“It was a speech without ambition, without vision, without a plan for Portugal. More focused on the opposition than in Portugal. We are witnessing a government of lamentation, of complaints, of not letting them work or do what they want,” he said, during a press conference at the PS headquarters, in Lisbon.
The general secretary of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, was not present at the inauguration of the XXIV Constitutional Government, being represented by the leader Alexandra Leitão. When asked insistently by journalists about his absence, Pedro Nuno simply said that he “can’t go” and refused to give a justification for the decision.
The socialist leader recalled that in the March legislative elections the AD and the PS were only separated by “50 thousand votes”, considering that the coalition cannot be tied to a “fixed position waiting for the PS to give the majority that the Portuguese people did not give it to the AD. This demands respect from the AD for all parties, including the Socialist Party”, he highlighted.
“If Luís Montenegro’s no is to be taken seriously, what I said on election night is also to be taken seriously. The PS will be the opposition, a responsible opposition. We will vote for what we agree with and we will vote against what we do not agree with. And we will also present our initiatives”, he added, revealing that he will take the initiative to talk to Luís Montenegro about the amending budget.
Pedro Nuno Santos considered that what put pressure on the new Government “is the economic program proposed by the AD” and not the “budget surplus”. “The theory of full coffers resulted from an electoral program in which the AD promised everything to everyone. The budget surplus leaves this Government in a more favorable starting position at most,” he said.
“There are more similarities between the AD’s response and what is in the Chega program than with the PS”
The socialist also referred to the “firm commitment of the PS to defend its program and its ideology”, highlighting that it is a duty we have towards Democracy and to those who voted for the PS”. And he brought the AD closer to André Ventura’s party: “There are more similarities between the AD’s response and what is in the Chega program than with the PS program. We have different visions of the welfare state, different visions of fiscal policy, different visions of the response that needs to be given to national economic development”, he stressed.
During the press conference, the PS secretary general recalled that he was contacted 15 minutes before the election of the president of the Assembly of the Republic, to say that “this is not how you work with the PS”. “If there is a political leader who has made himself available to govern, he has to present solutions and not make public challenges to the PS. It doesn’t work like that. The way to work with us is to respect the PS”, he stated.
Tags: Pedro Nuno accuses Montenegro speech ambition vision Portugal
