Pedro Nuno Santos teases AD and IL

At the start of the last week of the campaign, Pedro Nuno Santos remains committed to making the AD and IL his preferred target. But this Monday, in Coimbra (where the end of the day was weak for the PS on the streets), he even seemed divided on whether it would be better to aim for harmony between the two or to fuel discord . At the end of the day, adding or subtracting, the socialist is trying to show that the PS is the one “good at guaranteeing stability”, even without an absolute majority.

The aim of the socialist campaign to target a possible coalition between AD and IL is clearly to capture those in the political centre who might be suspicious of an alliance between the social democrats and the liberals. With the PS convinced that it has little room to grow on the left — and even though the appeal for a useful vote remains — this flirtation with the centre is now taking up more space in the leader's speech — and in recent rallies also with the female electorate , but we'll get to that later.

The other goal is to try to ensure that the PS is reliable in terms of political stability. At the rally on Monday night, the socialist recalled that the PS can guarantee stability “even when there is no absolute majority ”. As for his rivals, he concluded: “They have never managed an entire legislature in a minority situation. We have managed it, and not just once.”

Pedro Nuno Santos has not said how he intends to do this if he becomes the leader, at least not in a concrete way. All that is known about this scenario is the promise to “talk to everyone” and to wait for “reciprocity” from the PSD and CDS at the decisive parliamentary moments. Tonight he continued without giving details , but insisted on the idea of ​​a PS with “the capacity to talk, listen, give in and build” with the aim of political stability.

It is the PS that is trying to counter the idea that a socialist victory without a majority on the left would be synonymous with political chaos . This at a time when it knows that political stability is especially valued by the Portuguese.

Between stinging concord and fomenting discord

If this intention is becoming clear, it no longer seems so clear where Pedro Nuno prefers to go in terms of the AD and IL coalition . It is clear that he wants to continue to explore it – especially since his opponents continue to provide material for this – but in Coimbra he was divided between pointing out the risks of this possible coalition (as he has always done) and fomenting divisions between the two.

A short while ago, at the PS rally in Coimbra, Pedro Nuno Santos once again poked fun at the relationship between AD and IL to conclude that “you can’t trust the Portuguese right. Not Luís Montenegro, not Rui Rocha, and even less André Ventura”.

He took advantage of the “pre-election agreement attempt” between AD and IL, which the AD leader denies, to tell Rui Rocha that “he should already know that Luís Montenegro never admits anything”. And he even recalled that this had already happened in the “negotiation of the State Budget with André Ventura. He also did not acknowledge invitations or the five meetings that the other party says took place”. All this to say that “ Montenegro never admits anything , he always hides everything from the Portuguese people”.

Then he returns to Rui Rocha to say that he also does not understand how IL “wants so much” to form a coalition “after the right things it said about Montenegro”, he said ironically. He wanted to list the three points that IL put forward as conditions for Montenegro to remain as prime minister, in February when the news of Solverde’s monthly allowance to Spinumviva was reported.

In the “three points” he cited from Rui Rocha, Pedro Nuno directly quoted the IL leader when he said that Montenegro had to “apologize to the Portuguese people for the imprudence and lack of transparency in the handling of this matter”; “explain everything: who the clients are, what specific work was done for these clients, how much this company receives and, above all, from 2024 onwards, who provided the services to these clients, if they were people hired outside the company”; “completely disengage from this company, either directly or through family holdings”.

“None of the three points are true”, said Pedro Nuno, concluding that “ you cannot trust the Portuguese right , nor Luís Montenegro, nor Rui Rocha and much less André Ventura”, he also took the opportunity to add — although this is not a target that the socialist leader is exploring in this campaign (as Costa had done in 2022) because he is further distanced from Montenegro's PSD.

Women and Isabel Soares

At the rally, Pedro Nuno Santos also pointed to the female electorate, considering that “we will only be a decent society when we value and pay what is due to women who dedicate their lives to caring for other people’s children and other people’s parents”. This idea has been a recurring theme in the socialist leader’s recent speeches.

At the rally at the Pavilhão Centro de Portugal, the socialist had the support of Isabel Soares who intervened to join the attack on Montenegro and to convince the “Soaristas” that if her father and mother were alive “they would be on the front line of the fight against the revanchist right”.