The president of the republic defended on Wednesday that promoting democracy is a collective mission and that “there is a path for everyone”, going back to Portugal a hundred years ago to warn of the danger of dictatorships.
In an 11-minute speech, at the ceremony commemorating the 112th anniversary of the Implantation of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke of governments that “almost always tend to think of themselves as eternal” and of contradictions “almost always irritated by waiting”, and then affirms that “nothing is eternal” and that “democracy is by nature the domain of the alternative, its own or someone else’s”.
“We know how mistakes, omissions, incompetence, inefficiencies in democracy weaken and kill it. We know how dictatorships begin, what they are and what they last, and how hard it is to restore democracy after them,” he said.
“And because we have today and know what we didn’t have and knew in 1922, we know that there is a path for all of us within democracy. And that it depends on us alone, even in a post-pandemic world and on war, not just to be very different from the Portugal of 1922, but to be better than us every day and better in the future,” the head of state continued.
Speaking after the mayor of Lisbon, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa pointed to the “discontent, indignation, demands for much more and better” referred to by Carlos Moedas as a “sign of the power of democracy”.
“It is something that is impossible in dictatorships, where there are unique truths and only one or a few of their owners. Critical demand is healthy. Because in democracy it is up to everyone to take it forward, not stagnate or back down resigned,” he defended.
The president of the republic added that “there are always more realities in democracy, more solutions, more energy for change than those that seem to exist at any moment” and that is celebrated on October 5, “by lucky coincidence, Teacher’s Day, education and the future”.
“We celebrate freedom, we celebrate democracy, we celebrate the Republic. We celebrate three realities that did not exist in 1922. And it is the three that give us the certainty that history will never end. Build and rebuild this history, day after day, thinking of the Portuguese,” he concluded, exclaiming “long live the Republic, long live democracy, long live freedom, long live Portugal”.
Source: DN
