“Vota Seguro”: PS activists are free, but Carneiro left some messages (and called for withdrawals)

José Luís Carneiro even asked three presidential candidates to withdraw. António José Seguro does not want Ventura in the second round.

The presidential candidate António José Seguro He expressed confidence that he will go to the second round, at a lunch with supporters in which he said he was blessed, and warned of the risk of “reinforcement of a totalitarian tendency” in these elections.

“It is clear that together we will be able to be in the second round. We will be able to be in the second round because it is unthinkable, it would be a nightmare for the country if there were a second round contested only in a political field”, he emphasized.

Seguro was speaking at a lunch that brought together two hundred supporters of his candidacy for Belém in Lisbon, with several figures from the PS, including the honorary president Manuel Alegre, the parliamentary leader, Eurico Brilhante Dias, the former ministers Fernando Medina, Alexandra Leitão, Duarte Cordeiro and Adalberto Campos Fernandes, among others.

For Insurance, after this Thursday “nothing will be the same as before”.

From the perspective of the former PS leader, “voters of the left, do center and even some of right perceive the importance of balance in the Government system” of Portugal having someone with his characteristics and convictions as President of the Republic.

“But unlike other opponents who are also likely, according to polls, to go through to the second round, I don’t want to have André Ventura in the second round. I really want to beat him in the first lap”these.

Vote safe

PS activists are free to choose their presidential candidate. But, also this Thursday, the leader of the socialists made a clear appeal: vote for Insurance.

José Luís Carneiro he said that Seguro is the only name with a chance of taking the left to the second round, stressing that the “pulverization only benefits the right and the extreme right”.

At the Christmas dinner of the PS parliamentary group, in the Assembly of the Republic, José Luís Carneiro recalled, in his speech, that there is currently a “structural imbalance to the right” verifiable in the national parliament and in the autonomous regions and in local government, warning that, to reverse this trend, commitment is needed to take António José Seguro, “the candidacy that represents the values ​​of the PS”, to the second round of the presidential elections.

While reinforcing that “There is only one application [à esquerda] who has the conditions to go to the second round”, Carneiro ended up asking António Filipe (PCP), Catarina Martins (BE) and Jorge Pinto (Livre) to give up of the race to Belém.

“I leave an appeal to all other applications naturally legitimate and which deserve all our respect, but, objectively, the dispersion of votes to the left only benefits the right and the extreme right in these elections”, he considered, without implementing the appeal.

Carneiro was speaking to an audience made up of some PS deputies who .

José Luís Carneiro also asked the socialists to get involved and commit to supporting Seguro to allow the candidate supported by the PS to reach the second round.

“That’s why I want to ask you to commit from now until January 18th, actively in each of your territories, as we did in the local elections, with the same energy, with the same commitment, with the same strength, with the same determination, because only the values ​​of democratic socialism are capable of reconstituting the political balance, the balance in the political system that Portugal needs at this moment”, he requested.

Because, he recalled, there is a right-wing majority in the Assembly of the Republic and at municipal level in Portugal.