Will Passos Coelho leave if he loses the municipal elections? Not yet
Passos Coelho has refused to make a direct connection between the results of the municipal elections and his leadership at PSD. The former prime-minister has postponed the issue to 2018.
“The Party is having elections in the beginning of 2018. By then, we will assess what is better for the future of the PSD” – this is Pedro Passos Coelho’s answer when confronted with an eventual defeat in the municipal elections and its consequences on his leadership, this Monday in Lisbon, during ECO Talks.
Passos Coelho made a point to underline that winning the municipal elections “is not required in order to win the general elections”. “Municipal and general elections are different things and people make completely different choices”, he argued. Anyhow, the leader of the largest opposition party dismisses, for now, the chance of an eventual defeat in the municipal elections being connected to his removal from the party’s leadership.
“I have always said I am not glued to the chairs I sit in, but I don’t take a seat not caring if I am there or anywhere else. I am not here to comply with the schedule; I am here because I have a project for the country. I will fight for what I think is important. As long as I believe I am in the position to do so, I will fight”, he promised.
And he left a note that seemed to aim towards his own party: “I have always had an eye for those of who exhaled conviction and confidence and from those looking for better conditions”.
Passos Coelho claimed the Portuguese Social Democratic Party has every means to win the municipal elections in Lisbon and pointed out that if the social-democrats won both in Lisbon and Oporto, “it would be extremely good”.
