Lawyer and former PS leader António Vitorino assured on Tuesday that no one told him about a possible replacement for António Costa, following the prime minister’s resignation announced following the investigation involving him in the Operation Influencer case.
The name of António Vitorino was put forward by Expresso last Wednesday as one of the four hypotheses for the replacement of António Costa at the head of the government, avoiding the scenario of early elections, which would be planned by the President of the republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. , before March 10, 2024.
“No one has spoken to me,” the former European Commissioner told Lusa, on the sidelines of his hearing as a witness in the trial of the EDP case, at the Justice Campus, when asked about his inclusion among the names that António Costa presented to Marcelo. Rebelo de Sousa and which reportedly included the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, and the President of the PS, Carlos César.
This topic has already led to an exchange of statements between the Governor of the Bank of Portugal and the Presidency of the Republic, as Mário Centeno stated on Sunday in statements to the Financial Times newspaper that he had “received an invitation from the President and the Minister president to think and consider the possibility of leading the government.”
The President of the Republic subsequently denied in a note on the presidency’s website that he had made any invitation or authorized contact in this regard. On Monday morning, Mário Centeno made it clear in a statement that he had not been invited by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to lead the government.
On the other hand, António Vitorino refused to comment further on the political situation of the country or the internal dispute over the leadership of the Socialist Party, currently personified in the candidacies of the Minister of the Interior, José Luís Carneiro, and the former Minister of the Interior. of infrastructure Pedro Nuno Saints.
Operation Influencer was made public last Tuesday by the Public Prosecution Service, involved 42 searches and led to the arrest of five people: the now former Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Vítor Escária; advisor Diogo Lacerda Machado, friend of António Costa; the mayor of Sines, Nuno Mascarenhas; and the managers of the company Start Campus Afonso Salema and Rui Oliveira Neves.
The five detainees were finally released on Monday following a decision by the Central Criminal Court, which imposed only a bail of 150,000 euros and a ban on leaving the country for Diogo Lacerda Machado, also imposing the latter coercive measure. about Vítor Escária. In turn, the mayor and the two administrators were left with only some form of identity and place of residence.
There are a total of nine suspects in the case, including the now former Minister of Infrastructure João Galamba; the President of the Portuguese Environment Agency, Nuno Lacasta; the lawyer, former Secretary of State for Justice and former PS spokesman João Tiago Silveira; and the company Start Campus (which also received a deposit of 600,000 euros).
António Costa is the target of a parliamentary investigation at the Supreme Court after suspects in the trial investigating influencing the activities of a data center in Sines invoked his name for intervening to unblock proceedings.
The MP believes that the Prime Minister intervened in the approval of a diploma that was beneficial to the interests of the company Start Campus, responsible for the data center, according to the indictment. On the day of his dismissal, Costa refused to commit “any unlawful or offensive act.”
Source: DN
