and admits its own candidacy, as does the JPP. There are also more than a dozen people from civil society registered on the Candidacy Portal.