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Rui Rocha

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Rui Rocha
Rocha in 2024
President of the Liberal Initiative
Assumed office
22 January 2023
Preceded byJoão Cotrim de Figueiredo
Member of the Assembly of the Republic
Assumed office
29 March 2022
ConstituencyBraga
Personal details
Born (1970-03-13) 13 March 1970 (age 54)
Lobito, Portuguese Angola
Political partyLiberal Initiative (2020–present)
Children2

Rui Nuno de Oliveira Garcia da Rocha (born 13 March 1970) is a Portuguese politician who is the current President of the Liberal Initiative and a member of the Assembly of the Republic.

Biography

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Born in Lobito, Portuguese Angola, Rocha moved to Braga as a child.[1] He is married and has two children. He graduated with a law degree from the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto and was a guest assistant on law courses at the Moderna University. He works as a lawyer, legal consultant and director of human resources, in the fields of construction, motoring, finance and specialised retail.[2]

Rocha joined the Liberal Initiative in August 2020. He worked on Tiago Mayan Gonçalves's campaign in the 2021 Portuguese presidential election. In the 2022 Portuguese legislative election, he was the party's lead candidate in Braga and was elected.[2]

Endorsed by outgoing leader João Cotrim de Figueiredo, Rocha was voted party leader on 22 January 2023. He received 51.7% of the votes from 2,300 party members.[3] He set the target of reaching 15% of the votes in the following Portuguese legislative election and declared that he would only work with the Social Democratic Party if that party would not ally with Chega.[2]

In the 2024 legislative election, called after António Costa's resignation as Prime Minister, the Liberal Initiative kept the 8 deputies it had before, and had only a slight increase in votes, failing the objective he had set after the election was called of electing at least 12 deputies.[4] Rui Rocha showed himself available for negotiations with the Social Democratic Party,[5] but the two parties ended up not forming any agreement to join the government or for any parliamentary support.[6]

Electoral history

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IL leadership election, 2023

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Ballot: 22 January 2023
Candidate Votes %
Rui Rocha 888 51.7
Carla Castro 757 44.0
José Cardoso 74 4.3
Blank/Invalid ballots 9
Turnout 1,728 74.26
Source: IL Convention[7]

Legislative election, 2024

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Ballot: 10 March 2024
Party Candidate Votes % Seats +/−
AD Luís Montenegro 1,867,442 28.8 80 +3
PS Pedro Nuno Santos 1,812,443 28.0 78 –42
Chega André Ventura 1,169,781 18.1 50 +38
IL Rui Rocha 319,877 4.9 8 ±0
BE Mariana Mortágua 282,314 4.4 5 ±0
CDU Paulo Raimundo 205,551 3.2 4 –2
Livre Rui Tavares 204,875 3.2 4 +3
PAN Inês Sousa Real 126,125 2.0 1 ±0
ADN Bruno Fialho 102,134 1.6 0 ±0
Other parties 104,167 1.6 0 ±0
Blank/Invalid ballots 282,243 4.4
Turnout 6,476,952 59.90 230 ±0
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições[8]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Rui Rocha é o novo presidente da Iniciativa Liberal" [Rui Rocha is the new president of the Liberal Initiative] (in Portuguese). ZAP. 22 January 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "Quem é Rui Rocha, líder da IL pouco mais de dois anos após ter entrado no partido" [Who is Rui Rocha, leader of the IL little more than two years after entering the party]. Diário de Notícias (in Portuguese). 22 January 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  3. ^ Ribeiro Pinto, Paulo (22 January 2023). "Rui Rocha é o novo presidente da Iniciativa Liberal" [Rui Rocha is the new president of the Liberal Initiative]. Jornal de Negócios (in Portuguese). Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  4. ^ Lusa, NOVO com (11 March 2024). "IL mantém os atuais oito deputados e elege pela primeira vez em Aveiro". Jornal NOVO (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  5. ^ "Rui Rocha: "Não será pela Iniciativa Liberal que não haverá solução estável de governação"". O Jogo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  6. ^ ECO (26 March 2024). "Iniciativa Liberal fora do Governo de Montenegro. Partidos "não avançarão para entendimentos alargados"". ECO (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  7. ^ "Iniciativa Liberal: Margem curta na vitória da continuidade". Diário de Notícias. Retrieved 10 August 2024.
  8. ^ "Comissão Nacional de Eleições Mapa Oficial n.º 2-A/2024" (PDF). Comissão Nacional de Eleições. 23 March 2024. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
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  • Rui Rocha at Assembly of the Republic (in Portuguese)