PSD Lisbon in Crisis: Emergency Meeting Called After Shocking Defeat in Municipal Assembly Election

Lisbon's Political Turmoil Deepens

The Lisbon branch of the PSD has urgently convened a meeting of its political commission to analyze the party's unexpected defeat in the election for president of the Municipal Assembly of Lisbon. Luís Newton, president of the social-democratic council, confirmed the extraordinary meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening.

The Stunning Election Result

In the aftermath of the failed election of Margarida Mano, Luís Newton revealed to Observador that the party needs to "go do the math" to understand what led to this electoral setback. The PSD's candidate, Margarida Mano, received only 31 votes despite the fact that PSD, CDS, and IL together have a total of 32 municipal deputies.

"It seems clear to me that there was a union of the left to subvert the electoral result, but we need to make an analysis of the votes on the right," Newton stated after the municipal bodies were sworn in.

Suspicion Within Party Ranks

The calling of this extraordinary meeting appears to strengthen the idea that within the PSD, some suspect the election failure was due to missing votes from social-democrats rather than votes from Chega deputies. Unlike what the IL and CDS benches did, Luís Newton did not guarantee that all PSD deputies voted for Mano, nor did he attribute responsibility for the defeat to Chega.

Left-Wing Alliance Secures Victory

Despite losing the elections in Lisbon, the PS managed to ensure continuity in the presidency of the Municipal Assembly with André Moz Caldas being elected to the position. Through a last-minute agreement with the CDU, the socialists secured the 37 votes of all left-wing municipal deputies.

This wouldn't have been sufficient if, in turn, the parties of Carlos Moedas' coalition (32 deputies) had fulfilled their part and united with Chega (6) — in that case, they would have guaranteed a majority of 38 votes. The PSD's candidacy ended up with only 31 votes, with two abstentions and five null votes also recorded.