Outgoing Socialist leader and Prime Minister António Costa congratulated Pedro Nuno Santos on his victory in the elections for PS general secretary, which took place on Friday and Saturday, wishing him “all the best.”
“At this time of testimony, I congratulate our comrade Pedro Nuno Santos, to whom I wish the greatest personal and political happiness,” Antonio Costa wrote in a message he sent to all members of this party.
In the race to succeed António Costa as PS secretary general, Pedro Nuno Santos, deputy and former minister of infrastructure and housing, was opposed by Interior Minister José Luis Carneiro and Socialist leader Daniel Adrian.
Later, in the same message, António Costa mentioned the period when he headed the PS. “I want to thank all the activists from the bottom of my heart for the great honor of being the PS General Secretary and for the support they have always given me over these nine years,” he added.
The PS has about 80 thousand members, of whom about 60 thousand were eligible to vote in these direct elections because they had been registered for at least six months and had current membership fees.
This electoral process in the PS began with the resignation of António Costa as Prime Minister on November 7, after it became known that he was the subject of a judicial investigation launched by the Ministry of State in the Supreme Court. starting with Operation Influential.
António Costa was first elected secretary general of the PS on 22 November 2014, two months after winning the party’s primary candidate for the position of prime minister, open to non-members, which he contested with the then leader. Antonio Jose Safe, September this year.
He has been Prime Minister since November 26, 2015. In addition to the new party leader, socialist activists voted to elect 1,400 delegates to the PS National Congress, which will meet from January 5 to 7 at the Lisbon International Fair, of which 1,100 delegates will naturally join. Activists from the Federation of Urban Areas of Lisbon (FAUL) and the district federations of Aveiro, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Évora, Guarda, Leiria, Portalegre, Oeste, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real voted on Friday.
This Saturday, elections were held in the federations of Algarve, Baixo Alentejo, Braga, Coimbra, Porto, Santarem, Viseu, Azores and Madeira. The IPS announced that the first official election results will be announced at 23:30 at the national headquarters by the President of the Congress Organizing Committee (COC), Pedro do Carmo.