Chega’s parliamentary leader assumed this Saturday at the National Convention in Santarém that the party is available to negotiate but will not “sell out” to the PSD.
Pedro Pinto referred to the party’s rise in the polls to say it was “clear as water” that “there will be no government in Portugal without Chega” but that this “will not be sold to the PSD”.
“The PSD cannot think that Chega will be sold. We will not lose our flags, our DNA, we will negotiate, yes. Now that it is well written, we will never sell,” he stated.
In the political interventions, which took place before the presentation of André Ventura’s candidacy for the leadership of the party, Diogo Pacheco Amorim, member of the board and one of Chega’s strategists, also went to the tribune to guarantee that Chega would not make any ” thingy” from the right, in an allusion to the name by which the PS government solution with parliamentary support from the BE, PCP and PEV was known between 2015 and 2021.
“We are not going to get involved in any new right-wing ‘thing’. Let’s be clear: we are not and will not be gatekeepers of the Liberal Initiative. We will be in government with the portfolios we understand are needed,” he stressed .
Earlier, António Tânger Correia, first vice-president of Chega, prioritized the elections for the Autonomous Region of Madeira (this year) and especially for the European Parliament (in 2024), stating that the party might have “the best result ever”.
Tânger Correia spoke much longer than the three minutes allotted for each intervention (almost 12 minutes), stressing that in the European Union “every voice counts” and that they allow the party to assert itself internationally.
“Chega must be someone on an international level. A great party is only great if it has an international presence” and in Europe “Chega’s voice must be heard,” he said, assuring that the party has “capable people” to represent the Portuguese “as the others don’t”.
In the various interventions, statements were heard against the “wave of historical revisionism” from the “right-thinking left”, in defense of the armed forces or teachers, or about the party’s identification with André Ventura or the absence of internal opposition.
A militant called André the “real antivirus” against vested interests.
Fernando Pedroso lamented that Chega is the target of “political harassment” by other parties, as well as “by internal opponents”, who are “increasingly isolated in self-made conspiracies because they lack the support of the majority of the party”.
“One day we will win and one day we will eat the ‘chuchalista’ octopus,” said Luís Matias.
Until Sunday in Santarém, Chega will hold its V National Convention, marked after the rejection of the statutes by the Constitutional Court. However, the party decided to return to the original 2019 bylaws and modify the bodies, rather than changing them again this weekend.
Source: DN
