Moedas suffered a defeat shortly after taking office – and what was Passos doing back there?

Passos Coelho and Cavaco Silva heard the promise of a world capital of Social Justice, Innovation and Culture.

One Carlos Moedas in the front row, smiling, practically next to a Alexandra Leitão, less smiling.

This is how the two main candidates for Lisbon City Council appeared in the taking over Winner’s Coins.

The ceremony took place this Monday and the re-elected president highlighted that the people of Lisbon gave him “a clear electoral victory” on October 12th and reinforced confidence in his political and social project, stressing that his role is to govern the city “for the common good”.

The mayor assumed the ambition of making the city the world capital of Social Justice, Innovation and Culture. “Because we are not afraid of dreaming, we are just afraid that our dreams are too small. And it is this dream, which must be not only for Lisbon, but for our entire Metropolitan Area”, declared Carlos Moedas, in his speech at the inauguration ceremony, which took place at Gare Marítima de Alcântara.

Carlos Moedas assured that he is open to dialogue, to compromises with other parties: “Some, like me, will do it by governing. Others will do it by exercising opposition functions. This is the nature of democracy and also its richness. […] The worst thing we can do to democracy would be to impose our idiosyncrasies on it and this applies to those who govern as well as those in opposition. Whoever exercises government must govern, dialoguing and finding compromises. And those who exercise opposition must let them govern, monitoring the actions of those who govern.”

Considering that “there would be no functioning democracy without this stability”, Carlos Moedas said that he will have “openness to dialogue and commitment to fulfill the will of the people, not the wishes of parties”.

It will be difficult

But this opening will not be easy, he warned Alexandra Leitão.

“In principle, and without binding myself to anything, because we also have to talk, we have to see, but in principle I would say that It will be difficult for us to make budgets viable of this executive”, said the PS candidate, even before the ceremony.

Leading the socialist council in Lisbon’s municipal executive, Alexandra Leitão reinforced that the PS will be “a rigorous, very demanding, loyal opposition, as always”.

President of the Assembly is PS

And Coins already had the first defeat, immediately after taking office: the president of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly is from the PS.

The chosen one was André Moz Caldas (PS/Livre/BE/PAN) who obtained the votes of deputies from his coalition and the PCP – but also from someone on the right. There were 37 votes against 31; the PSD/CDS/IL coalition would have 32 votes from the start.

The vote is secret, of course, so it is not known whether it was representatives from Chega or from the PSD/CDS/IL coalition itself who preferred the name of the PS – or abstention, or a null vote – instead of Margaret Hand (PSD), who was Minister of Education for a month, in the famous short government of Passos Coelho before the “contraption” was signed.

Cavaco and Passos (back there)

Among several personalities, not only from politics, who were present at the inauguration, the following stood out: Aníbal Cavaco Silva and Pedro Passos Coelho.

But here there was a visual moment that stood out, in the television broadcast: Passos Coelho was there in the back, standingapparently far from the front row.

“It was interesting to know if Pedro Passos Coelho occupied the place assigned to him. I don’t think it was a matter of arriving late”, suggests commentator Miguel Santos Carrapatoso, on the radio.

In fact, as a rule, in these late situations, protocol dictates that an organizer indicates to the guest that there is a seat available up front. It didn’t happen, apparently.

A relationship between Carlos Moedas and Pedro Passos Coelho is not exactly the closest – although Moedas was Deputy Secretary of State for the then Prime Minister.

In the recent campaign for the local elections, Passos Coelho appeared alongside Marco Almeida (Sintra) or Suzana Garcia (Amadora). But he did not appear publicly to support Moedas; he limited himself to wishing him “good luck” from afar.