The PSD parliamentary leader told Social Democrats’ deputies this Thursday that he will not be joining the party’s European list, adding to journalists that he intends to fulfill his mandate, which expires in July next year.
During the meeting of the parliamentary group, which took place behind closed doors, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento said that he felt the need to “inform the deputies”, given the news published in recent weeks, and to assure them that he does not intend to is to leave the Assembly of the Republic to the European Parliament.
In its Wednesday (June 28) edition, DN reported that Miranda Sarmento’s leadership in the PSD parliamentary group is causing “discontent” and “tensions” among deputies and “discomfort” among the leadership of the party. The parliamentary leader declined to comment.
Now, at the end of the meeting, Miranda Sarmento, questioned by journalists, assured: “I am not going to the European Parliament”.
When asked if this means he intends to fulfill his mandate as chairman of the Social Democratic bank to the end – he was elected for two years on July 13 last year – Cavaco Silva’s former economic adviser answered in the affirmative.
“If nothing extraordinary happens, I intend to fulfill my mandate,” he said.
During the meeting, Miranda Sarmento was not questioned by any deputy about the news from the DN that pre-announced a possible departure from her office – and not even with names of possible successors, such as the “vices” Paulo Rios de Oliveira and João Moura – , nor others in which the leadership denies any intention to change the parliamentary leadership.
After the parliamentary leader’s final intervention, which was applauded by some deputies, the meeting ended immediately and there were no more applications to intervene.
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento was elected PSD parliamentary leader last July, replacing Paulo Mota Pinto, who held the position for only three months but called early elections after Luís Montenegro replaced Rui Rio in the PSD presidency and notified him that he presides over the bank.
In the election, Miranda Sarmento garnered about 60% of the vote of a group inherited from Rui Rio’s leadership, expressing some tension, for example in conflicting explanations of vote in the government’s IL’s motion of censure or in Chega’s recent proposals and IL to create a commission of inquiry into the execution of the ‘secret’ in the recovery of the former deputy for infrastructure’s computer.
However, it was the PSD’s parliamentary leader’s decision to bring the ‘Tuttifrutti’ operation to the general policy debate with the prime minister – over alleged exchanges of favor with the PS in the 2017 municipal elections – that closed the ‘gap’ more visibly on the bench, with delegate Carlos Eduardo Reis (one of the names mentioned in TVI/CNN television reports) criticizing this option in a bench meeting, later endorsed by several delegates.
Since the election, the bank’s leadership has already lost two vice presidents – Ricardo Baptista Leite and Joaquim Pinto Moreira – and is about to lose the third, when Luís Gomes is suspended.
Baptista Leite and Luís Gomes left for professional reasons, while Pinto Moreira resigned after being examined in “Operação Vortex”.
The manner in which deputy Pinto Moreira resumed his mandate – two months after suspending it and in a return the board said was not agreed – was another source of discomfort on the bench, with the MP taking seats on committees even after his political confidence was taken away from him by the PSD chairman.
Source: DN
