“Impartial, siding with Parliament as a whole, and unifying”: this is the description of Augusto Santos Silva’s presidency at the head of Parliament, made by himself.
During a press conference at the Assembly of the Republic this Tuesday, Augusto Santos Silva took stock of the legislative session that began on March 29 last year and will end in September next year – despite the fact that legislative activities have already ended. And, questioned about his mandate, the President of the Assembly of the Republic was confident in what was happening, even if there were some controversies – especially with Chega. “I have tried to exercise a restrained presidency, never using all the tools the Rules of Procedure give me; impartial, taking sides with Parliament as a whole; and unifying, trying to unite political forces around the so-called common basis of democracy,” he said. This “common basis of democracy”, according to Santos Silva, includes “all political views” and “all political currents can be represented and in which the word is completely free”.
Despite several episodes in which Santos Silva reprimanded members of Chega (the most mediumistic perhaps during Lula da Silva’s visit on April 25), the former foreign minister rejected the idea that this was the biggest challenge since the election. “My greatest challenge was to fulfill the powers that the Rules of Procedure and the Constitution confer on me, which are very important, the exercise of which requires a lot of attention and a sense of balance. And try to live up to the expectations for which I was elected,” he said, recalling that in addition to the Socialist Party deputies – who had proposed him for the presidency – there were more parliamentarians who voted for him. the president of the Assembly of the Republic said he does not believe “in life sentences”. “It did not guarantee that this parliamentary group, when traveling abroad, would be able to represent the country, taking into account the tradition of education, courtesy and respect that characterizes Portuguese foreign policy. Let’s see how things evolve. we all evolvehe claimed.
In response, André Ventura accused Santos Silva of “discretionary use of power”. “If we had to take stock of nearly two years of Augusto Santos Silva’s work at the head of Parliament, the balance would be of the discretionary use of power, arbitrariness, unequal treatment between banks and a sense of belonging to the Assembly of the Republic that we neither understand nor can accept,” said Chega’s leader, who stressed that he still does not want to have “outside the institutional, another type of relationship with the president of the Assembly of the Republic”.
unpublished balance sheet
This type of swing has never happened before. This Tuesday, Augusto Santos Silva stressed that during the second longest session ever (surpassed only by the first of the X Legislature), more than 84% of diplomas awarded were approved with the favorable votes of more than one parliamentary group.
During this legislature, 106 diplomas were approved: 52 from the government, 53 from parliamentary groups and 1 citizens’ initiative, according to the report circulated to the media. Data was collected up to July 20.
Source: DN
