Luís Marques Mendes at the International Club of Portugal: Portugal needs ambition and stability argues PSD stalwart and candidate for the presidency

It was a full house a the Hotel Sheraton Lisboa & Spa on Monday where PSD presidential candidate and former PSD leader and current President Luís Marques Mendes addressed PSD and Democratic Alliance members.

The Minister of Finances, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento was present, as was a former leader of the PSD, Manuela Ferreira Leite (once trumpeted as Portugal’s answer to Margaret Thatcher), a former Secretary of State for Health Management, Cristina Vaz Tomé (now appointed as CEO of Metropolitano de Lisboa), Former MP Miguel Frasquilho,  and a constellation of Lisbon and regional PSD party stalwarts gearing up to support Marques Mendes for the race to the Palácio Nacional de Belém.

Talking to journalists the idea was a clear: he doesn’t stand a chance of winning. That pleasure will almost certainly go to the popular retired Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo who won popular support as the face of Portugal’s successful Covid-19 vaccine campaign back in 2020-1 and is seen as a refreshing non-party candidate in a country that is tired of unfulfillable promises from the country’s governing elite.

Still, even knowing that he probably won’t win the elections in February, 2026, it’s certainly worth hearing once of the wisest and most experienced politicians from Portugal’s centre right and his message was clear: in a world and Europe marked by uncertainty and instability, Portugal needs governance that is ambitious and brings stability for the people, its companies and investors.

“These days, both in Portugal and overseas, radicalism and the noise of radicalism is in fashion. This might be in fashion, but it’s not the culture that the country needs”,  he said in a nod to the fact that far-right populist Chega party leader André Ventura is also being pressured by his party to stand for the presidentials too.

Instead, Luís Marques Mendes, a well-respected lawyer and popular TV political and current affairs commentator, seen as the moderate conservative voice of common sense in Portugal, said that Portugal needed “moderation, tolerance, balance and common sense”, and the experience of “building bridges” rather than creating divisions; “understanding and convergence” rather than extremes.

During his speech the former minister of two PSD governments – that of Ánibal Cavaco Silva and Manuel Durão Barroso – promised that should he be elected as President of Portugal he would work hard for a project that would “transform the State and society”.

And he was the voice of moderation and tolerance on the question of immigration, arguing that Portugal needed foreign immigrants in agriculture, tourism and to make the country’s social security system sustainable.

Instead of division, where the far-right Chega party is against low qualified immigrants from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, Marques Mendes said that Portugal needed a “culture of compromise” between political parties.

And he said that the recent decision by Portugal ’s Constitutional Court (TC), which considered the Foreigners Law unconstitutional “a great help to the government” despite many members of the government not seeing it quite that way – it had been supported by the PSD, CDS and Chega in parliament.

A member of the Council of State, Marques Mendes called immigration “a great opportunity for Portugal” and argued that any future review of Portugal’s Nationality Law should be done in agreement with the opposition PS party.

Marques Mendes downplayed the TC’s decision by saying: “It is part of the normal way institutions work, and when institutions are doing their job, we should be pleased.”

“The government made a proposal, parliament approved a law, the President of the Republic had doubts and sent it to the Constitutional Court and the court decided,” he added.

“Although the Government did not react in this way, it was a great help, because a law of that nature has every advantage in passing through a Constitutional Court. Now, the points that were declared unconstitutional will be corrected, it will surely be promulgated next, and we will have a safe law,” he said, meaning the future law, according to Marques Mendes, will not run “the risk of a court in Faro deciding in one way and a court in Trás-os-Montes deciding in another.”

On the question of excessive red tape and the slowness of Portugal’s planning permission regimen – a question brought up by the President of the APPII (Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors), Hugo Santos Ferreira, Luís Marques Mendes admitted that both the left and right wing parties agreed that bureaucracy had got worse over the past two decades in Portugal.

“The government will have many difficulties because bureaucracy always is an interest for someone, and within the machinery of the State, interested people will change things in one way or another (to seem like progress is being made) only for it to essentially be the same.”

“This means that an effective minister is one who has political clout, and I hope this minister (the Minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Nuno da Cruz Saraiva Matias), can make headway on the problem of red tape,” said Luís Marques Mendes.

But reminded: “The President of the Republic doesn’t govern or make laws, but can have causes and should and use his magistrature of influence to proactively mediate.”

Marques Mendes affirmed that the government’s plan overall to build more houses and quicker was the right policy, but was insufficient.

“It is not possible to raise the hopes of the thousands of Portuguese that need to get an affordable home and then say this will take a fair few years to achieve.

“In the meantime we need solutions and it seems the only solution is to make the rental market more dynamic and attractive. There are lots of houses that could be rented out, but have not been because their owners have lost their trust in the State because it keeps changing the rules (rental laws) and that brings instability.

“If we don’t shake up the rental market this nightmare of a lack of houses will continue, and no one is going to raise hopes by saying there will be housing ten years from now,” concluded the PSD candidate for next year’s presidential elections, Luís Marques Mendes.

Text: Chris Graeme; Photo: Fernando Bento (ICPT)