The Socialist Party was the biggest loser in the Leiria constituency, seeing 23,000 votes disappear in relation to the 2022 elections, losing two deputies, one of them Sara Velez from Caldens.
In 2022, the PS had obtained a historic result in the district of Leiria, with 84,253 votes, even above the PSD, and electing five deputies.
Two years later, the PS received 61,535 votes and only elected the head of the list, Eurico Brilhante Dias, and two other deputies, Ana Sofia Antunes and Walter Chicharro.
The third-elect, who is president of the Chamber of Nazaré and also of the Leiria District Federation, has already reacted, saying that this was the “second worst percentage result of the century (only better than the 2011 result) and the third worst absolute result in the same period (only 2011 and 2015 were worse)”.
In his opinion, “this is a defeat for the socialists and we must know how to draw conclusions from the results”. Now he argues that the party “needs to reorient itself and reorganize itself”.
Walter Chicharro announced that he will take his place as deputy and, in this way, leave the presidency of the Chamber of Nazaré, being replaced in the position by Manuel Sequeira.
Until now, deputy Sara Velez will return to her professional activity as a sociologist, “while remaining involved civically and politically in matters that concern our community, continuing my activity as a grassroots PS activist”.
The woman from Caldas told JORNAL DAS CALDAS that she was dissatisfied with the results at district and national level.
“The PS government over the last eight years was responsible for returning income to people, increasing salaries and pensions and, despite the crises we went through, it was possible to record the first surplus of Portuguese democracy and grow economically above the European Union , at the same time that we recorded one of the lowest unemployment rates in our history”, he highlighted.
However, he considered that “the wear caused by eight years of governance and the existence of problems that we never concealed, led the Portuguese to choose another path”.
On the other hand, he highlighted that none of the political projects presented obtained more than 30% of the votes registered and that the winning coalition obtained only a slight advantage, both in terms of the number of votes and the number of elected deputies.
Sara Velez does not consider that the issue of the location of the new hospital in Oeste could also have harmed the PS in some municipalities, such as Caldas da Rainha.
“Although it may have contributed to the choice of some people, I don’t think it was a determining factor for most of them”, he believes.
