The leader of the Viver Lisboa coalition, Alexandra Leitão, ended the ruckus with which she ended the campaign for the local elections this Sunday, October 12, appealing to voters inclined to abstain not to contribute so that they wake up the following Monday with city governance “that is more of the same or even worse”.
In this sense, despite not having directly appealed to the useful vote of the communist electorate, in her final speech, given on a platform at the entrance to Rossio, from where she could see Rua do Carmo filled with around two thousand supporters, Alexandra Leitão insisted on an attack on one of the three parties that make up the Por Ti, Lisboa coalition, which seeks to re-elect Carlos Moedas for a second term as head of the Lisbon City Council. “We cannot agree, on the 13th, to a government with the Liberal Initiative, which wants to send away workers, which wants to privatize public transport, which wants to negotiate speculatively to take even more housing out of the city. Lisbon does not deserve this, the people of Lisbon do not deserve it”, said the candidate.
Often accused by Carlos Moedas of allying himself with the “most radical extreme left”, the head of the Viver Lisboa list was joined by all the leaders of the parties that support her in the street, which went down from Largo do Chiado to the entrance of Rossio. With the secretary general of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, and the president of the party, Carlos César, notably in the front row, but with the co-spokespeople of Livre, Rui Tavares and Isabel Mendes Lopes, and the PAN counterpart, Inês de Sousa Real, almost always closer to them than the coordinator of the Bloco de Esquerda, Mariana Mortágua.
The possibility that the presence of the Bloco de Esquerda in the coalition could harm the chances of victory in Lisbon ended up being implicitly addressed by the head of the Viver Lisboa list. “We need everyone’s votes”, she said to those who came to support her, but especially to those who watched through the media, addressing those “who think it is better to stay at home because they don’t like this or that one”.
Much applauded by around two thousand supporters, Alexandra Leitão would finish her short speech, which was the only one at the end, on the initiative of party leaders, with a feminist register. “Women of Lisbon, a woman in the presidency! Could it be?”, he asked, receiving loud signals that those present welcomed the replacement of Moedas by someone who promises to take care of the city “like taking care of a house or taking care of a family”.
At the beginning of the street, to the sound of music worthy of Emir Kusturica’s films and slogans such as “Lisbon will vote, and Alexandra will win”, the candidate assured that she felt “great confidence” regarding the prospects of victory. Something that would mean the resumption of the cycle of socialist governance in the capital, by António Costa and Fernando Medina, surprisingly broken in 2021, with the victory of former European Commissioner Carlos Moedas, whose Novos Tempos coalition brought together PSD, CDS, PPM, MPT and Aliança.
The socialist André Caldas, head of the Viver Lisboa list for the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, also participated in the campaign action; the parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho; the former president of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, Helena Roseta; and the founder of Bloco de Esquerda, Francisco Louçã.