Rui Tavares under fire at Livre: “Nobody should be clinging to their seat”

Current leadership accused of centralization and non-compliance with statutes, as internal elections approach. Rui Tavares explained why he moved to third place on the list.

The S and V tickets, which are running for Livre leadership in the July Congress, accuse the current internal majority of centralization, excessive parliamentary weight and non-compliance with the statutes in the spokesperson model.

Patrícia Robalo and Tiago Mota asked, through , that the expected rotation of spokespeople be fulfilled, and want more open primaries, local reinforcement and more convergence to the left.

The Free Congress, scheduled for July 10th to 12th, in Sintra, will decide the composition of the party’s bodies for the next two years and promises to expose internal tensions on several issues.

Plate A, which includes ten of the 15 elected members of the current Contact Group, presents Isabel Mendes Lopes for a third and final term as spokesperson and Jorge Pinto as successor to Rui Tavares in the two-headed leadership of the party, with the founder and main public figure of Livre, retreating to .

On the side of the internal opposition, lists S and V, headed by Rodrigo Brito and Tiago Motafocus criticism on the concentration of power, the loss of participatory openness and non-compliance with the statutes regarding the spokesperson model.

Patricia Robaloeighth on the S ticket and former opposition representative in the Contact Group, considers that the party has moved away from the original idea of ​​an open and decentralized political force.

“In 2022, we moved forward with an opposition list. We saw a lack of initiative from the Assembly and dynamics after the break with our first deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. Since then, there has been a centralization that goes against the idea of ​​an open party”, Robalo told DN, who presents his list as “a way of showing that rotation is necessary and that no one should be holding on to their place”.

Tiago Mota, head of V, shares the same concern. For the 34-year-old professor, the problem is not the existence of minority lists, but the concentration of decisions in the Contact Group.

“It is not because we have minority tickets that the party is ungovernable and the Assembly must have its role, not just the Contact Group. Our goal is that none of the tickets reach 50%, that is, that none have an absolute majority”, he told DN: “The Contact Group cannot be a summit that gives orders”.

The two lists also contest the changes in the primary regulations, made after the choice of Francisco Paupério as head of the list for the Europeans. Patrícia Robalo considers that the change had the effect of protecting the internal majority. Tiago Mota talks about “closure” and criticizes the suspicion cast on the mobilization of supporters around Paupério.

The electoral strategy

Robalo asks for a reflection on recent defeats, including the result of the European Championships and Jorge Pinto’s presidential candidacy. In his opinion, the presidential decision was hasty, failed to generate convergence and contributed to the partisanship of the dispute.

Mota also criticizes the conduct of municipal and presidential elections. He argues that Livre was born to promote convergence and should negotiate more with unions, left-wing parties and forces without parliamentary representation, instead of always running alone. Regarding Jorge Pinto, he says he has no personal reservations, but insists that the essential thing is to comply with the statutes and guarantee a more horizontal representation.

Both parties seek to eliminate the idea of ​​a deep political break with the current majority, despite the criticism aimed at Tavares. Robalo highlights that there is proximity in several causes, but calls for renewal and plurality. Mota states that Rui Tavares, Isabel Mendes Lopes and Jorge Pinto should continue in Livre’s struggles, although they should not concentrate the party’s representation.

Regarding the choice of Jorge Pinto as historian, Robalo recalls that “it is a choice of a name that was already in the top positions. There is little plurality. Renewal is needed.” And Mota says that “he is well received, we have nothing against him and we are happy to see new names as spokespeople, but the fundamental thing is that the statutes are complied with and the position should be rotating”.

Rui Tavares wanted to leave leadership

Rui Tavares denied that leaving the position means a departure, believing that it will be “more useful” to the party in terms of strategy and “leadership training” and highlighting the need for new “faces and voices” to emerge.

“[A saída do cargo de porta-voz] it does not mean a departure, it means a redistribution of the game within the team and the assumption of roles and responsibilities that are new, but which are still central”, argued Rui Tavares, in an interview with the Lusa agency.

After pointing out that he did not want to stop being spokesperson due to imposing term limits on the board – as he will serve his third term in this body, the maximum number defined by the party’s statutes – Tavares said he expressed internally his preference for other roleswhich helped to think about Livre, “not only in the next two years, but also in the next 10 or 20”.

“The progressive field in Portugal, and Livre in particular, will need people to know several faces, to know several voices and to maintain confidence that there is an alignment, in ideological terms, and that there is consistency in what we are doing”, he highlighted.

The founder said he believes he will be “more useful” to the party in a role of defining long-term strategy and “training leaders”, with several objectives, including “making Livre grow so that there can be progressive governance in Portugal”.

“What Livre can and has to do is the formation of leadership and protagonism that allows the left to grow and that allows us to defeat the drift towards a radicalized right that we have been seeing in recent times”, he stated.

Rui Tavares highlighted that the party leadership remains “collective” and that the novelty in the list presented is the allocation of “portfolios”, which includes the creation of the position of “general secretary”, for which Tomás Cardoso Pereira is running.

Despite recognizing that “from the outside” he is taken into account as the central figure of the party, the deputy recalled that both Isabel Mendes Lopes and Jorge Pinto have been in Livre since its foundation and were part of the leadership at times when it was necessary to affirm the party – such as in the controversy with Joacine Katar Moreira, who became a non-registered deputy in 2020.

Asked about his expectations in a shared leadership between Jorge Pinto and Isabel Mendes Lopes, the historian began by stressing that the parliamentary leader is “an extraordinary person” with “huge dedication to the public cause”. Regarding Jorge Pinto, Rui Tavares highlighted his “political culture”, “great communication capacity” and “enormous generosity”.