The government is counting on “the contributions and commitment of the Liberal Initiative” so that the newly elected party president’s speech “can have some consequence,” said the minister at the end of the X Convention held today in Alcobaça, Leiria.
Carlos Abreu Amorim acknowledged “obvious” points of contact between the Liberal Initiative and the government despite their “different directions.”
The government, with a program “that will be implemented,” and the Liberal Initiative, “like all other parliamentary groups and parties with parliamentary seats, including single deputies, will make their contributions,” he stated, posing a challenge to Mariana Leitão.
“The challenge the government issues is precisely for the Liberal Initiative to live up to its words and contribute to enabling the government to transform Portugal,” concluded the minister, who attended the closing of the X Convention of the party.
Chega’s secretary-general and MP, Rui Paulo Sousa, who also attended Mariana Leitão’s speech, accused the new president of the liberals of “becoming radical in her speech” by considering Chega “one of her main opponents.”
“I want to remind that the Liberal Initiative is a party born of ideas,” but “those ideas have been lost over time,” he stated.
Rui Paulo Sousa considered that Cotrim de Figueiredo was “the only candidate” whom the Liberal Initiative “had of note” and accused him of having “fled, in quotes, to Europe, and now, apparently, he returned to run for President.”
The Chega secretary-general further warned that if the Liberal Initiative follows the example of other parties and considers André Ventura’s party as an opponent, it “risks in the next elections (…) not only being empty of ideas but also empty of leaders, supporters, and deputies.”
Mariana Leitão, he said, “might always remain as the sole deputy, to keep company with Mariana Mortágua, or otherwise be the only Mariana, at present, in parliament.”
On behalf of the CDS, the party’s vice-president Telmo Correia congratulated Mariana Leitão on her election and wished “the new leadership of the Liberal Initiative to find its stability.”
Opposed to “individualism solutions, as result, for example, in the defense of euthanasia or drug liberalization,” the centrist highlighted “those differences” but wished “a good term to the new leader of the Liberal Initiative.”
Meanwhile, Livre leader Filipe Honório noted a change in leadership at the Liberal Initiative but a “full throttle approach to their policies,” which he deemed to exclude people.
“Even at the level of immigration debate, what we saw was the Liberal Initiative being self-consistent: not very liberal, because it didn’t sell its principles, it actually gave them away for free,” he accused.
