“Only the people” can say Enough is Enough

Criticism and victimization dominated the debate over Chega’s placement of controversial banners in the windows of Parliament. “Only the people” can fight Chega: “the Assembly of the Republic does not have the capacity to do so”, said Hugo Soares.

The recent discussion at the leaders’ conference about the placing of banners by Chega in the Parliament windows, during the final analysis of the Budget, brought to light old tensions with the party led by André Ventura, especially with the PSD.

The PSD parliamentary leader, Hugo Soareswas one of the biggest critics of Chega’s attitude, classifying his arguments as “childish” and the interventions as marked by “falsehood and lies”.

“The Portuguese are fed up with circuses”, said Hugo Soares just over two weeks ago: “in the house of democracy, not everything counts”, he said, finishing: Ventura “can make Pinocchio blush”.

Despite the debate, there were no concrete decisions on how to deal with similar situations in the future and André Ventura’s party took advantage of the situation to adopt a victimization stanceclaiming that opposing political forces seek to limit their political speech and that Parliament cannot act as a court.

Chega’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, made it clear: “we protest in the way we see fit, we do not damage property, we do not burn cars or attack police officers”, and denounced the “attempt at conditioning” from Chega’s bench.

And if for Pedro Pinto, “political assessments will be made” by voters, who will say at the polls “if they agree with Chega’s way of doing politics”, at least in this aspect, Hugo Soares is in agreement.

“Only the people can fight them”

The social democrat said, according to the summary cited by , that “only the people” can fight Chega: “the Assembly of the Republic does not have the capacity to do this”.

As Criticism of Chega’s attitude was not limited to the PSD. The PS parliamentary leader considered the placement of the banners a blatant violation of the propaganda law and an attack on the criteria of institutional loyalty. Parties such as the Left Bloc and the Liberal Initiative also repudiated the episode,

While the PS defended an assessment of possible measures in the face of future infractions, parties such as the Left Bloc and the Liberal Initiative also repudiated the episode.

“The work cannot be dependent on half a dozen deputies, no matter how disgusting they are”said socialist Sérgio Sousa Pinto, after parliamentary leader Alexandra Leitão asked to postpone the Budget voting session.

The president of the Assembly, Aguiar-Branco, ended the debate without advancing concrete solutions. He claimed to have acted according to the circumstances in the banners case, but admitted that disagreements between the parties made a consensus on how to handle future similar situations unlikely.