"Welcome": Marques Mendes pulls Gouveia and Melo into the arena and says that "there is no politics without politicians"

Luís Marques Mendes saw in Gouveia e Melo's article in Expresso a "declaration of candidacy" for the Presidency of the Republic and wanted to invite him to the debate. "There is no politics without politicians", he argued, although he did not want to respond to the veiled criticism made by the retired military officer.

"Welcome to the presidential marathon". This was how Luís Marques Mendes chose to respond to journalists when asked about the article written by Henrique Gouveia e Melo for Expresso as a manifesto on what the role of the President of the Republic should be, without fully admitting that he is a candidate for the position of head of state. Everyone already knows that he is, and it was based on this that Marques Mendes, an avowed candidate, left messages for his opponent in the speech he gave this Monday at the start of a series of conferences organized by SEDES Jovem at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon.