The diplomat and former socialist MEP Ana Gomes confirmed today to the Lusa agency that she will be a candidate for President of the Republic and that her candidacy will be publicly presented on Thursday.
This news about Ana Gomes’ presidential candidacy was advanced by the newspaper Público, to whom the former socialist leader declared: “I will be a candidate”.
Ana Gomes, quoted by Público, referred the explanation of the reasons inherent to her candidacy for the 2021 presidential elections to Thursday’s session.
On Sunday, in the comment space she has at SIC Notícias, Ana Gomes said that by the end of this week she would decide on her candidacy for President of the Republic, saying she was then in the final phase of her reflection.
The former socialist MEP put her first chance to enter the race to Belém on May 17 at SIC Notícias, saying she would reflect on this step, although she did not aspire to be a candidate.
According to Ana Gomes, what had happened days before between the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Prime Minister, António Costa, at the Volkswagen Autoeuropa factory in Palmela, had changed “a lot”.
On that visit, António Costa expressed the expectation of returning to that factory with the current President of the Republic, already in a second term, taking for granted his re-election and re-election of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
In the opinion of Ana Gomes, this episode was “absolutely regrettable, really depressing” and “dangerous for democracy”, and it should provoke “a reflection” on her part and that of all Democrats, because “in fact, much has changed”.
Asked if she admits to changing her mind and running for President of the Republic in the 2021 elections, the former MEP replied: “I admit to reflecting, that’s what I’m going to do”.
As a socialist activist, Ana Gomes criticized António Costa for taking a position on the presidential ones when “he was not even as a party leader, but as prime minister” and noted that “democracy is not suspended”, but “it seems that some think is suspended in the PS ”.
Within the PS, Ana Gomes’ candidacy has already received the support of former parliamentary leader and former socialist MEP Francisco Assis, and the leader of the minority tendency within the PS Political Commission, Daniel Adrião.
In a recent interview with the newspaper “Expresso”, the Prime Minister considered that if Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa did not run for President of the Republic “there was a serious problem in the country as a whole”, which, in his opinion, is sure to run for a second term of the current head of state.
In the same interview, he said that, for exercising the functions of Prime Minister, he will adopt an attitude of “modesty” in the next presidential elections.
Regarding how the PS will manage the process of the next presidential elections, the Socialist Secretary-General said that there will be a time when his party’s bodies will comment on this matter.
“As I am also Prime Minister, be the person who least interferes in this debate, because I will have to have an institutional relationship with the next President. I will not interfere much in this election campaign ”, he warned.
From the perspective of António Costa, a prime minister in office, during a presidential election period, “must remain modest”.
