Rui Rio

In 2001 Rio was elected president of the City Hall of Porto. He was re-elected by an absolute majority in 2005 and 2009. His term ended on 22 October 2013, when the new mayor Rui Moreira took office.

In 2018, Rio won the race to become leader of the PSD after campaigning to hold the party on a centrist line.[5] On the leadership election held on 13 February 2018, Rio defeated his more conservative rival, former Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes, winning 54 percent of votes from PSD party members.

Ending the animosity that followed the 2015 legislative election and nudging the PSD closer to the center, Rio and Prime Minister António Costa signed an agreement in April 2018 which covered cooperation on a reform intended to give more powers to municipalities, as well as on a 12-year strategy to keep using European Union structural funds for development.[6] Under his leadership, the PSD also backed the Socialists in areas such as labor law reform and defense.[7]

Amid criticism at his leadership, Rio won a confidence motion by 75 to 50 votes in the party's National Council in early 2019, only after a 10-hour debate.[8] In January 2020, Rio fended off another leadership challenge on a promise to keep the leading opposition force on a centrist course. In the party's 2020 leadership election, he scored 53 percent in a runoff vote against the party's former parliamentary spokesman Luís Montenegro, who demanded a more aggressive opposition to António Costa's Socialist Party following the Social Democrats' worst result in over 30 years in the parliamentary elections the previous October.[9]

In the 2022 Portuguese legislative election, the Social Democrats lost 3 seats, taking them to 76 seats in the Assembly. In the aftermath of the election, Rio announced he would resign from the party's leadership.[10]

Following his party's internal elections, which he disputed against Luís Montenegro and Miguel Pinto Luz, Rio stated that Freemasonry "is everywhere" and trying to "condition Portuguese society" by giving this organization obscure and untransparent motivations.[11] Rio's statements were a response to Paulo Mota Pinto, who referred to Rio for further clarification on the alleged "dark interests" who want to dominate the party. Rio made statements in January 2019 regarding Montenegro's Freemansonry ties.[12]

Rio admitted to perceiving Paulo Mota Pinto's reference and replied: "When I am talking about secret, obscure, little transparent interests, I am referring clearly to Freemasonry." He further went on saying that he "senses" that the Freemasons "are everywhere and trying to condition many things", and that he has "no doubt about that". Rio clarified that if he denied such influences he would be a "hypocrite" and that he is the only one with enough courage to criticized the Freemasons' influence.[13]