“We are going to have 15% and we are going to end bipartisanship in Portugal”, promises Rui Rocha – Portugal
The announcement of Rui Rocha’s victory came five hours late and at a time when no one took for granted the favoritism with which he had entered the race. In a divided and troubled convention, almost until the last it seemed uncertain which side the liberals would lean towards in choosing João Cotrim Figueiredo’s successor. In the final, Rui Rocha had 51.7% and Carla Castro 44.7%, José Cardoso was left with 4%.
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After two days of emotional exchanges between liberal factions, Rocha began, unsurprisingly, with a call for unity. “I summon all liberals without exception”, he said, after thanking “Carla Castro and José Cardoso for the civic courage” for participating in the dispute.
The room seemed tired of waiting for the results to be released – which were also delayed due to the intervention of a consultant hired to validate them. And it cannot be said that it has ever experienced a party or euphoria. Even Rocha’s greeting was a good few decibels below the greeting with which he began his first (and very enthusiastic) intervention on Saturday.
Rui Rocha, however, raised the bar. On the day that an Aximage poll for DN and TSF shows IL reaching 9.5% of voting intentions, the new leader proposes an ambitious goal, without fear of quantifying what he considers to be sufficient autonomy to make the relevant IL capable of changing Portuguese politics.
“The objective of this candidacy was to take the IL to a level of around 15% because it is the only level that allows us to actually influence Portuguese politics”, he declared, reaffirming his intention to break with the alternation between PS and PSD.
“Yes, yes, we are going there. We are going to have 15% and we are going to end bipartisanship in Portugal”, he insisted, explaining that the IL project is the only one that is not “statist and dirigiste”. All other parties (and that includes the PSD and Chega) suffer, they believe, from these machos.
“The only party that has the vision to bring Portugal to a different level is IL”, he guaranteed. This level includes a reform of the State and the fight against the country’s problems. In the diagnosis, there are the stagnant treatments, the health crisis, the education in degradation, the low birth rate and the bureaucracy.
For the solvers, Rui Rocha promises to present “very concrete measures to solve the concrete problems” of the country, but does not materialize. He says only that he will send his parliamentary group to design solutions for housing, transport, energy and the environment, areas in which he wants to “lead the opposition”.
The challenges to Luís Montenegro and a demonstration in February
Rocha says that IL is already leading the opposition in matters such as TAP. “We were the only ones with a clear position”, he stressed. And he believes that this leadership was even more evident with the motion of censure presented by IL.
“The PS Government is completely exhausted, it is politically dead and we were the ones who declared it with the censure motion that we presented”, he linked, taking the opportunity to address the PSD leader directly.
“I want to ask Luís Montenegro from here what else would need to happen to vote in favor of the IL’s motion of censure”, he launched.
But Rui Rocha did more: he assumed that the IL would lead the opposition to a constitutional revision that, by agreement between the PS and PSD, could restrict the freedoms of the Portuguese, namely authorizing confinements without the intervention of the Assembly of the Republic and declaration of a state of emergency.
With that in mind, he asked Montenegro: “Will you be on the side of freedom or on the side of those who want to take away the freedom of the Portuguese?”
In his case, he warned that IL will be on the streets to protest against this constitutional revision. And even announced – although without saying when – that it will organize a demonstration in February.
On Rui Rocha’s agenda is also a proposal to revise the electoral law, which the liberal bench should have ready by the end of the year, but in relation to which he did not give details about what he defends.
About the electoral system, Rocha said he just wants to end a method that in practice causes many votes to be granted, but he did not say exactly how he will do it. “It is absolutely unacceptable that 700,000 Portuguese votes are thrown away”, he defended.
With the overwhelming support of the IL parliamentary group, Rui Rocha will have no problem galvanizing the deputies. But the task of uniting the party may be more complicated. The Convention showed – in addition to the growth of a party that has not yet defined its internal organizational models well – that there are several internal factions, with mistrust among themselves. Uniting them will be the first mission of João Cotrim Figueiredo’s successor.
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