PS leadership candidate José Luís Carneiro defended that the partners on the left decided to “overthrow the government” in 2021, despite the efforts of the Socialists, and called on people not to “have illusions” about these agreements after 2019.
In a speech to PS activists in the municipality of Loures, José Luís Carneiro recalled on Thursday that Prime Minister António Costa in 2015 “cut ties that prevented dialogue” with parties to the left of the PS. a reference to the composition of the ‘device’.
“We did it because we had the autonomy to do so. (…) But we should not fool ourselves: the political scope of this parliamentary support between 2015 and 2019 was different from what happened after the 2019 elections,” he noted.
Carneiro emphasized that “it is important to have a memory” and underlined that after the 2019 parliamentary elections – which the PS won, but without gaining an absolute majority – “António Costa did everything he could to find a balance between find solutions” with its partners on the left, “without naturally endangering stability and correct accounts”.
He made an attempt ‘to meet the demands of this parliamentary political support. (…) All this effort was not worth it, because our partners with political support in parliament had already decided that they wanted to overthrow the government,” he said. said, referring to the leadership, in 2021, of the 2022 state budget.
José Luís Carneiro also returned to the 2020 supplementary budget – approved with a positive vote from the PS, an abstention from BE and a vote against from PCP and PEV – to recall once again that the left partners ‘wanted to break with the wants to support the socialists.
“No [o fizeram] because they wanted to serve the country, but because they understood that they were losing their electoral base. This is called a sense of political opportunism and not service to the state,” he criticized.
In this speech, Carneiro argued that the Portuguese “trust the PS as the great” democratic party that is able “with its strategic autonomy” to enter into a dialogue with the parties to its left, “namely in the field of social development, the social functions of the PS”. the state”, but also to “build bridges of dialogue” to “meet the challenges that require a reformist vision of the country, society and the national economy”.
The candidate for the post of Secretary General of the PS believed that the country will face “complex challenges” in the future, noting that there is a war going on in Ukraine and a war in the Middle East , and warned of “serious moments of polarization” arising, they live in Western societies such as the United States, Brazil, Argentina or the Netherlands.
“We are not immune to this polarization and extremism of societies and there is something I am deeply convinced of: we need transformational leaders, but who build bridges and are able to promote dialogue between democratic forces to prevent this excessive polarization and radicalization ‘to loosen’. of societies,” he insisted.
According to Carneiro, if the PS fails to promote “this dialogue, this cooperation, this concentration, and the demonization of other democrats who are in other political spaces,” it will contribute to extremism “gaining space in the national political life and may pose a threat to extremism.” democratic values.”
“This is what, from my point of view, we are also talking about in these elections: the PS must be a guarantor in the fight against the extreme right, but in the fight against the extreme right for the confirmation of its democratic values, for its special ability to to build bridges and dialogue,” he said.
Source: DN
