Montenegro is “anything but worried”. PSD closes ranks against PS and Chega

In Sangalhos, the PSD responded to the labor lead by closing ranks around Luís Montenegro. Two ministers received a standing ovation, a renewed leadership and the promise to insist on reforms.

Luís Montenegro accused the opposition this Saturday of “lack of courage” and of preferring politics of changeone day after the proposal to review the government’s labor laws was in Parliament with the votes of the left and Chega.

At the beginning of the 43rd PSD Congress, which takes place at the Sangalhos Velodrome, in Anadia, the social-democratic president and prime minister reaffirmed the equidistance between PS and Chega and assured that he was “anything but worried” about his political future.

Without directly naming Friday’s parliamentary defeat, Montenegro addressed a harsh criticism of oppositions.

“There are so many people who demand that everything changebut they truly want everything to stay the same. As was seen with special clarity only yesterday, the oppositions vibrate with politics and reject change”, he stated.

To its opponents, Montenegro attributed lack of courage, firmness and a sense of responsibility. He countered that blocking solutions or allowing oneself to be “telegraphed by mentor commentators or by social media trends” does not require effort, unlike daring, converging, negotiating and knowing how to give in.

The PSD leader maintained that, in the last elections, the Portuguese gave PS and Chega “equal level of responsibility” to dialogue and collaborate with the Government.

To the socialists, he attributed a “sly political strategy”: simulate a constructive spirit to push AD into exclusive negotiations with Chega and then be able to present itself as an alternative to an alleged joint bloc.

André Ventura’s party, which he did not mention by name, attributed behavior inspired by “permanent agitation, irresponsibility” and, “often, immaturity”. In both cases, he criticized the “permeability to personal interests” to the detriment of the national interest.

“I’m not one to be intimidated”

In a message apparently addressed to internal critics, although without identifying recipients, Montenegro highlighted its authority at the head of the party.

“It was the third time they elected me president. I am anything but worried about my political future, you know that I am one to take risks, to dare, to dream, I am not one to be intimidated”, he stated, guaranteeing not to give in to any pressure.

He said he did so without “arrogance or arrogance” but with “detachment and a sense of duty.” At some point, in a sentence that evoked the “screw the elections” by former leader Pedro Passos Coelho, highlighted: “We do not govern because of elections, but the reason we win elections is to govern well”.

When he arrived at the congress, he had already devalued the political crisis scenario. When asked questions from journalists, he replied: “You always have many reasons to talk about many things that have no correspondence with reality.”

When asked several times whether Passos Coelho was “missed” at the congress, he responded nothing.

In his speech, he promised a government “reformist, personalist, humanist and interclassist”, with “a focus on the future, without intrigues and without politics”.

He also recalled the PSD’s victories in the Azores, Madeira, in two legislative elections and in the last municipal elections, in which the party regained leadership of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities.

Labor reform in the congress center

One of most applauded interventions at the congress it was the Minister of Labor. Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalhowhose proposal to revise labor laws on Friday in Parliament was met with a lengthy standing applause.

Visibly movedthanked the prime minister for the “commitment and commitment” and left the promise that “we will go again to carry out this and other reforms”.

The minister praised the Montenegro’s “sense of state” for refusing to exchange the approval of most of the reform for lowering the age for accessing the pension and for capping, which, he argued, would break the contract of trust regarding future pensions.

Palma Ramalho classified the lead as “a lost opportunity” and censored opponents who made the reform “a personal affront” and those who vote “in terms of search of the day and trends on TikTok” — references, respectively, PS and Enough.

The Minister of the Presidency, Antônio Leitão Amarowent further, and classified the vote against the labor package as “one of the most shocking moments in Portuguese political life”, for having made “the communist trade union leader cries with joy” — allusion to CGTP leader, Tiago Oliveira.

Leitão Amaro defined the president of Chega as “a brake on progress and an opponent of youth”, and, addressing young people, warned: “Every time on TikTok they see André Ventura dancing, he is the man who is plotting you.”

He also defended the changes to immigration policywhich protects, regretting that the Government has been accused of “fascist” by some and “lax” by others.

Paulo Rangel he spoke of a “negative chego-socialist coalition”. The Minister of State and Foreign Affairs accused the PS of “candid radicalism” — radical for maintaining “Pedro Nuno Santos’ agenda”, candid for “José Luís Carneiro’s sweet speech” — and Enough of “populist chico-smartness”“the party of tricks, feints”.

According to Rangel, by voting against the changes to the CLT, Chega acted to “lower Portuguese pensionsTo de-dramatize the political consequences of the vote, he resorted to the proverb “because a swallow dies, spring doesn’t end”.

The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, also applauded standing up, assumed that, “according to the media”, the “least popular” governor of the executive. But he countered that “governing does not imply being popular, it implies being responsible” and that it does not depend “on barometers”.

Prometheus leave the National Health Service in better conditions than those in which he found it and attributed part of the pressure on the sector to the population increase associated with the reception of immigrants, in the terms in which he described the situation.

In turn, the general secretary and parliamentary leader of the PSD, Hugo Soares, promised not giving up on “calling reason” PS and Enough and to “force” them into dialogue in the Assembly of the Republic.

Bugalho, Moedas and Pedro Duarte join the direction

The congress was also marked by the renewal of national bodies. Montenegro announced three new vice-presidents: the MEP Sebastian Bugalhowho will also be the party’s spokesperson, the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedasand the Mayor of Porto, Pedro Duarte.

Hugo Soares remains as general secretary and, on the permanent committee, they continue Leonor Beleza, as first vice-presidentAlexandre Poço and Inês Palma Ramalho.

Leave the vice-presidency Carlos Coelhowho will lead the Sá Carneiro Institute, Lucinda Dâmaso and Rui Rocha, the latter remaining as a member.

The congress one symbolic epilogue. Close to midnight on Saturday, the president of the Board, Miguel Albuquerqueannounced him as a PSD activist.

The former prime minister, who had resigned in 2018, after the defeat to Rui Rio in the direct, to found Aliança, thus ends almost eight years of absence, in a return that contrasted with the questions, left unanswered by Montenegro, about the absence of Passos Coelho.

Between the warning to the opposition, the defense of failed reforms in Parliament and the renewal of the leadership team, Montenegro sought to make the Sangalhos congress a demonstration of the PSD’s unity and political resistance.

The entry of new vice-presidents, the reinforcement of Government figures and even the symbolic return of Santana Lopes to the party helped create the image that the leadership wanted to project: that of a PSD closed around the prime minister, determined to continue governing the country.