João Almeida, who replaced Nuno Melo when the leader left the Assembly of the Republic to join the Government, defended that "there is no one in the Portuguese parliament who represents the same as the CDS" and that "the role that the CDS has in Portuguese democracy cannot be replaced by any party that is also there".

"We are right-wing, we have always assumed ourselves as right-wing, we have always revealed ourselves as right-wing since the first moment of our foundation, 50 years ago", said the deputy in an intervention before the 31st Congress, adding: "We are conservatives, we are liberals, we are Christian-democrats and we are the right that Portugal needs precisely because of that".

João Almeida considered that, despite having lost media space, the CDS-PP "never ceased to exist on the ground as it existed" due to a "CDS people who will never let the party end, who showed that the party made sense, who knew how to value its mission and who allowed it to return" to parliament and to the Government.

The deputy also defended that the CDS-PP having returned to parliamentary representation "is just the beginning".

"From now on, in the Government and in parliament, we have to show that we effectively deserve this opportunity", he defended.

Regarding the elections in the Autonomous Region of Madeira, the leader stated that the CDS-PP will run alone, unlike what has happened in recent years and in the last legislative elections, and that the party has "no problem with that".

Diogo Moura, vice-president of the CDS-PP and councilman at the Lisbon City Council, highlighted that the party "returned to parliament and to the Government not by favour, but by merit, not by convenience, but by competence".

The mayor defended that "the CDS never aimed for power for power's sake, but rather power for service".

Also in an intervention before the 31st Congress, the former deputy Cecília Meireles considered that this is "a time of hope" for the country after the socialist governance and rejected that future pensions cannot be put at risk to make an "artificial reduction" of the public debt, asking for scrutiny.

The centrist also spoke about education, considering that there is a "generation sacrificed by what it did not learn" due to the pandemic and "socialist facilitation".

In one of the last interventions before the break in the works, the vice-president Maria Luísa Aldim considered that it was "time to make the CDS 'sexy' for the Portuguese", a party that is "plural, diverse, modern, that knows how to speak to real families" and respond to their concerns.

During the various interventions in the afternoon, there were congressmen who defended that the CDS-PP should not be confused with the PSD. Bruno Filipe Costa, who presented a motion of global strategy at the last congress, asked that they not let the "identity of the CDS be diluted in oranges" and another delegate defended that the party cannot "sleep in the shadow of the orange tree".

At 8:41 pm, the works were interrupted for dinner, and they should resume at 10:00 pm with more interventions from the congressmen.

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