Katarina Martins topped the Left Bloc list in the European elections

Katarina Martins will lead the Left Bloc list in the European elections, Left Bloc coordinator Mariana Mortagua announced this Saturday.

“Catarina Martins represents the strongest candidate the left can present in the European elections, and that is why she will lead the BE list in these elections,” Mariana Mortagua said at a press conference in Lisbon after the National Council meeting. IMHO, the maximum is between conventions.

When asked about the voting results, the coordinator only replied that the choice was made by a “very significant majority.”

Mariana Mortagua stressed that BE “does not give up presenting an alternative project” that “defends the social state, does not give up equality, respect, democracy, labor rights, the environment.”

“This assertion of the left in Portugal will begin with the European elections,” he stressed.

According to the leader of the bloc, “the fight against the far right is taking place directly in Europe and in the European Parliament,” where it is also necessary to “organize the left” and present a project for a Europe that “does not jeopardize human rights.” with migration policies and aggressive policies against refugees.”

Mariana Mortagua believes that Catarina Martins “is one of the leaders of the European left with the most experience and the most recognition.”

“He knows this country like no one else, its problems, its crises and difficulties, but he also knows, like few others, the European political context, the functioning of European institutions, the various representatives, actors and parties on a European scale. a person capable of articulating left-wing and left-wing parties and movements on a European scale. He did it in the past, he is capable of doing it in the future,” he stressed.

In his opinion, “what is playing out at the European Championships is also the fight against the far right, the affirmation of an alternative project for the left,” and “there is no better person who could do this than Katarina Martins.”

The text of the National Council resolution states that the party will approve the program for the European elections on April 6.

After a decade of leading BE, during which she led the party to its best but also one of its worst results in the 2022 legislative elections, Catarina Martins handed over testimony to Mariana Mortagua last year at the XIII National Convention.

She was first elected as an MP in the 2009 legislative elections, then as an independent candidate on the BE list and was re-elected in the next legislative elections as a member.

Katharina Martins was BE coordinator between 2012 and 2023. For the first two years, she held the position in partnership with João Semedo in an unprecedented “two-headed” leadership, a model that was abandoned in 2014 at the next National Convention.

BE currently has two MEPs: Marisa Matias, recently elected as a member of the Assembly of the Republic for the Porto district, and José Gusmão, who headed the Faro party list but was not elected last Sunday.