Liberals close main meeting without approving new charter

The 8th National Congress of the IL ends this Sunday in Santa Maria da Feira with a vote on the political program and the intervention of leader Rui Rocha, a day after he failed to approve the new statutes.

The non-elective assembly, which approved legislative changes and a new political programme, began on Saturday in Santa Maria da Feira, Aveiro, and today is its last day of work.

The closing is scheduled for the afternoon, with a speech by IL leader Rui Rocha.

The executive committee plans to present a policy proposal in the morning, followed by speeches from activists and a vote on the document, which only needs a simple majority to pass.

On Saturday, it was the failure of the two proposals under discussion to obtain a qualified majority of two-thirds that forced IL to leave Santa Maria da Feira with the same statutes it had adopted, after a whole day of presenting and debating the two points of view.

The National Council’s proposals, which affect the leadership and were put forward by the working group, were put to the vote, as well as a proposal from a group of internal opponents, including former presidential candidate Tiago Maiao Gonçalves and former Liberal President Miguel Ferreira da Silva.

After neither of the two succeeded in obtaining the two-thirds majority required by the charter in the first round, the vote was repeated, but the result was the same.

Apart from the fact that the party had the same charter despite this whole process, another consequence was that the work ended before lunch, since the specialized stage of introducing charter changes did not take place.

In the second vote, the proposal affecting the management received 58.86%, while the proposal of internal opponents received 28.60%.

In the afternoon, former Liberal leader João Cotrim Figueiredo warned that IL will only continue to win and grow if it adapts and knows how to “evolve with the times,” in a call to approve a proposal to change the statute affecting governance.

Arriving at the meeting, Rui Rocha declared that he was not afraid of internal disagreements at this congress and stated that whatever the outcome of this meeting, the party would emerge stronger.

From the lectern and before the vote, Tiago Mayan Gonçalves criticized the existence of “personal or systemic” idolatry within the party structures and said he had “complete” confidence in the IL members, “capable men and women, free from constraints and narratives,” calling on them to vote “according to their conscience.”

After the results were summed up, the face of the internal opposition, in an interview with TSF, blamed the leadership for the failure of two proposed amendments to the statutes and accused it of not striving for a “consensus”, while denying, however, that Rui Rocha’s place was in danger.