José Sena Goulão / LUSA
Luís Montenegro and António José Seguro
Former minister criticizes Seguro’s silence on the impasse surrounding the STF. Enough and PS with no obligation to support the Government.
Rui Gomes da Silva think that António José Seguro should have already appeared in the impasse surrounding the election of judges for the Constitutional Court.
The former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs emphasizes that the President of the Republic, with “reinforced legitimacy”, should say “what would be reasonable, either in public or private, in the hearings. I even believe that he did that”.
“I think the president would like to have this problem resolved without delay, because, if we leave any of the bodies behind in these elections, assuming that we are going to elect the State Council leaving the others, it will be an ordeal that never ends”, he analyzed.
The now “shadow minister” of Chega para a Justiça said on the radio that there is a “pressure from Europe so that there are no coalitions on the right” – and this “is the only justification that I understand as plausible for Luís Montenegro not having formed a coalition with Chega”.
And he points back in the direction of Seguro: “The President of the Republic himself, in wanting to save the Government, kills the Government once and for all. Before, there was the Budget leaflet. The PS approached, Chega moved away; Chega moved away, PS approached. The President of the Republic killed the Government’s broadsheet. He killed the Government’s golden goose.”
“The Government can no longer come to the public square and say “’be responsible, vote on the Budget’, because it is indifferent. THE The President has already said that, if they don’t vote on the Budget, life will go on. What was the sword of Damocles, the permanent threat from the Government and Luís Montenegro to the opposition, no longer exists”, he claims.
Thus, continues Rui Gomes da Silva, PS and Chega no longer have the obligation to support the Government – which no longer has the possibility of “dramatizing the situation”.
“You have to do the opposite: you have to get closer, if you want to have the Budget approved. The freedom of the parties is total. What will Chega say? We will vote on the Budget as long as it has what we want. This, this, this. The PS will say the same thing”, he warns.
The former minister thinks that Portugal “would benefit from having a stability bloc. If the PSD wants to form this alliance with the PS, do so. It is free to do so, as it can do with Chega.”
Rui Gomes da Silva defends a written agreement between PSD and Chega but thinks the solution doesn’t go there: “The PSD has to define what it wants. The current situation is leading nowhere. It weakens the Government, it weakens solutions, it weakens the people who are exercising functions and will end up weakening the Prime Minister himself, if not for other personal reasons, which could even happen.”
And continues to believe that legislature does not reach its end: “The situation will be impossible. It is an option to want to govern in instability. And there is a lack of reformist spirit, a lack of project. It gives the idea that the Government is content to be there, that its main objective is to be there the next day.”
While ensuring that, on the right, the Chega’s objective is not to absorb the PSD – it is to “understand electoral movements” – Rui Gomes da Silva remembers what he said in 2023, when António Costa was still prime minister: “If this continues, the next PSD prime minister will be the last PSD prime minister. I continue to believe that.”
“And I think that, by not changing the PSD — as I don’t think it will change, because all the signs of its own self-destruction are there — Luís Montenegro will be the last PSD prime minister“, reinforces Rui Gomes da Silva, who left the party last year.
