António Filipe “trusts that voters will take him to the second round”. For Seguro, joined by the communist to Passos Coelho, Marques Mendes and Gouveia e Melo, a vote for Filipe is “half a vote for the right”.
Presidential candidate António José Seguro considered this Saturday that any choice to the left other than in his candidacy “it’s half a vote on the right”in a debate in which António Filipe placed the socialist alongside Passos Coelho.
In the television confrontation, broadcast by TVI, the candidate supported by the PCP, António Filipe, insisted that Seguro falls within the spectrum of “neoliberal consensus”together with Luís Marques Mendes and Henrique Gouveia e Melo and that “a candidacy identified with the rights and interests of workers was needed”.
“There are two rounds so that voters can vote in the first round for the candidate they identify with. I trust that voters will take me to the second round. Because if in the first round we only think about the second, we are giving up our right to vote”, argued the former communist deputy.
António José Seguro, who has the support of the PS, responded that “in these elections the useful vote is in the first round and not in the second” and expressed his conviction that António Filipe “would not sleep well” if two right-wing candidates went through to the second round.
“Steps? Don’t stick me where I’m not stickable”
Insisting on the need to “balance” the Portuguese political system, Seguro appealed to “left-wing, moderate and even center-right” voters to vote. in the elections scheduled for January 18, but rejected the intention of wanting to be a “shadow prime minister”.
António Filipe noted that his opponent had a “great difficulty” in convincing PS voters and considered that Seguro has a political speech that “is neither meat nor fish”, accusing him of having initially been “on the fence to see where he fell” in the Government’s draft that intends to change the labor law and not having been to the strike meetings on the 11th.
It was there that the former leader of the PS accused António Filipe of “instrumentalizing the strikes” and replied that the communist “does not have a monopoly on workers’ rights”.
António Filipe replied that he “never saw” Seguro defending a “positive change in labor legislation” and considered that during the period of intervention of the ‘troika’ the socialist had “very similar positions” to those of the then prime minister, the social democrat Pedro Passos Coelho.
“This is an urban myth”, refuted Seguro, arguing that it was thanks to him that “there was no constitutional review to impose a limit on the debt and deficit”.
António Filipe insisted that Seguro “was with Passos in lowering the IRC for large companies”, but the socialist again denied: “Don’t stick me where I’m not stickable.”
“Half a vote for the right”
Asked about his assessment of the parliamentary solution of the “contraption” (an agreement that allowed the PS to govern with the parliamentary support of BE, PCP and PEV), Seguro stated that there were “positive and negative things” during this period, but recognized that “as a solution for the country at that time, there were consequences that translated into gains in workers’ rights and income distribution”.
It was then that António Filipe once again insisted that it was not possible to “count on Insurance to combat the troika“.
“I left in 2014, I didn’t stay there in a little place in parliament, I went about my life”, replied Seguro, with António Filipe remembering that the socialist lost the leadership of his party, at the time, to António Costa.
“During the period in which it was necessary to fight the ‘troika’, no one knew what Seguro thought”, he insisted.
The socialist replied that for António Filipe “it is very easy to be on the side of the protest” and reiterated the call for a useful vote: “Your candidacy is nice, but a vote for you or another left-wing candidate to my left is half a vote for the right”.
António Filipe appealed to the Portuguese not to put “all their eggs in one basket”, stating that “the António José Seguro’s votes are in the same basket as those of Marques Mendes and Gouveia Melo”.
Clients: Filipe has a blank sheet of paper
Regarding issues of transparency regarding the income and assets of candidates for Belém, Seguro said that in the coming days he will publish a list of “the four or five clients” for whom he worked while not holding political functions.
The socialist stated that he worked as a teacher, has a company that sells wine and olive oil, an “accommodation for tourists” and that of the total turnover for 2024, only 12% corresponds to the area of “consulting and operational business management”.
António Filipe took a blank sheet of paper out of his coat and joked that this was the list of his clients.
In the final stretch, Seguro still provoked his opponent with the PCP’s position in relation to the conflict in Ukraine, with the communist considering the recent decision of the European Council as “a bad way”.
