“The PSD called for a vote on a vice president of the Assembly of the Republic in a far-right party. (…) We cannot leave it unnoticed, because what we saw this week in the Assembly of the Republic was a procession from the PSD to a far-right party”accused Joao Torres.
The deputy secretary-general of the PS spoke in Mangualde, at the end of the presentation ceremony of the Jorge Coelho Academy, recalling that this call to vote “has resulted in totally contradictory statements from the leader of that party and the Social Democratic leader, Dr.”.
“It was very helpful for us Portuguese to understand what kind of strategy or alliance the PSD is trying to plan, trying to design with a far-right party,” challenged João Torres.
João Torres stated that, for the PS, “maintaining democratic values, especially in a context where they are threatened in so many regions, and increasingly threatened, is no small task”.
In this sense, he defended that “it is an absolutely fundamental and essential task for all socialists, because the preservation and protection of democratic values is perhaps the first responsibility as militants, leaders and political leaders in Portugal”.
“And this approach by the PSD to Chega, which actually existed weakly, but was hidden during the parliamentary election campaign, and which is proving to be increasingly apparent today, deserves not only an effective indictment, but also an energetic action on the part of all PS militants,” he assumed.
This is because, for the PS, “there is a very clear red line between parties that defend the Constitution, that believe in liberal democracies, and party political formations that see liberal democracies as a negative aspect”.
“And that in fact with their action they are trying to deteriorate liberal democracies such as the one we live in Portugal. (…) With us they will not succeed, with the PS the extreme right will not pass in Portugal,” he assumed.
João Torres devoted much of his speech to defending the measures taken by the government because of inflation, insisting on the issue of pensions: “They will be higher in 2023 than in 2022 and in 2024 they will be higher than in 2023”.
“Of course we can ask ourselves if we want even stronger support, but caution is important at the moment because if we also learn anything from the ‘troika’ crisis, then it is that budgetary rigor (…) is absolutely essential” he defended.
This, “so that in moments of greater turmoil in the international financial context, the PS is protected from any speculative attack or even against any situation of greater vulnerability that could lead to a circumstance like the one” that is currently going through.
The Minister of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, who spoke at the last panel of the afternoon, organized by the Socialist Youth of Mangualde, to present the academy and pay tribute to Jorge Coelho, led by the same state of prudence and ” financial equilibrium”.
For more than half an hour he presented the measures taken by the socialist government since 2015 and more specifically in recent months as a result of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and now the war that is being lived in Europe, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The truth is that we have managed to resist the temptation that the sense of urgency, which is very important in politics, does not also overlap with the more structural transformation we need to make,” the minister emphasized.
In an afternoon paying tribute to the former politician born in Mangualde, who took office in April 2021, Mariana Vieira da Silva explained the government’s work based on “three lessons from Jorge Coelho: capacity for mobilization, cohesion and capacity to execute”.
Source: DN
