The IL National Congress, which will approve the statute and political program without elections for national bodies, will take place from this Saturday to Sunday in Santa Maria da Feira with the participation of about a thousand members.
This major meeting of the party led by Rui Rocha begins this morning at 10am, after the cancellation of the originally planned first day, Friday, due to the clash with the national football team’s game in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024.
Under the motto “Always Grow”, the party is holding its VIII National Congress until Sunday at the Europark in Santa Maria da Feira, with around 1,000 members registered, divided into in-person and online formats.
At this non-elective main meeting the charter and political program will be approved.
Although there has been no change in the party’s presidency, it remains to be seen whether the internal opposition Rui Rocha, led by former IL-backed presidential candidate Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, will use this congress to criticise the current leadership.
One of the issues that already divides the current leadership and the opposition is precisely the change of the charter, regarding which the liberals will discuss and vote on two proposals: one presented by the National Council of the IL and another by internal opponents.
In the event of a proposal to amend the statutes submitted by the National Council of the IL, it is expected that a National Council Council, a new body, will be created and that the Executive Committee will have the power to approve candidates for election.
The internal opposition programme, presented by the initiative “Statutes + Liberals” and signed by 211 members, including Tiago Maia Gonçalves, proposes an amendment to the statutes that would provide for greater decentralisation of the party, giving more deliberative powers to the territorial cores and less power to the Executive Committee.
As for the political program, this document will be changed for the first time, since it has remained unchanged since the founding of the IL, the party said.
According to the information provided, work will begin today at 10 a.m. with what IL called “Relaxation Rooms,” “a set of training sessions and presentations dedicated to the Liberal Initiative’s political activities, such as the Liberal Portal and municipal topics.”
As for the plenary session, it will start at 11:00, and Rui Rocha is scheduled to speak at 13:00.
This Saturday afternoon and evening there will be a plenary session for members and new ‘Relax Rooms’.
On Sunday, trainings on communications, the circle of clarification and election programmes will continue, and a plenary meeting of members is scheduled for 11:00, closing at 16:00 with a speech by the party president.
About a month after the snap legislative elections in March, when IL retained the same eight deputies and gained about 46 thousand more votes, but failed to reach the electoral goal set by Rui Rocha, Tiago Maiao Gonçalves presented himself under the slogan “United for Liberalism”, a manifesto of “courage, innovation and freedom”, whose first promise is to “rebuild the party on liberal values and principles”.
Then former presidential candidate Tiago Mayan Gonçalves said that when the Illinois elections were held, he would be ready to run for leader, presenting this manifesto along with two hundred liberals on the re-establishment of the party.
In the recent European elections, former IL leader and list leader João Cotrim de Figueiredo was the party’s first MP in the Assembly of the Republic in 2019 and has now repeated his feat in the European Parliament.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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