On Tuesday, Parliament approved Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s visit to Qatar to watch the Portuguese team’s opening match at the World Cup, but with a few 19 votes against, ranging from the Liberal Initiative to the BE, through four deputies from the Socialist Bank, and by the Free and PAN MPs🇧🇷 Due to its scope, it is the most divisive vote of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s mandate, although a previous trip to Angola has already brought the head of state 21 votes against, then concentrated in the banks of IL and Chega.
Once the vote was set, Marcelo responded by stating that Portugal “has diplomatic relations with most states in the world”, many of which are “not democratic”. And he assured again that he will not forget the human rights issue: “After tomorrow [quinta-feira] I will talk about human rights in Qatar”. Regarding the vote in the Assembly of the Republic, Marcelo admitted that “there was a political consideration”. “It had already been there in previous votes. I had already traveled to several countries with votes against, because there was the idea, of the minority voters against, that because they are not democracies, there was no point in going there or that any contact would be a legitimation,” Marcelo insisted, emphasizing that “this is not the orientation of Portuguese foreign policy”🇧🇷 “The COP has just been scheduled [Conferência do Clima das Nações Unidas] next year to the United Arab Emirates. It took place this year in Egypt. They have regimes very different from ours and this has happened systematically in international meetings,” said Marcelo, arguing that it is “the only way for democracies to talk about world problems with non-democracies.” stated that “Qatar does not respect human rights”, but asked to focus on the selection: “Anyway, let’s forget about this. It’s reprehensible, but let’s focus on the team.” A statement that met with criticism.
Angola also distributes delegates… sometimes
The mandatory permission of the Assembly of the Republic for the head of state to travel abroad is enshrined in the constitution. And with a very heavy penalty in case of non-compliance – nothing less than the loss of presidential mandate. This authorization is usually an institutional formality: the vast majority of trips are approved unanimously and never in the history of democracy has a president of the republic’s trip been blocked by deputies. It didn’t even come close to that.
Yet this is not the first divisive journey of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s term. It is enough to go back to September to find two presidential trips that did not receive full approval in the Assembly of the Republic – both to Angola. Voted after the return of the President of the Republic, Marcelo’s presence at the state funeral of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos was voted against by IL and BE and the abstinence of the PAN. The presence of the Portuguese head of state at the inauguration of the re-elected Angolan president João Lourenço – about two weeks after the previous visit to Luanda – did not win the unanimity of the delegates. In this case, the trip received the unfavorable votes of the Liberal Initiative and Chega (21 votes against), and the abstentions of BE and PAN.
Voices that will be explained more by the specific event that motivated the trip, as highlighted by the fact that other trips to Angola deserved the consensus of the hemisphere: Marcelo was in Angola in July 2021 to participate in the XIII Conference of Heads of State and Government of CPLP, a trip unanimously approved; in November of the same year also received another trip to Luanda, to then participate in the Luanda Biennial “Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace”, full agreement.
The examples mentioned this Tuesday by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa are on the list of trips approved by the Assembly of the Republic. The current president of the republic has already been to Egypt, on a trip that has received positive reviews from all banks. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, we have to go back to 2014, when Cavaco Silva traveled to the country on an official visit, also with the approval of the entire hemicycle.
World Cup, a “geopolitical tool”
In an explanation of vote, Rodrigo Saraiva, parliamentary leader of IL, defended in parliament that “this world championship is being used by the Qatari regime as a geopolitical tool to gain international confirmation of a credibility it lacks”. That’s what the blogger José Soeiro insisted “no sovereign body” may be present at this World Cup, legitimizing a regime that commits “repeated and appalling violations of human rights”.
On the contrary, the party leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, maintained that “Parliament is not constituted to endorse the political options for travel and international relations of the President of the Republic”. On the PS bench, deputies Pedro Delgado Alves, Isabel Moreira, Alexandra Leitão and Carla Miranda voted against the trip. In the PSD, deputies Hugo Carneiro, António Topa Gomes and Fátima Ramos abstained. The socialists Maria João Castro, Miguel Rodrigues and Eduardo Alves did the same.
In addition to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Prime Minister will also be present in Qatar.
Source: DN
