Is there a “new phase” coming in the PS-PSD relationship?

Exclusion in the election for the Constitutional Court will lead to “rupture” and the PSD is to blame, says Mariana Vieira da Silva.

Socialist leader Mariana Vieira da Silva accused the PSD of “break with the PS” if it excludes him in the election for the Constitutional Court, warning of a “new phase” in the relationship between the parties, including in the State Budget.

“It marks a new phase, but it is not a phase that is brought by the PS, it is a new phase chosen by the PSD. Because we could only have one judge in question, but no, we have three seats, and therefore the exclusion of the PS must have a reading, and it is if a decision to break with the PS is confirmed that the PSD will be making”, criticized, in statements to the Lusa agency, the vice-president of the socialist parliamentary group.

In question, the impasse for the election by parliament of names for the Constitutional Court, which already motivated a meeting this week between the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, and the leader of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, but which was inclusive.

“All the work that the PS and José Luís Carneiro have done in recent months to seek rapprochement to resolve structural problems with the PSD, there will be a new phase following this decision, if it is taken, including the budgets. But it doesn’t even seem that the budgets are, in this case, the fundamental issue”, he admitted.

For Mariana Vieira da Silva, the fundamental question is whether Portugal will “continue to be a country that has public Social Security in the Constitution, an SNS, a prohibition on unfair dismissal”, warning that a “rupture with our Constitution, with our democracy, with our main policies”.

“Whether for reasons of a broad historical commitment, or for reasons of what it means to place a political party on the Constitutional Court [Chega] who says he wants to tear up the Constitution, whether because of the experience that the Portuguese have all had directly related to their lives with the importance of the Constitutional Court, this decision seems fundamental to us, and in a fundamental decision, in what we could call a regime issue, we do not understand how the Socialist Party can be excluded”, he criticized.

The former minister of António Costa’s governments, said that in the campaign for the 2024 and 2025 legislative elections, “Luís Montenegro made the ‘no is no’ to Chega a fundamental issue of his campaign”.

“Now, how does this now turn into one of the most relevant issues, which is compliance with the Constitution and the work of the Constitutional Court, not the PS?”, he asked.

This Friday’s edition of Expresso said that if his appointment of a judge to the Constitutional Court is rejected, a decision that could affect the vote on the next State Budget.