The challenge is over: “Come and debate with me. And wherever you want: in the newspaper, on the radio, on television… CDS in a newspaper. Do you realize that only the CDS is not dead if there is another surprise coming or are you afraid of the debate, the face-to-face?”.
Nuno Melo criticizes the “delirium” of André Ventura, who says he is “certain” that “99% of the militants, structures [do CDS]are currently located in Chega, in the various district structures”.
“It’s hard to say this, but the CDS was completely swallowed up by Chega (…). For years, Chega was mainly fueled by militants like me, from the PSD. Today, everywhere I go, I ask people what they used to were part of the structure of Chega da Covilhã or Benavente and the answer I hear is: I was from the CDS,” said André Ventura in an interview with Sun.
The leader of the CDS, who reminds Ventura of the centrist “40,000 militants”, says his party has “many thousands, the vast majority of militants and I can even say a large proportion of the militants who have joined in recent times , militants who had left the CDS for Chega and have now returned, others who came from Chega because they want a partisan activity which in the CDS is a space of freedom”.
And that, among other things, is a “substantial difference,” he says. Because, Nuno Melo guarantees, “these militants come to the CDS because they know that in Chega, to be whatever they are in the local structures, they have to be nominated. In the CDS they can run for office, get elected and have a have free thought, often different from the party leader without negative consequences for them”. “And look: we are at a dinner, an inauguration in Leiria. You can count the number of militants who are here and how many structures they represent. We have a municipal congress and we gather almost 500 people, we hold an swearing-in ceremony on a Monday, in Lisbon , and we have more than 300 people, we hold a swearing-in here, in Leiria, and we have about 200 people. CDS is very mobilized, “he assures.
The “political” astonishment, he confesses, is that Ventura was “the big influence [na entrevista ao SOL] of evangelical Protestants in the party and ongoing act says the CDS has been swallowed up by Chega. What I have to say to André Ventura is that Enough will be swallowed by the IURD much sooner than the CDS will ever be swallowed by Chega.”
In the interview, André Ventura revealed that “the evangelicals are a very important presence in Chega today” and that “one of the great political goals” he has “is to integrate the whole evangelical community in Chega in the near future”.
“We have welcomed many Brazilian immigrants who identify with Chega and who join Chega in making a political welcome here (…) the evangelical community has helped a lot,” he said.
Nuno Melo, underlining the “swallowing of Chega by the IURD”, argues that with the departure of the CDS, an “ideological and programmatic void” has emerged in parliament and that neither Chega nor the Liberal Initiative is occupying that political space, that “political dimension”.
“The CDS does not have a dogmatic and central vision of the market like IL, which is very close to BE and PS in social terms, nor is it a pure and hard protest party with no idea for Portugal like Chega. They have an idea for Portugal that they surprise. Look, for example, that of 125 euros subsidy to every Portuguese, every month, throughout the year 2023, guaranteeing a larger hole than the budget of the SNS. And the subsidy dependence of the rich, poor, rich, whoever it is was,” he explains.
And the difference? “It’s simple,” says Nuno Melo. “The CDS is the faithful link between the market, which we defend, and social interests. That is what the CDS is. And that is not in parliament. Neither in Chega nor in IL. We put the person at the center of our political action, but seeing the benefits of the market as the best tool to lift people out of poverty”reacts.
Source: DN
