Mário Cruz / Lusa
The former Minister of Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro.
Cordeiro states that he does not want to be committed to the decisions of the current leadership. The decision is fueling rumors that he is considering running against Aries.
Socialist Duarte Cordeiro decided not join the National Political Committee of the Socialist Party (PS), retreating given his initial availability to take on roles in the management led by José Luís Carneiro. The decision, according to him, is the result of a strategic political assessment that aims to preserve his autonomy within the party.
Speaking to , the former minister explained that he chose to stay out to maintain a margin of disagreement with the current leadership’s guidelines. “By being left out I am less committed to the current leadership and with their decisions, and I better maintain my freedom to disagree”, he stated, stressing that he does not revert to the idea of automatic alignment with the leader.
Initially, Duarte Cordeiro had expressed openness to joining the National Political Commission, but ended up changing his position when he considered that the way the leadership was communicating the invitations could convey the idea that the members of the body would be an integral part of the “team” providing direct support to the secretary general. “I felt like I didn’t fit this profile”, he said.
Although party sources have pointed out professional reasons to justify his absence, his own statements show a deliberate choice of political position. By refusing to join the leadership structure, Cordeiro avoids being directly associated with José Luís Carneiro’s strategic decisions and remains an independent voice within the PS.
This option fuels rumors that the former Minister of the Environment intends to preserve space for a possible advance towards contest for socialist leadership. In recent days, Duarte Cordeiro had already shown signs of distancing himself from the current leader’s political line, publicly defending a more assertive stance of the PS in oppositionthe. His absence from the party congress, held in Viseu, was also interpreted as a symbolic gesture of this departure.
During this congress, a motion presented by activists close to Cordeiro criticized the strategy of approaching the Governmentchallenging the leadership to clarify the party’s political direction. Although he did not sign the document, the former minister had prior knowledge of its existence.
