Augusto Santos Silva said on Friday that if Chega considered him president of his deputies it would be “a stain” on his CV, after party representatives again used the “president of some banks” formula.
During a plenary debate, Chega deputy Rita Matias asked to question the table about the implementation of the work, with Augusto Santos Silva emphasizing that he could only do this if he adopted the formula “Mr. President” or “Mr. President of the General Meeting” would use. of the Republic”, and not “Mr. President of some banks”, as the Chega parliamentary group recently did.
“In these terms I will not intervene because I do not accept being censored”Rita Matias replied.
The situation caused tensions in the meeting room, with Chega’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, accusing Santos Silva of “not taking off his PS shirt” and disrespecting Rita Matias, reiterating that his party does not consider him its president .
In response, Santos Silva said that he was elected by the vote of 156 deputies and is “chairman of all deputies, including the deputies of Chega” and that, in the eyes of everyone, he is fulfilling his obligations.
However, regarding the phrase “president of some banks”, Santos Silva asked Chega delegates to “not be shy”, stressing that the party has posters in the country, and some in parliament, suggesting “the physical elimination of its political leaders’. opponents” and André Ventura called the Republic a “brothel of villains” in an article.
“Imagine what it would be like if this bank considered me president. What a blemish that would be on my resume.”he said.
This moment of tension arose after the sole deputy of the PAN, Inês Sousa Real, believed that the President of the Assembly of the Republic should have interrupted an intervention by Rita Matias during a debate on two government bills in the field of sport, arguing that the content of the deputy’s speech did not fit the topic of the debate and contained xenophobic and homophobic messages.
In this intervention, Rita Matias had begun to address the flight of citizens from communist countries to the West in the second half of the 21st century, arguing that, faced with the ‘failure’ of the communist model, ‘Marxist academics’ now tried to “defeat the West” through culture.
He then addressed the participation of international transgender athletes in competitions, claiming it tampered with sporting results and “humiliated and harmed women”, and then accused the government of opening the “door to harassment and rape” to have opened schools through mixed changing rooms.
Responding to Inês Sousa Real, Augusto Santos Silva said that he had not used his prerogative to interrupt Rita Matias’ intervention as he “humbly confessed that he was unable to follow the reasoning expressed”.
“What was said so exceeds my intellectual, affective and emotional inability to follow any argument that I have limited myself to waiting for the clock to tick by and the speaker in question to finally shut up”he said.
At the end of the debate, the Secretary of State for Youth and Sports, João Paulo Correia, considered that Rita Matias’ intervention was “not able to cite cases that have occurred in Portugal” and, citing international cases, constructed a “fable about Portuguese sport”. , launching atrocities that the industry rejects.”
Source: DN
