In a bid to force Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas to step down after last week’s deadly funicular disaster, Portuguese lawmakers are using the politician’s own words against him.

Sixteen people died when the iconic Glória Funicular’s suspension cable snapped last Wednesday, causing one of its tram cars to plummet down a steep slope and smash into a building. Following the catastrophe, leading politicians are claiming the city failed to adequately maintain its 140-year old railway system, and are evoking Moedas’ past statements in an attempt to push for his resignation.

In 2021, Moedas’ predecessor Fernando Medina came under fire when his administration admitted to giving Russian authorities the personal information of at least three Lisbon-based Russian dissidents. Moedas — at the time a former European commissioner running as the center-right candidate in the local elections — had slammed the incumbent mayor, saying he had to take responsibility for the scandal.

“City hall put these people in mortal danger,” he told POLITICO. “There have to be political consequences: Medina has to resign.”

Now, with less than a month before Lisbon’s local elections, Moedas’ political opponents are citing his words from four years ago and demanding he take responsibility for the funicular disaster.

“What would the Moedas of 2021 say to the Moedas of 2025?” asked André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party. “Serious politicians do not hide in times of crisis and do not shirk their responsibility: They assume it.”

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party Paulo Raimundo also said Moedas’ own standards mean he’s no longer qualified to lead the city. The Socialist Party’s parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias similarly called for the mayor to be “coherent.”

In an interview with POLITICO, Moedas insisted the funicular disaster couldn’t be compared to the scandal that embroiled his predecessor. While Medina had “direct responsibility” over the municipal employees who shared dissidents’ personal information, he argued last week’s accident wasn’t “attributable to a decision made by the mayor.”

Assigning blame

A preliminary report released by Portugal’s transit safety authority this weekend attributes the crash to mechanical failure and rejects the possibility that human error played a role in the tragedy. Moedas’ critics say the findings raise serious questions about the historic funicular’s upkeep.

In the aftermath of the disaster, employees of Lisbon’s Carris public transit authority said they spent years raising concerns about the funicular’s maintenance, which is subcontracted to private companies. They argued experienced in-house municipal engineers are better equipped to deal with the city’s aged infrastructure.

Moedas told POLITICO the companies overseeing the maintenance have to “meet very strict specifications” and are monitored by Carris technicians who “reviewed and adapted all maintenance plans in accordance with necessary developments and changing realities.” He also declined to take responsibility for the outsourcing, which was decided in 2006, and insisted his administration hadn’t cut Carris’ operating budget.

Moedas’ assertions don’t appear to have swayed Chega’s mayoral candidate Bruno Mascarenhas though, who is set to present a censure motion against the mayor on Tuesday. “The maximum representative of Carris, [the mayor] has to take responsibility,” Mascarenhas declared.

The mayor dismissed the censure motion as grandstanding ahead of the local elections. “This case has brought out the worst in politics and political exploitation,” he said, noting that the proposed motion would be nonbinding.

Wary of being seen as playing politics with the tragedy, Socialist candidate Alexandra Leitão — who is polling neck and neck with Moedas — has yet to call for her rival’s resignation, insisting that it’s “premature” to make a political assessment.

But on Monday, she urged Moedas to be more transparent about what went wrong. “The preliminary report shows that the safety system was insufficient, and that the technical inspections failed to detect the problems that eventually occurred,” she told supporters. “Something needs to change.”