Neither the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic nor the resignation of the government nor the “getting used to” announced by António Costa in an interview with Visão. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will do what “some popular people think sober”, in a recent conversation (which he spoke about a few days ago), advised him to do: “pulling your ears according to the circumstances” and “if you understand that it is fair to attract attention”, but “no elections now”.
The President of the Republic, who assumed “a fundamental disagreement with the prime minister” [no caso Galamba] and a “fundamental difference” on the “question of the political and administrative responsibility of those in charge” assured that it “be more attentive and intervene in daily life” to prevent “the appearance and increase of unstoppable and undesirable factors”.
Not to resort to dissolution, which would be “to add problems to those that the Portuguese already have at the moment”, and also because “the Portuguese don’t need these shocks, these stops, this waiting, in a time like this,” promised Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa ” to indicate , during these more than two and a half years, intensified everything that could remove the Portuguese from the government”.
And he identified “weaknesses” in governance causing “greater setbacks” in the life of the country than what he wants it is “to see the rulers solve their daily problems, the prices of food, the operation of schools, the speed of justice, the price of acquiring housing”.
“Despite some very positive numbers from our economy and support to families and businesses, this one large numbers have not yet reached the lives of most Portuguese. They expect and need more and better. They expect and need a political power that solves their problems better and better. This requires: competence, reliability, credibility, respectability, authority,” he warned.
And the “authority”, he insisted, “to exist, to be reliable, to be credible, to be respected, it must be responsible”. Conclusion? “Where there is no accountability – in politics or administration – there is no authority, no respect, no trust, no credibility.”
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, regretting that “this time” it was not possible to “hit the needle” with “it was always” in the past “with a greater or lesser temporal distance”, explained that the dismissal where he asked for, and defended, of the Minister of Infraestruturas was not based on “personal reasons or disputes between offices, which the constitution clearly distinguishes between them, in terms of absolute and relative institutional weight, but on reasons of national importance”.
The president of the republic assured to “continue to favor the guarantee of institutional stability” and left a warning to those who tried to weaken him and that “there are scenarios that appeal directly and directly or indirectly to an early popular vote imply.”: “You cannot count on me to create conflict or to grow attempts, in isolation or collectively, to weaken the presidential office by involving it in alleged institutional conflicts..
One target: João Galamba
Much of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s message was devoted, as if a policy lesson, to explaining why the Minister of Infrastructure “should have been acquitted”.
Three questions and three conclusions that go far beyond the Galamba case and serve as a warning because does not give up being “the last fuse”. to “ensure” that “governors really take their responsibility”.
“How can a minister not be responsible for an employee whom he has chosen in his closest team, in his office, to supervise, even if it is for information purposes in a file as sensitive as that of TAP, in which the Portuguese have already invested millions of euros, and earned so much confidence that he could attend closed meetings, prepare other meetings, these public ones, in the Assembly of the Republic?”; “How can this minister not be responsible for excessive, very bizarre, intolerable or deplorable situations – the words are not mine – raised by that employee, leading to appeals to the most sensitive services for the protection of national security [o SIS]who, by the way, are in the service of the state and not of governments?”; “How can this minister not be responsible for arguing publicly about what his subordinate said, revealing details of its internal functioning, including references to other members of the government?Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wondered.
Answers? First a summary sentence: “Political and administrative responsibility is essential for the Portuguese to believe in those they govern”.
Then came the lesson about “authority, respect, trust, credibility” because “a ruler knows that by accepting to be one, he accepts responsibility for what he does and does not do. And also for what those he chooses to to do or not to do. in which it ought to reign”.
First Explanation: “It won’t be solved by just apologizing for what happened. Responsibility is more than saying sorry, turning the page and forgetting. It is paying for what has been done or left undone. Does not withdraw for reasons of personal conscience [argumento usado por Costa] from someone who appreciates this responsibility, however respectable they may be”.
Second explanation: “It is an objective reality. It implies looking at the objective cost of what happened in the credibility, reliability, authority of the minister, the government and the state”.
Third explanation: “You don’t mix politics with justice. You don’t pay by saying it’s over. It didn’t pass, it never passes. Appears every day, every month, every year”.
And finally the conclusion: “All this must exist so that the Portuguese are not convinced that no one is responsible for anything, nor commands anything.”.
If this time he demanded from the government “capacity, reliability, credibility, respectability, authority” guaranteeing that he would be “considerate and intervening”, he emphasized in his New Year’s speech in January, as now, the emphasis on political stability, but warned that “absolute majority” mandates “absolute responsibility” and that only “the government and its majority can weaken or empty it, whether through organizational failures, lack of coordination, internal fragmentation, inaction, or lack of transparency . , or by detachment from reality”.
The “things in this world that are from the other world”, as he said in the interview with RTP, were not enough for the fall of the government, because the “guarantee of stability” is what will move him as long as there is “sensitivity and feeling for the state of everything”.
Absent from this post was any reference to “alternatives” that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa already said did not exist in “political terms”, as the “opposition must transform what is the sum of numbers. [nas sondagens] into a political alternative”.
All parties immediately reacted to the words of the President of the Republic, except the Socialist Party, which planned to make statements from the national headquarters, but canceled.
Source: DN
