Passos Coelho guarantees that he wants to stay out of politics

“I am outside party and political activity and, therefore, I intend to remain so,” said the former prime minister this Wednesday — despite not having directly given a ‘no’ when asked about a candidacy for Belém.

At a time when his name is mentioned as a potential candidate for the Presidency of the Republic — he appears in second place, behind Admiral Gouveia e Melo, in the preferences of the Portuguese in the most recent Intercampus survey — the former prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho This Wednesday, he assured that he was — and wanted to continue being — out of party and political activity.

“I am outside party and political activity and, therefore, I intend to remain so”, said Passos Coelho at the entrance to the FEP Global Summit – Student Summit on Geopolitics in Portugal, in Porto.

Despite the statements and insistence of journalists, the former president of the PSD never directly rejected the candidacy for Belémto which he has been pointed out for years: he just said that that was all he wanted to say at this point.

And he added: “I don’t want to make political statements, if I wanted to, obviously.”

Passos Coelho has already been named as a favorite in polls in the race to Belém. In 2023, he appeared among the potential candidates to succeed Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Still no candidates, race is already heating up

Although the presidential elections are only scheduled for January 2026, several names of possible candidates have already been mentioned in addition to Passos, including Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, Luís Marques Mendes, Augusto Santos Silva, António José Seguro or Mário Centeno.

However, no one has yet made their candidacy for President of the Republic official.

In the Intercampus survey for Jornal de Negócios and Correio da Manhã, published on Monday, the admiral to run for President of the Republic, being almost 10 points ahead of Passos Coelho, who is, however, ahead of Marques Mendes.

The biggest loser in the poll was Pedro Santana Lopesa name also mentioned several times in the succession of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa: it is the 12th preference of those interviewed out of a total of 13 options, ahead only of communist leader Paulo Raimundo.