Cotrim blasts Marcelo’s “absolutely unacceptable” assessments of Portugal’s past

João Cotrim Figueiredo, former president of IL and head of the party’s list for the next European elections, made this evening, at a dinner rally in Almada, Setúbal, a speech very critical of the statements made by the President of the Republic that marked this week, considering that it is an institution which “hasn’t been particularly bright”.

“Don’t you think that the ethnic or sociological assessments of other public office holders, present or past, are absolutely unacceptable? Don’t you think that the clumsy attempts to make a kind of creative reinterpretation of history weaken the institution of the Presidency of the Republic, weaken democracy and weaken freedom?”, he asked, immediately saying that “the answer is yes”.

In the liberal’s opinion, “it is absolutely unacceptable” that situations like this can happen because they result in the “consecutive weakening of institutions” that the Portuguese depend on every day, such as an “effective Justice system” or the Presidency of the Republic.

“The President of the Republic, as a loyalist of the regime that, the weaker he is, the less respected he is, the less he is listened to, the less he will be able to do for the balance of the system that has made us live in democracy, in freedom, with full enjoyment of the rights and guarantees that the constitution grants us”, he warned.

Cotrim Figueiredo had started by considering that freedom is also defended when the dignity of the institutions of the democratic system is protected. “Without strong democratic institutions we do not have a strong democracy, we do not have people’s freedoms and rights duly guaranteed”, he considered.

The first example that the former liberal leader gave was about the suggestion by the President of the Assembly of the Republic to call the Attorney General of the Republic to parliament to give explanations.

“It may make sense, I would also like much greater scrutiny regarding the activity of the Public Ministry, but this call to the Assembly of the Republic is dangerously close to subjecting the judiciary to political power and a liberal can never accept that”, he criticized.