The PS is with him, but this PS is not in Parliament – Pedro Nuno’s game when choosing Hugo Mendes

Pedro Nuno Santos’s right -hand man at the TAP controversy is the surprise on the list of candidates for deputies. It is not a choice for nothing.

The statutes of PS define that it is the Secretary-General what Indicates a third of the total candidates for deputies to legislative elections; The rest is the responsibility of the federative political commissions of each electoral circle.

In the list of candidates for deputies of PS by Lisboa It will be Mariana Vieira da Silva. The former minister heads the list that has already been approved at a meeting of the PS’s Political Commission of the Urban Area (Faul) of the PS.

More downwards Hugo Mendes. Is the surprise From the list, as pointed out.

Hugo Mendes was a secretary of state when all the controversy was given around the compensation paid to the former administrator of TAP, .

In the background, it was at the time the Right arm of the then Minister Pedro Nuno Santoswhich now recovers it. The two have known each other for many years: Pedro Nuno was a deputy, Hugo Advisor to PS; Pedro Nuno was Secretary of State and Hugo Mendes his deputy.

Throughout the parliamentary commission of TAP inquiry, Hugo Mendes – which in the process – was one of the most heard names. He had told Director Christine Ourmière-Widener to first talk to him, and then talk to someone else in government; In a famous email that TAP agreed with a request from the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, for the government not to lose the political “ally”.

All that “soap opera” ended in both: first Pedro Nuno Santos, after Hugo Mendes.

The former Secretary of State was not well regarded in history – but did not give up Her: Almost a year later, called misaligned ducks do not fly – inside the most turbulent TAP trip. He did not write it alone: ​​the other co-author is Frederico Pinheiro, João Galamba’s deputy who became famous for the computer episode and the alleged in the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Even with all this context, Pedro Nuno Santos chose Hugo Mendes to be a deputy (or something more) in the next legislature – Hugo will be elected In the Electoral Circle of Lisbon, if the result of last year is repeated (it is in 14th place and the PS got 15 deputies in Lisbon).

Alexandra Leitão does not give much value To this choice: “There was already a commission that scrutinized everything that was to scrutinize. Everything is transparent. This transparency makes people have no decrease in their eligibility,” said on the radio.

The underline that this was a choice of a name that is next to the PS leader.

Pedro Nuno Santos even trusts Hugo Mendes. Commentator Raquel Abecasis adds a central reason for this choice: “Pedro Nuno Santos has the party with him; But the party with Pedro Nuno Santos is not represented in Parliament“.

“And this is his opportunity to put people who trust him and whom he trusts. Trust Hugo Mendes more than in those four or five deputies who are there in the front row From the parliamentary bench (Alexandra Leitão, Pedro Delgado Alves, Marina Gonçalves or Mariana Vieira da Silva, usually) and whom he supported – because he had, but he would not choose, ”Raquel explained on the radio.

The lists of deputies will be approved more as soon as Wednesday, the PS’s National Political Commission. But the known choices have created internal protests in the PS, the.