The first part of a session open to the media will occur during the National Political Commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening at the Socialist Party’s headquarters in Lisbon, a PS source revealed to Lusa. The second part will be private, focusing on the political situation.
As outlined in the program, the event will feature speeches from PS leader José Luís Carneiro, Mário Soares’s daughter Isabel Soares, and Colonel Manuel Pedroso Marques, who chaired the RTP Management Board on November 25, 1975.
In addition to these addresses, a video commemorating the date will be shown, and an excerpt from Mário Soares’s work “Um político assume-se” will be read.
The session’s release document describes November 25, 1975, as “a victory for April’s democratic left, both military and civil, and for all those who allied to defeat the radical and sectarian drift threatening the democratic process.”
“With emphasis on the so-called Group of Nine within the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) and under the leadership of Mário Soares and the PS in the streets and squares of our country,” it highlights.
The PS proudly reaffirms its claim that “Mário Soares and the Socialist Party were crucial from the very start in ensuring the path toward a pluralistic democracy,” which exists in Portugal today.
“In this struggle, the PS, born in resistance to the dictatorship, forged itself as a popular party and established itself as a leading political force across the country, contributing to the consolidation of freedom,” it asserts.
At the end of September, the PS refused to join the government-formed commission for the 50th anniversary of November 25, arguing that it “aims to rewrite history,” obscuring the “central role” of Mário Soares and the PS, and announced a separate program.
In a parliamentary press conference, PS parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias stated that November 25 “cannot be separated” from April 25 and that its celebrations should occur within the framework of the National Commission for the 50th anniversary celebration of April 25, 1974.
On Tuesday morning, the parliament will hold, for the second time, a solemn session commemorating November 25, 1975, with equal speaking time allotted to each party as in the April 25 solemn session.
The events of November 25, marked by clashes between opposing military forces and leading to the victory of the moderate wing of the MFA, signaled the end of the so-called Ongoing Revolutionary Period (PREC).
