Former CDS-PP leader Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos quits party over its direction

The resignation

Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos has left the CDS-PP, the party he led from 2020 to 2022. Diário de Notícias reports that he had earlier led the Juventude Popular and that he joined the CDS four years after joining the youth organisation in 2007, out of conviction in Christian democracy. In a letter addressed to the current leader, Nuno Melo, released on Wednesday, 4 November and first reported by the newspaper Público, he wrote:

“I am no longer a member of the CDS. I remain a Christian democrat.”

Criticism of the party's direction

In the letter he argues that political debate has moved toward the right margin, under the growing influence of identitarian discourse, radicalised rhetoric and ultraconservative and libertarian currents, often accompanied by an unsettling social insensitivity. He says he sees political action that has become used to classifying people before understanding them, a habit that feeds resentment and the naming of enemies:

“I see political action that has got used to classifying people before understanding them, pointing at enemies and stoking resentment.”

He also criticises the treatment of the European social state as an obstacle, which he describes as one of the greatest achievements of European civilisation. He wrote that, faced with successive left-wing governments, he felt it was his duty to defend the democratic centre-right values he considered undervalued, and that during his leadership he sought to place the party in a space of moderation, responsibility and social sensitivity.

His political position

Rodrigues dos Santos says he still identifies with the humanist tradition of European Christian democracy and with a reformist, socially responsible centre that rejects radicalisation. He writes that he has serious reservations about the CDS's wish to occupy that political space, and that he understands the path the party has chosen while knowing his own place is no longer compatible with membership:

“The party made its choices, legitimately. I have made mine.”

He closes by saying Portugal needs a sense of balance and understanding, which he considers indispensable for the major reforms the country keeps postponing. SAPO alone reports that he now identifies more with democratic centre-left values. The letter, as quoted by RTP, does not use that label and describes a reformist centre.

Party response

The reports published on the morning of 4 November do not include a reply from Nuno Melo or the CDS-PP leadership. The letter's effect on other members, which SAPO suggests could follow, is not yet visible in the sources.