If writer Lídia Jorge had not left the meeting (in which she participated via videoconference) to receive an award before the final vote, there would have been a majority against the dissolution in the State Council on Thursday (9-8), which would have decision would further isolate in the opposite direction that the President of the Republic took: dissolving Parliament after the final approval of OE2024 and scheduling parliamentary elections on March 10.
So in yet another absence (which DN could not identify) the 18 members of the State Council remained at 16 and the score was 8-8. Among the eight votes against the dissolution were apparently those of the four party activists present in the State Council (Costa, Carlos César, Augusto Santos Silva and Manuel Alegre), but also, according to DN, the former President of the Republic. Ramalho Eanes, and also the President of the Constitutional Court, José João Abrantes.
It was the President of the Republic himself who revealed this Thursday, after the meeting, that there had been a draw in the (non-binding) consultation in which the State Council had to participate. Once this equality was established, responsibility for the final decision was assumed 100% by the President of the Republic. “[Convoco as eleições] after listening to the parties with seats in parliament and the State Council, as required by the Constitution. The first, clearly beneficial. The second with a draw. Therefore, not in favor of dissolution. A situation that had already occurred in the past, with other heads of state. I therefore did this by my own decision in the exercise of a power conferred by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic,” the President said in the communication to the country issued after the meeting.
“I would like to emphasize the sublimity of this gesture and the corresponding communication to the Portuguese. I would also like to testify to the service to the public good for decades, especially in the long and very demanding years of overcoming the excessive deficit, cleaning up the banks.” -up, pandemic and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, at the head of the government of Portugal.”
The aforementioned context shows how the PS strongly urged the State Council to defend the position that the crisis caused by the resignation of António Costa could not be resolved with early elections, but with the appointment of a new government with a new Prime Minister appointed by the PS and still within the framework of the current parliamentary majority. Costa promised to defend this solution and put a name on the table: Mário Centeno, Governor of the Central Bank, who not only called on his governmental experience (as Minister of Finance), but also on his international experience (he was President of the Eurogroup, the EU body that unites the euro countries). The Prime Minister, who was still in office, was joined by other socialists and one of the arguments used was that, in the context of international instability, this solution would be the most stable for the country – arguments he adopted after the Council of State would come back. State, upon arrival at the PS headquarters for a meeting of the party’s Political Committee.
Push for justice
After the Council of State, Marcelo began his communication to the country, starting by emphasizing the unprecedented nature of this situation: “For the first time in a democracy, a serving Prime Minister found out, as part of the procedures related to the ongoing investigation, involving third parties, some are collaborators, others are not, which would be the subject of an autonomous process, to be conducted under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.” And then he fully praised António Costa, both for the way he carried out his mandate as Prime Minister and for the way he decided to resign on Tuesday, after learning of his involvement in the criminal investigation: “I want to emphasize I also want to witness the service to the public interest, for decades, especially in the long and very demanding years of overcoming the excessive deficit, banking restructuring, the pandemic and the wars in Ukraine. and the Middle East, at the head of the government of Portugal.” At the end of these references he put pressure on the legal system: “I hope that time, faster rather than slow, will allow us to clarify what happened, while respecting the presumption of innocence, safeguarding the good name, affirming justice and strengthening the rule of law. The state of democratic law.”
‘Don’t be afraid of the people’
Marcelo revealed in the communication the five reasons that led him – as he had expected for several days – to dissolve Parliament (in other words: to call early elections) and to do this pending Parliament’s approval of the state budget at the end of the month. the month 2024.
He invoked “the nature of the vote in the 2022 elections, personalized for the Prime Minister, based on his own leadership, candidacy, election campaign and overwhelming victory” (an argument that Costa furthermore rejects, saying that the ballot paper reads “ the small hand of the PS and not the face of António Costa”). Then the “weakness of the formation of a new government with the same majority, but with a different Prime Minister, who is therefore not politically and personally legitimized by the popular vote”. And yet “the risk has already been seen in the past [referência à sucessão de Durão por Santana em 2005]of this weakness which only resulted in a postponement of the dissolution until a worse time”, since it would be “a presidential government, that is to say supported by the President of the Republic” and with “the President of the Republic as a partisan party” .inspirator,” ending with “anything that weakens the presidential role.”
The other two reasons were “the guarantee of the indispensable economic and social stability provided by the prior vote on the 2024 state budget, even before the resignation of the current Prime Minister is formalized in early December”, with the approval of the budget “satisfactory to the expectations of many Portuguese and follows the implementation of the PRR, which does not stop, and cannot stop, with the transition from government to management government, or later with the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic “and also a” larger clarity and more powerful leadership to overcome an unexpected void, which surprised and disturbed so many Portuguese people, who loved, who found themselves after eight years of uninterrupted government leadership, that is to say, making the say back to the people” and to do so “without dramatization or fear” because “that is the power of democracy: not being afraid of the people.”
Galamba on the rope
After the Council of State, Costa went to the PS headquarters. Upon arrival, questioned by journalists, he confirmed that he had appointed Mário Centeno as head of a new PS government.
At the same time, in response to a question, he indicated that João Galamba will take the place as Minister of Infrastructure – and now accused in the trial “Influencer” – it may take days to stop: “Please talk to the President of the Republic about this matter..”
Source: DN
