New Parliament starts today: The responsibility of the two largest parties

The 230 deputies elected on the 10th of this month will begin their mandate today, in a session during which, in addition to being sworn in, they will be called upon to elect the next president of the Assembly of the Republic (AR).
The date of this first plenary meeting is imperative, as it follows from the constitutional precept that determines that “the Assembly of the Republic meets in its own right on the third day after the calculation of the general results of the elections”. Now, the official map of the results of the legislative elections was published in Diário da República last Saturday.
Therefore, the Portuguese Parliament will normally carry out the functions assigned to it by the Constitution, after having been abruptly suspended, when Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa decided to dissolve the AR, at the beginning of the year.
In this way, democratic normality will be resumed, that is, the conditions will be created for the legislative body to carry out its work, whether in the purely legislative dimension, of creating, amending and repealing laws, or in the no less relevant plan, of monitoring the Government actions. No less important, I would even say decisive, will be the responsibility that is committed to the AR, of approving the State Budget, a document that, as is generally known, is essential for the functioning of the Executive, as it defines the way in which resources are distributed. country’s financial resources.
The house of democracy, a name often used to refer to Parliament, therefore assumes a central role in our democratic system. It is true that, unfortunately, it has not always received due public recognition, that is, recognition compatible with its relevance in the political system, although it does not hurt me to recognize that sometimes this arises from endogenous factors, that is, from the behavior of the individual organ.
For this reason too, I am fully convinced of the pressing need to give credibility to our political class, a task that can and must begin today. This journey of reconciliation with the people, of reunion with all Portuguese, must be assumed as a primary premise of the actions of all deputies. As Tacitus stated, “chiefs are leaders, more through example than through power.” Now, the legitimate representatives of the people have a strict obligation to exercise the mandate entrusted to them in an exemplary manner, with the responsibility that is theirs, with the civility that is imposed on them and with the education that must be demanded of them.
These principles must, naturally, guide the entire Chamber, starting with the successor of Augusto Santos Silva, who was unable to be elected by the Outside of Europe circle, and ending with the last of the 230 deputies. Of course, the new President of the AR, the second figure of the State, who should leave the PSD bench (we are talking about José Pedro Aguiar Branco, former Minister of Defense), will have a more active, more interventionist role, insofar as has the responsibility to conduct the work, not facilitating the issues of urbanity to which everyone is linked. Anyway, keeping order in the house. But it will be in the behavior of deputies, more or less civilized, more or less reflected, that the alpha and omega of the success of politicians’ credibility can be found.
It is true that the parliamentary group of the party that defends conservative, nationalist, anti-globalization, anti-corruption and anti-system policies has experienced exponential growth, which, judging by the stance of its leaders in the previous legislature, does not bode well. good. In other words, we are faced with the irony of, less than a month before we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, we have in the Assembly of the Republic half a hundred deputies apparently not comfortable with the rules of democracy.
However, it can be said that not everything is bad, as frankly encouraging data about voters in what is today the third political force were released yesterday.
According to the study “Populism in Portugal? Democracy, Migration and the Social State in the Eyes of the Portuguese”, coordinated by political scientist Tiago Fernandes and financed by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Chega’s supporters are less radical than the party’s leaders. In other words, the profile of that party’s supporters is very close to voters in the political center, a fact that will necessarily have to be taken into account by those responsible for all political forces.
In fact, the director of the foundation that sponsored the study reassures us in some way by remembering that the majority of Portuguese people share progressive values, a situation that extends to Chega’s electorate, where there is a robust percentage of people with the same profile.
These conclusions necessarily lead us to the central question of the problem, that is, to confirm that the overwhelming part of the Portuguese who on March 10 opted for Ventura’s party are perfectly reconquerable by the parties of the democratic center. It is, therefore, on this task that those responsible for these parties must focus their action, seeking to re-attract voters who, disillusioned with the lack of solutions, decided to show a huge red card to those who, in their opinion, deserve such a penalty. .