During one of the worst economic and political crisis Portugal has faced in the last decades, with a huge debt to deal with, there was a general election for local government in 2013. A new law restricted mandates to three and, as a result, over half of the Portuguese mayors were replaced. In this paper there is an analysis of the new elected mayors and their electoral programs and political messages, compared to the earlier group of mayors (Almeida, 2013, 2014). All over the country, and particularly in rural areas, there is an urgent need to attract people and investment to fight depopulation and unemployment. Political and economic strategies are analysed and compared in order to create a pattern and verify the most viable ones. With this study, my goal is to launch a new research for the next three years which aims to answer the following questions: What is the role of local government and its elites in the sustainable development of the territory and it’s dynamic? What are the differences between projects for urban and rural municipalities? Which interests are more frequently considered and what kind of language and speech are being used concerning big cities and small villages? What is the role of local entrepreneurs and civic associations in local development? Are the new mayors capable of delivering their promises? And will there be visible results?

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Local government, rural, urban, programs, messages