PSD parliamentary leader Joaquim Miranda Sarmento told delegates that he believes anonymous media criticism under anonymity is a “profound cowardice that only harms the party”.
Miranda Sarmento’s message was sent to deputies on Friday night, following news from The Observer that reported the PSD parliamentary leader allegedly dropped a health request last week due to his wife’s professional connections to the target.
To the deputies, Miranda Sarmento denies this version and reiterates that the withdrawal of the request in question, reported by Lusa, was “only due to procedural problems” and took the opportunity to leave a “message” to the couch.
“That there are Members who understand that I am not a good parliamentary leader, that I have no political profile and that others would be better leaders, I can accept without any problem if the criticism is direct and frontal” , referred to, in the post published “online” by Público, which Lusa accessed this Saturday.
But, he added, “that they do it in the papers, under the cover of anonymity, seems to me a deep cowardice that only hurts the PSD”.
The PSD party leader denied that his wife, “who has never had anything to do with politics and has been a doctor in Santa Maria for more than twenty years”, was involved in this case.
“It is so base, vile and unworthy that whoever did it deserves my absolute contempt,” he concluded.
Last week, the parliamentary leader of the PSD told Lusa that the bank’s leadership had decided to withdraw a request – sent to the media hours earlier – asking for an urgent parliamentary hearing of the exonerated Director of the Obstetrics Department, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine of the Hospital Center Lisboa Norte (CHLN), Diogo Ayres de Campos and the board of directors of the same center.
Miranda Sarmento then justified the withdrawal of the request because it was “unprepared” to conduct auditions on the subject at the time.
On Friday, the online newspaper Observador reported an alleged conflict of interest denounced by PSD deputies, who were anonymous, as Miranda Sarmento’s wife worked in the department headed by Ayres de Campos.
In the clarification sent to the newspaper, which he also shared with the bank, Miranda Sarmento mentions that the woman “works in the gynecological service of Hospital de Santa Maria and reports directly only to the director of the gynecological service, Alexandre Valentim Lourenço (who reports directly to the board of directors)”, since such insinuations are without foundation.
This is another of a series of tension episodes between the bank – inherited from Rui Rio’s previous leadership – and the parliamentary leadership. At the group’s last meeting, on Thursday, Miranda Sarmento felt the need to “inform the delegates” in light of the news published in recent weeks about a possible early departure, assuring that he does not intend to to the European Parliament and intends to meet the deadline until July next year.
Also the president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, who has been in office for a year on Monday, reiterated in the weekly Expresso “maximum confidence” in the parliamentary leader he chose shortly after being inducted into Congresswho replaced Paulo Mota Pinto, elected three months earlier.
Source: DN
