The President of the Assembly of the Republic warned on Tuesday that the time of any democratic institution must be respected without incident or fallout and that populist eagerness threatens to spread like a virus in the public space.
Augusto Santos Silva spoke at the April 25 formal memorial meeting in Parliament just before the last speech of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a speech he dedicated to the theme of political time in democracy and separation of forces .
“Here, in parliament, under the terms of the constitution promulgated in April, it is the heart of pluralistic representation and free debate, and the center of the dialectic between the government and the opposition. we are, internationally recognized as such”orphan.
Former Minister of State and Foreign Affairs pointed out that in democracy everything can be questioned, that “democratic time is transient, plastic, differentiated by nature” and that the regime has “mechanisms in place to prevent situations that become unsustainable from continuing”.
“But democratic time is also cyclical, it has a certain rhythm and duration. Andas the Assembly [da República] works, debates, inspects, informs, regulates; if the government develops and applies its policies, with varying degrees of accuracy, and enjoys parliamentary confidence; when the contradictions give way to the formation and confirmation of alternatives; whether sovereign bodies cooperate, respecting each other’s powers; if the problems of people and the country are innumerable, and it is the primary responsibility of the various decision makers to face them, then we must respect the times of each institution, without haste or haste,” he stated.
As Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa listened to him and after a prolonged ovation from PS deputies, Augusto Santos Silva argued that one should “prefer the slow breathing typical of a mature democracy to the panting typical of populist excitement, for the benefit of all”.
“Because if we all lose the day when we accept that political dynamics should be insensitive to needs and the social environment and guided solely by administrative and formal procedures, we will also all lose the day when we give up on making distinctions between local errors, even serious and protracted and systemic crises, and the day when we accept that the life of a parliament or a government – whatever they may be – depends on the degree of protest of this or that sector, on the favor of the published opinion, from the perception of the media, the noise on social networks or the evolution of the polls”, he stressed, again applauded by the PS.
In your speech, the President of the Assembly of the Republic advocated that “democracy encompasses several”.
“There is a time to analyze and a time to choose. There is a time to decide and another to execute. There is a time to execute and another to evaluate. Permanently subject to contradiction and debate, but also with the degrees of freedom that allow political actors to direct their action towards the common good, knowing that they are protected by duration, in the face of the demagogic demand of the realm of the moment, “he stressed.
According to Augusto Santos Silva, “time has been an essential feature of democratic collective life”, which for its purpose is “subject to the plurality and diversity of representations”.
“Transience is the basic element, nothing is eternal, nothing escapes usury, each context has its own moment. The republican logic sets limits to the continuous exercise of public functions, forces innovation. The choices are not necessarily final” , he stressed .
In this regard, he notes that the composition of parliaments “it varies with circumstances: those who are the majority today are the minority tomorrow, the opposition of today is the government tomorrow”. “Programs, policies, teams, leaders, all this is short. In a democracy, therefore, time is a passage. It is also of great plasticity. Sometimes it speeds up, other times it slows down”, orphan.
Another structural feature of democratic times, from the perspective of the President of the Assembly of the Republic, “is cyclicality”.
“The basic political choice, which is suffrage, determines who represents and who governs, with what program, obeys criteria of periodicity and duration. Election is periodic because no power is eternal, and the will of the people must be regularly checked example: parliamentary elections take place every four years, determine the composition of the parliament and from this composition – and only from this composition – governments and oppositions are formed,” he stressed.
For the former minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Affairs, “time takes time, and that is essential in a democracy”. And he explained why: “To implement programs, apply policies and evaluate results, to conduct inspection and present and discuss various proposals, to prepare and mature new programs, key players and coalitions, so that the people, thus informed , can, compare and choose at the right time”.
“Political times are different; and the fact that the different organs of sovereignty and other institutions are guided by different temporalities is one of the ingredients of the structure of powers and balances on which democracy rests. The rhythm of politics, therefore, cannot be confused with the cadence of other relevant actors in the public space, such as social actors, the media or economic interests, should not be subordinated to it,” he warned.
On the contrary, “political time is not indifferent to the complex and contradictory pulse of society; but it is the democratic institutionality that guides its progress, and its main basis is the periodic, free and sovereign choice of citizens”
“None of this is new, but maybe it’s good to remind you. Here and now,” emphasized Augusto Santos Silva.
Source: DN
