Speaking in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, in Guarda, Luís Montenegro, after visiting a sheep and cattle breeder and participating in a meeting with farmers, within the framework of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, reacted to the statements of Augusto Santos Silva in the new ‘podcast’ by the PS parliamentary group which suggested that there was complicity between the PSD and Chega.
For the president of the PSD, Santos Silva reverts to his status as an inveterate socialist and looks at himself in the mirror, because objectively he is the biggest political supporter, the biggest political accomplice of Chega, with all the episodes that will accumulate in parliament, precisely to praise Chega’s role”.
The parliament speaker and former foreign minister “decided to return to that version of ‘pushing’ others,” he charged. “That’s what the two statements essentially mean. I take note,” he added.
The Social Democratic leader did not mince words, even suggesting that Santos Silva is “trying to carve out a space within the Portuguese left in order to have a springboard for another political adventure”, in reference to a presidential candidacy from 2026.
“What I can say and register is that Doctor Santos Silva wants to ‘turn the beak to the nail’. Chega’s accomplice in this country is the PS and it is Doctor Santos Silva in particular,” he insisted.
Luís Montenegro, on the other hand, tried to sidestep the issue of a possible future understanding between the PSD and Chega and the challenge of that party’s leader, André Ventura, for an agreement allowing the PSD to withdraw from the government.
“The PSD is the government’s alternative to the Socialist Party and will not lose focus on that goal. I am here to be prime minister. And I am here to win voters for Chega, the Liberal Initiative, the PS. The Communist Party and the Bloc I don’t have much hope. I must confess, I am more realistic in this area,” he said.
The Social Democratic leader also believed that the question of agreements between the PSD and Chega only interests the Socialists and the Prime Minister.
“I am here to be an alternative to the PS. I am not here to be distracted by the conversations that interest the PS, Dr. Santos Silva, Dr. António Costa and all those acolytes who today accompany these two figures, Prime Minister and President of the Assembly of the Republic, in the PS,” he stressed.
In the “podcast” of the PS group, which was broadcast today, Augusto Santos Silva denies that he supports Chega when he has direct debates with that party and accuses the PSD of complicity with André Ventura.
“Whoever criticizes, who fights, who stands in the way, is an accomplice?” asked Santos Silva, in an allusion to the current leadership of the PSD.
Source: DN
