Nuno Ramos de Almeida, Cecília Meireles and Diogo Teixeira Pereira analyze and evaluate the performances of presidential candidates Catarina Martins and Luís Marques Mendes in this Friday’s debate.
Nuno Ramos de Almeida
“They reflected differences of opinion which are differences of opinion and the difference in votes I consider to be very short things. The first, Luís Marques Mendes insisted very much, that the irresponsibility of dissolving the Government of the contraption would be the responsibility of Catarina Martins and the PCP. I think it was, above all, the responsibility of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and António Costa. […] I think Marques Mendes is saying that he doesn’t take a position with powers that the President doesn’t have, but I think it’s important to know what the President’s political opinion is.”
Cecília Meireles
“I think it was a very balanced debate. There are two candidates who, despite being in very different positions, because clearly there is one who hopes to be first and Catarina Martins hopes, above all, to show her political strength. But, despite everything, the debate went in a very balanced way. I think Catarina Martins made attempts – they were good – to bring Marques Mendes to a more ideological, more partisan debate, more typical of a legislative debate than a presidential one, but they were attempts, despite everything, good and he managed to resist.”
Diogo Teixeira Pereira
“The debate was, in fact, a high debate, but Catarina Martins has a problem at the outset. It is that Catarina Martins is not coming to these elections to be President of the Republic. She is coming to these elections to bring the Left Bloc to these elections and to maintain the Bloc’s agenda in these elections. Although Catarina Martins tries to move a little away from the Left Bloc’s own agenda to get a little closer to the left, at a time when it is not clear who the great candidate from the left, but the truth is that what Marques Mendes did was glue Catarina Martins to this Left Bloc agenda.”
