Friends of Mário Soares sent a letter to the Prime Minister earlier this week with the aim of getting António Costa to decide to purchase a statue of the former head of government and President of the Republic so that it can be placed in the gardens of the Palacete de São Benedictus .
“The statue should cost about twenty, thirty thousand euros. That was the question we also asked the sculptor”, Vítor Ramalho explained to DN, the Secretary General of the Union of Portuguese-Speaking Capitals (UCCLA), from whom the initiative came, together with one of the founders of the PS, António Campos. The aim of the petition, as described in the document sent to Costa, is for the statue “to be acquired by the state and placed in the gardens of the Palacete de São Bento”, the official residence of the Prime Minister. However, at the end of the text there is a guarantee that signatories are available to purchase the work, through a “public subscription”, and offer it “to the State for the above-mentioned purpose”.
The work, in which Mário Soares sits on a chair and consists of words related to the establishment of democracy in Portugal, such as freedom, history, friendship or revolution, was created by the artist Leonel Moura, linked to robotics, based on digitalization . According to the letter sent to António Costa, which DN had access to, the statue as a whole is 2.6 meters high by two meters wide and three meters deep. It weighs 120 kilos and is made of “fiber and resin”, with protection against sunlight, and has a metal structure on the inside. It is currently stored in the artist’s warehouse, in Vila Franca de Xira.
The idea, set out in the letter to the Prime Minister, is to celebrate Mário Soares’ centenary, which in 2024 will coincide with the 50th anniversary of April 25. “Why the Palacete de São Bento” as a place where the work should be exhibited, asks Vítor Ramalho, explaining at the same time that “Mário Soares was the first Prime Minister to be sworn in after the adoption of the 1976 Democratic Constitution. That’s why it was there, at the Palacete de São Bento, where he served his first and second terms,” he explains.
Not just in the socialist spectrum
“Mário Soares is above all a symbol of freedom in Portugal”says DN António Campos. “And many of his friends are not socialists. Fortunately, he had friends in all political areas. We also made sure that we did not create a petition from socialists, but from friends and admirers of Mário Soares, including other political factions.”adds the founder of the PS, who cannot avoid admitting that he “has always had a very brotherly bond, before and after April 25”, with the also former head of state.
Among the personalities included in the petition are current members of the State Council, such as the poet Manuel Alegre or the neuroscientist António Damásio. However, in addition to several names linked to the PS, PSD founder Mota Amaral or CDS founder Basílio Horta appear. Although Mário Soares often described himself as “socialist, republican and secular”, he gained friends among the Catholic Church, which, as António Campos says, led to Father Vítor Melícias signing the document, as well as Bishop Januário Torgal Ferreira.
In short, it is a group of friends who come together to invoke the name of the “political father of Portuguese democracy”, in the words of António Campos.
Symbol of democracy
Does this statue add anything, with part of the Campo Grande garden in Lisbon dedicated to the former Prime Minister? For Vítor Ramalho, the answer is affirmative. “There is a garden named after Mário Soares, but it went unnoticed by the population,” confirms the friend of the former president. “Therefore, this act is also symbolic, on the part of the subscribers, in the sense that it attracts the attention of the public. Because the garden did not have the public dimension and popular involvement that, in our opinion, these things should have And the centenary is the right time,” he emphasizes.
With a very emotional and sensitive argument for the figure of the former Prime Minister, Vítor Ramalho does not hide the admiration he feels for Mário Soares. ‘Democracy consists of people, of names, of symbols, which we must respect at the deepest level. I think we, the country, the Portuguese people owe a lot to Mário Soares. The fight against totalitarianism “. I say in the plural. Before April 25, after April 25, the consolidation of democracy, the struggle for a Constitution, the adoption of the Constitution. This really should not be forgotten. It is a soul that must be present and it is pedagogical”maintains.
Soares liked the image
“My bond with Mário Soares since 1963 has been virtually that of a brother. That is why I have a very strong bond with him,” admits António Campos, who met the former president “at a very young age.” But what is special about this statue, especially when there is already a garden and other tributes in Portuguese toponymy? For the founder of PS, the answer is obvious. “This statue is already old, because Mário Soares really liked this statue,” reveals António Campos. “I don’t know exactly what year it was made, I only know that Mário Soares really liked this statue. Knowing that he liked this statue, we took the initiative,” he explains.
Mário Soares, according to what António Campos and Vítor Ramalho told DN, will be honored by the foundation of the same name. And it will be through the foundation that several “institutional initiatives” will take place, probably from December 7, which marks the 99th anniversary of the politician’s birth. But what is at stake in this tribute is the fact that the friends were excluded “from the events that will take place next year”, explains António Campos. Thus, “these friends came together to address this petition to the Prime Minister,” he concludes.
Source: DN
