Worse than that, I saw it here with the local authorities.” Worse? “And I’m totally comfortable. I don’t have any problem. In the last city councils I saw people from the PS pay to let delinquents and drug addicts vote at the exit of the PS polls”. Pay? “Cash and make offers to go there and cast votes”. We didn’t have to complain to submit.”
This accusation by Pedro Calado in statements to DN, published on January 22 in the report The “mistakes” and “fears”, the “drug addicts paid” to vote and the leader who did not want to be a “candidate for president”“, which contradicted, as he said at the time, “suspicions” and “attempts to destabilize the PS” (accusations of “lack of freedom”, “perversions”, “addictions” or that, for example, “a [os do PSD] get people out of their homes and they already came with a clear voting instruction”), outraged the PS/Madeira, which will file a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecution Service this week, “for defamation” against the mayor of Funchal.
Regarding this new process, Pedro Calado, contacted by DN, said, “have nothing to add”.
Sérgio Goncalves, leader of PS/Madeira, believes so “The statements recently made to DN are unacceptable and do not correspond to the truth. They are even more serious, as expressed again by the man himself, when he has already been named as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Coligação Confiança. Silently, trying to justify himself as it suits him at the moment.
“We have impeccable behavior that we are proud of and we will not let such statements go unpunished,” he guarantees.
The Public Prosecution Service, from the message to which the DN had access, after the declaration of the first case, “understands that there is sufficient evidence that the defendant Pedro Miguel Calado made the statements mentioned in the complaint and committed the crime”.
About this fact that Pedro Calado was made an arguido, quoted a source from the municipality of Funchal Daily [Diário de Notícias da Madeira]admits that on August 30, 2021, there was an “argument between the Confiança coalition, led by the PS, and the PSD/CDS coalition” about “vote buying”.
Supports this source at the time, “no complaints” were filed because they were “statements in the heat of the election campaign”
In statements to DN, on January 22 this year, the explanation was different. “We did not file a complaint because we won the election with a majority. We didn’t have to complain.”said the mayor of Funchal.
In the aforementioned statements, on August 30, 2021, Calado assured that “we have already denounced this in the right cases. And we keep reporting. We have concrete evidence and testimonials that this is happening”.
The mayor of Funchal is quoted – in the private accusation now withdrawn and delivered today, following the MP’s message – accusing the socialists of “the recurrent practice of trying to buy votes (…), an attempt to take advantage of people with economic difficulties”.
Two sentences stand out in the indictment. The first refers to votes bought for “20, 30 and 40 euros”: “If you want to talk about lies, let’s denounce once again the practice that occurs again and again among candidates in the Confiança coalition to try voices of people who have financial problems today, tempting them with 20, 30 and 40 euros, this is a crime”.
In the second quoted sentence, Calado elaborates on how, he guarantees, the PS controlled the votes: “For the candidate, this attempt to abuse people in economic difficulties to buy votes, which is done by means of a photo of the way in which they have placed the cross on the ballot paper, so that the Foundation can award a certain amount later”.
Source: DN
