Historic socialist leader Manuel Alegre confessed in a conversation with the podcast of the party, predicting that “António Costa is António Costa’s successor”.
“I regret the second candidacy for the presidency of the Republic, not the first,” the former socialist leader said in response to the socialist parliamentary group’s podcast, “Has the floor,” to be released on Tuesday.
Manuel Alegre believed that he “probably would have won the 2005 presidential election”, won by Aníbal Cavaco Silva, if he had not been furious with his friend Mário Soares, who returned to run for Belém, supported by the PS, then led by José Socrates.
But “what goes there, there goes” and the anger lasted until Mário Soares called him one day to say: “What goes there, there goes”. “So we started as dear friends and ended as dear friends.”
For the former candidate for Belém, if he were alive, Soares would “say good and unpleasant things”, but that “the PS and the country must hear”.
Regarding the current president, Manuel Alegre defended that “he has a very intervening role, sometimes good, calming, sometimes complicating”, pointing out that “the Socialist Party has been very careful, as institutional cooperation is important for stability”.
As for the scenario of the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and the call for early parliamentary elections, again, the former leader of the PS understands that this will not happen.
“The president of the republic has not questioned the stability, he just makes too many comments, that’s a fact. He makes too many comments and these comments later give rise to speculation, but he said very clearly that it was not . in his mind or will to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic”, he said.
Alegre also believed that “regardless of some mistakes made and other episodes about which much has been said”, the PS has “reason to be proud of what it has done over the past seven years”, because in addition to upholding the “public accounts right “, approved “important laws”, namely the basic laws on health, housing and climate.
“It contributes to changing society,” he says, bringing “substantial improvements” to the lives of the Portuguese.
Manuel Alegre focused on far-right populism, from Hungary to the United States, through Israel, noting that “in the past democracy was overthrown with tanks, machine guns and troops in the streets, now this deconstruction is happening from within”.
“Democracy has not been completely liquidated, but it is no longer full democracy. And some want that in Portugal as well”, he said, with a clear reference to the parliamentary far right and the enemies of the democratic regime.
Source: DN
