António Costa and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa have been at odds – since May 2, when the Prime Minister refused the resignation (which the PR wanted) of Minister João Galamba -, but this Wednesday, in South Africa, where did the Portuguese community go to celebrate Portugal Day, it was a time of harmony and truce. The prime minister explicitly tried to symbolize this by publishing 19 photos from his South African day on his social networks – 13 of which show him with the president of the republic. The day started in Johannesburg, with a visit to the Apartheid Museum, and ended in Pretoria, with a meeting with the Portuguese community.
In Johannesburg, at a meeting with students from Witwatersrand/Wits University, Marcelo took pleasure in revealing to his audience the memories he kept of António Costa as his student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. After an initial intervention in English with a brief summary of the history of Portugal and the current country, the President inspired the audience with his memories of the young Costa: “When the Prime Minister was a student, he was my student, at the age He was already intelligent, smart and proactive, very active. He studied very little, was mostly involved in politics,” he said, with Costa himself waving at his side with a smile that he was not just like that. And he added that he even gave him a “17 out of 20” on an exam, causing laughter with the conclusion: “In Portugal, the maximum is 20, which is very good for someone who has not studied anything.”
Later, during the same session, the president tried to relay the answer to one of the students’ questions to the prime minister, but Costa rejected it with a sentence that caused even more laughter in the room: “I have no study. “
At another point, at the Sports and Recreational Cultural Union pavilion in Johannesburg, the president remained in good spirits and promised: “The Prime Minister and I will visit all these groups and all these houses later, and it will not be .” no one without a selfie, from the prime minister and from me. We split up: he starts on the left, which is natural, I start on the right, then I go back to the left, he goes back to the right.”
On the sidelines of official events, talking to journalists, Marcelo declined to comment on the events in national politics (issues related to the parliamentary inquiry into TAP’s management and recent hearings of rulers and former rulers). However, he insisted on raising expectations about the meeting of the Council of State that he called for July: “I didn’t want to talk about it here, abroad, and I especially remind you that I said it was important to waiting until July, because we have a Council of State and then we also have a global perspective on a process that is underway.”
Paris was a party for Marcelo and Costa
It was in Paris, in 2016, shortly after arriving in Belém, that Marcelo and António Costa initiated the tradition of celebrating Portugal Day together – also by visiting a Portuguese community somewhere in the world. At a Rádio Alfa party on the outskirts of Paris, Marcelo addressed the hundreds of emigrants in attendance. It rained a lot and Costa created the most iconic image of the two living together by getting behind the PR and protecting him from the rain with an umbrella.
Source: DN
