Vitorino "on the verge" of making a decision about his candidacy for Belém

Former socialist minister António Vitorino said this Tuesday that he was "on the verge" of making a decision about running for President of the Republic.

"I don't want to create any suspense around it, I've been considering it, I'm on the verge of making a decision," the current president of the National Council for Migration and Asylum and former Minister of the Presidency and Defense in the XIII Constitutional Government headed by António Guterres told journalists.

Speaking on the sidelines of the "Thinking Portugal" convention, organised by SEDES (Association for Economic and Social Development) for young people, which is taking place at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, the former socialist minister stated that "when it is, it will sound, it is coming soon".

"I came here to talk about migrations in general, it has nothing to do with migrations to Belém," he said.

Faced with the journalists' insistence, António Vitorino asked for respect for his "decision-making process" and said he had "no concerns about creating instability".

The name of António Vitorino has been mentioned by socialist leaders as a possible candidate for Belém, but to date he has not given any sign on the matter.

At the beginning of his speech on a panel with the theme "What future for migration policies?", the president of the National Council for Migration and Asylum referred to the topic of the presidential elections, which will be held in January next year, and stated that "this conference raised a lot of expectations", perhaps "due to the parade of speakers", including announced candidates, such as Marques Mendes or Mariana Leitão, and also names mentioned as possible candidates, such as Admiral Gouveia e Melo.

"What could have been the reason a friend of mine said to me 'but you're going to talk about migrations', such a complex, difficult, toxic topic? See if that doesn't harm you. I don't know what he was thinking that could harm me, but I truly think the opposite. I think that if we want to think about Portugal without taboos, we have to think about migrations, because they are part of our future, whether we like it or not", argued António Vitorino.