António Cotrim / Lusa
Luís Montenegro speaks to the country
Montenegro “made a brutal mistake” by presenting a motion of trust? What questions did you answer? Who wins with early elections?
Portugal should go to early elections once again and, at the center of the controversy, in all mouths is a common name: Luís Montenegro.
The prime minister surprised Wednesday by saying that and announcing the motion of trust, that the executive has already approved in the council of electronic ministers this Thursday and should be rejected by the PS and take the country to the polls, probably, according to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“It was desirable” that there was no “political disturbance” in the country, but insisted that Parliament has to clarify if it has doubts about the legitimacy of the government, Montenegro said Thursday.
He thus preferred to bet on elections instead of answering some questions about the company he sold to his wife, Spinumviva, who have so far been unanswered.
One of them, perhaps the simplest, is “Who are the customers of Spinumviva?”.
Montenegro has never given a clear answer to this question. Initially he justified that the commercial secret prevented him from revealing the details of the companies with which he kept contracts. He said Cofina was on the customer list, he recalls, but Cofina was not on the list that the company founded by Montenegro.
The purchase of two apartments in Lisbon, which, according to TVI/CNN, was made with a combination of three accounts, raises another question: Is any of them the 200,000 euros account that Montenegro said to have?
The prime minister was doing works to unite two apartments, one of which belongs to his children. Were these works done to create a family support residence or if the apartments were purchased with the purpose of investment?
The Prime Minister’s office did not respond to why Montenegro has opted for a caution account (usually used by companies to manage treasury questions, not common practice in personal transactions such as the purchase of a house) with an annual interest rate of 12.183%, instead of resorting to a housing credit, which would have much lower rates, between 2%and 4%.
And this caution is in the name of who or which company? Another question of vision to the office that was answered.
Montenegro’s option to stay overnight in a luxury hotel in downtown Lisbon-where the cost a night can exceed 200 euros-while the works in the apartments that have acquired, also forces asking how their net performance is about 4,500 euros can support such cost: could use the facilities of the official residence of São Bento, where António Costa himself, the current prime minister, settled during the confinement of the covid-19 pandemic. In the end, Since when is Montenegro staying at the luxury hotel? Are you alone or with the security guards? What is the exact amount paid per night?
The PSD leader stated that it was he who paid for his stay, but a clear explanation of the nature of this expense or if any cost related to his security was never being assumed by the state was never presented.
Montenegro “made brutal error”
What is certain is that Montenegro did not want to answer some questions and chose to risk a confidence motion request. At the time of the budget vote, Montenegro a trip to the polls in early elections. But “are you playing with the fire?”
“Montenegro thought this crisis could yield him in a trip to the polls. I think you’re wrong and playing with the fire (…) made a brutal mistake by not having clarified this from the beginningby not marking an interview, ”believes the director of information of SIC Bernardo Ferrão.
“He says he has no time to make clarification. It was already known that I did not like to talk to journalists, now it is also known that you do not like to answer the deputies. If I had answered, if this crisis would be avoided. (…) Maybe I thought I didn’t have to give explanations to anyone, ”he believes.
Who has the greatest advantage for early elections?
For Montenegro, this “it will be a very difficult campaign,” believes Ferrão: The Prime Minister will try to show what he has done so far, but “the campaign will be centered in this case and in character”, and “this will raise many problems and make it the campaign dirty“.
This “can be a good time for both the PSD and the PS to go to elections,” says politologist João Pacheco, who believes, however, that “the arrival may be the main beneficiary of a political crisis.”
For politologist José Filipe Pinto, however, it is the “PSD the one who now has the most advantage”, he believes: “Of course the arrival will also ride the wave because it will continue to talk about corruption, in its flags, but we all realize that the arrival has achieved such a high result in the last elections that will hardly continue to have margin for progression or a sharp progression.”
