LISBON, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said Friday that he will meet the leader of the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) to discuss a party member who's on hunger strike.
Paulo Estevao, who represents the PPM in Corvo, in the autonomous region of the Azores, began a hunger strike on Feb. 19. He is protesting at the lack of lunch facilities at a local school.
Having grown increasingly concerned about his colleague's health, PPM leader Goncalo da Camara Pereira is seeking the president's assistance.
"He's asked for an audience and naturally he'll be received at the presidential palace next week," Rebelo de Sousa said of Camara Pereira, in comments made to the Lusa Portuguese News Agency while in Porto.
The PPM party has no members elected to the Portuguese parliament, but it has two councilors in the Lisbon Municipal Assembly and one member of the Azores Legislative Assembly, namely Estevao.
Originally from the Alentejo, in the interior of the Portuguese mainland, Estevao moved to the Azores to work as a teacher in the late 1990s. He has represented the island of Corvo in the Azores regional parliament since 2008.
Corvo is the smallest and most north-westerly of the nine islands that make up the Azores mid-Atlantic archipelago. It has one school, the Mouzinho de Silveira School, catering to 42 pupils.
Mouzinho de Silveira is the only school in the Azores with no canteen or dining room. The PPM says it would cost as little as 100,000 euros (122,000 U.S. dollars) to establish a kitchen and ensure the students are properly fed.