“There is a phrase that might seem provocative, but I believe it reflects the political reality of this legislature up to today. It is the return of Dr. André Ventura to the PSD, but it is a return where Dr. André Ventura understood that it is easier to transform the PSD from the outside than from within,” stated Eurico Brilhante Dias in an interview.
In the view of the leader of the PS legislative group in parliament, “there is a change in the nature” of the party led by Luís Montenegro, and the president of Chega, who was once a social-democratic militant, is now “an agent of transformation of the PSD from the outside.”
“We do not know what will happen in the future, but until today, Dr. Luís Montenegro governs with Dr. André Ventura in a de facto coalition,” he criticizes.
Ironically stating that “neither the Government is the Carochinha” nor the PS “is João Ratão,” Brilhante Dias emphasizes that the “palpable and factual reality” is that the prime minister chose “to govern with the far-right.”
“As a democratic party serving this country, as a democratic opposition, we have an obligation: to build an alternative and to tell the Portuguese that the central issues of their life should be discussed by democratic, moderate, credible people, like the PS secretary-general,” he asserts.
The PS leader refers to “an agreement denied and later confirmed in the immigration law, nationality law, and IRS” as examples of the executive’s choice so far to “govern with the far-right,” issues which he insists the PS has always shown willingness to discuss.
“It was a choice by Luís Montenegro, who wanted to align with the far-right. It is his own choice, which the Portuguese will look at and will surely judge later,” he emphasizes.
Recalling that the PS “was born in the underground and in the fight against dictatorship,” Brilhante Dias insists that the socialists have “a democratic obligation to tell the PSD that they do not have to remain in the hands of the far-right to govern.”
“We are not partners of the Government. We are a responsible democratic party. Firm opposition where we must be firm opposition, dialogue capacity on themes that are central to the lives of the Portuguese and the life of the Portuguese Republic,” he assures.
According to the socialist parliamentary leader, unlike the prime minister, for the PS, the “anti-democratic system ideas” that he accuses Chega of having “are not normalizable.”
