CDS requests the opening of an investigation against the deputy. “There cannot be double standards”, says Paulo Núncio. Mortágua showed “strength” or “wants to give music to parliament”?
This Monday, the CDS-PP asked the president of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, to open a investigation against BE’s sole deputy, Mariana Mortáguafor a gesture they considered “degrading” during an intervention by centrist Paulo Núncio.
The announcement was made by Paulo Núncio, parliamentary leader of the CDS-PP, who, at a press conference in parliament, criticized a “gross gesture and absolutely incompatible with the behavior required of deputies” and “inappropriate and degrading” behavior by Mariana Mortágua.
At issue, according to the video released by the CDS-PP, is the gesture of the sole BE deputy, Mariana Mortágua, during an intervention by Paulo Núncio in the plenary debate on the 10th on the minimum wage. The blocista, while Núncio criticized the parties on the left, raises her hand with a closed fist and only her index finger and pinky finger outstretched.
In the complaint presented, the CDS-PP argues that Mortágua’s conduct “does not fall within the scope of freedom of expression recognized for deputies” as it does not have “any political-discursive relevance, nor is it associated with the defense of a political position” and is “solely a markedly rude gesture that directly attacks the dignity and honor of the Assembly of the Republic”, of Paulo Núncio and the centrist bench.
For the CDS-PP parliamentary group, the gesture of the former leader of the Bloc violates the duty of civility and institutional loyalty provided for in the deputies’ code of conduct and violates the rights to exercise mandates of the remaining deputies.
Considering that “Paulo Núncio was the target of offensive, degrading, inappropriate behavior and incompatible with dignity”, the CDS-PP asks Aguiar-Branco to “determine the opening of an investigation” into Mariana Mortágua, in order to “guarantee the protection of the dignity of the Assembly of the Republic, parliamentary decorum and the regular exercise of the mandate of the deputies”.
To journalists, Paulo Núncio accused, without giving an example, the Bloco de Esquerda and “many far-left deputies” of being authors of other “degrading and inappropriate behavior” in the past, considering that “there cannot be double standards” in this matter.
“Deputies who engage in inappropriate conduct on the right cannot be called to attention and then the same treatment and the same standard not be used when it comes to deputies from the extreme left. That’s the point.”
To , BE denied that this gesture was intended to offend and said it was a “gesture of ‘rock’ culture, a symbol of pride and strength”. The leader and target of the investigation, Mortágua, sought to explain the same on her social networks, wishing a “Merry Christmas to everyone” in a publication ‘filled’ with music figures (and Homer Simpson) making what she considers to be the same symbol that she made in Parliament.
Asked about this justification, the parliamentary leader of the CDS-PP accused the blockade member of “wanting to give music to parliament”. Asked what outcome he expects for this complaint, Núncio stressed that it is a decision by the Transparency commission, arguing only that, if the centrists’ complaints are considered valid, Mortágua’s behavior must be “duly sanctioned”.
The moment is being compared on social media to another moment in Parliament, this time in 2009 — the year in which Manuel Pinho made the “horns” in the Assembly, at a moment that at one point led to the dismissal of the then economy minister and the issuing of an apology from the government of José Sócrates.
