Ventura accuses Marcelo of interfering and participating in the electoral campaign

Candidate for his succession made a “final appeal” to the President of the Republic because of the date of the next Council of State.

Council of State on January 9th? It is not justified for André Ventura.

The presidential candidate and leader of Chega made a “final appeal” to the President of the Republic to postpone the meeting of the State Council for the week following the second round of the presidential elections.

Considering that no new fact about the situation in Ukraine requires “the taking of a decision” by the President of the Republic, André Ventura considered that the Council of State – scheduled by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for January 9th to analyze the international situation – it must be postponed for after the electionssince two of its members (Ventura and Marques Mendes) are members of that body.

André Ventura also accused Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa of choosing the date – in the middle of the electoral campaign and 10 days before the presidential elections – “just to interfere and participate in this electoral campaign” arguing that “it is not tolerable for this to be the case”.

The leader of Chega also defended that, if the State Council meeting “comes into existence” on that date, then the State councilors should make a balance of mandate of 10 years of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in Belém, to analyze “the place to which Portugal has taken on the international scene”.

If there is a second round of presidential elections, it will be on February 8th.

“Open bar”

Catarina Martins he also left a “message” to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, also this Saturday, but about Social Security.

The presidential candidate criticized the President of the Republic for having promulgated and remained “silent” about a legislative change proposed by the Government on Social Security what do you consider to be “open bar” to workers’ illegality.

Catarina Martins made these criticisms of Marcelo during an intervention in a session on “domestic employment, work with rights”, referring to an amendment to the Code of Contributory Regimes of the Social Security System, which was enacted on December 3 and comes into force on the first day of 2026.

On November 13, at the press conference of the Council of Ministers that approved this change, minister António Leitão Amaro said that the Government intended end the need for companies to transmit information to Social Securitywhich the entity already holds.

The government official lamented the “ordeal of repeatedly delivering information on remuneration and the situation of workers, but which continues to have to be done regularly”.

In the note that accompanied the announcement of the promulgation of this change, it can be read that “parallel obligations to communicate data on workers remain, both, on the one hand, to Social Security and, on the other, to Finance” and that Marcelo gave the green light to this diploma “hoping that such reform will cover such duplications”.

“There is already a President of the Republic who promulgated, in silencewhich he could not have promulgated and which he could never have remained silent. A legal change comes into force on January 1st which states that, From now on, a worker can only be declared to Social Security when they start working”, condemned Catarina Martins.

According to the presidential candidate supported by the Bloco de Esquerda (BE), this change means that “when there is an inspection to find out whether someone has been declared or not, the employer can always say that those workers are not declared because they start on that day and are putting in the papers on that day”.

“Even in the unlikely event that a boss is caught with this law, which is bar open to illegality for all workersborn in Portugal or in any other country, even if this happens, the boss is only obliged to recognize three months, as opposed to the year that he was obliged to recognize in full”, he pointed out.

Catarina Martins said that this change happened when the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, gave “a motivational speech, saying that if people work hard, they can have a better life”.

“Forgetting that you are to throw, right now, rights to all the people who work”, he accused.

In the words of the MEP and former BE leader, changing what cannot be accepted “is having a President of the Republic who does not promulgate a law that attacks all workers, between Christmas Eve and New Year, without having a word, without telling them what is coming”.

“And that’s what we need to do now. And this presidential election is about that. A assault on the rights and wages of all people in Portugal. This assault is being carried out behind your back, in secret, without any debate”, he lamented.

The campaign for the race to Belém, according to Catarina Martins, “is about the balance of the democratic rule of law”.

“About having a President of the Republic who does not allow the rights and wages of those who work to be robbed like this, without saying anything, between Christmas and New Year, allowing everyone to be left in a situation of lack of protection in Portugal”, he assured.