Pedro Nuno Santos, speaking at the start of a street contact initiative with the population of Ponte de Lima in the Viana do Castelo district, expressed concerns over the current political dynamics. “Yesterday [Saturday] we saw a leader of the AD who is more concerned with aligning with Chega and directing attention to Chega. I wanted to point out that the moves by the AD and the government around immigration aim solely at competing with Chega, drawing closer to Chega because, in reality, there is no difference in terms of policy and voluntary exit notifications this year. These have been common practice over the past few years,” he stated.
The Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, confirmed on Saturday that the Agency for Integration, Migrations, and Asylum (AIMA) will begin notifying 4,574 foreign citizens next week to voluntarily leave the country within 20 days.
“The law is obviously to be followed by everyone, and when the law is not respected, there are notifications for voluntary departure. In 2019, for instance, there were more than the 4,500 that we are now aware of, so from that point of view, there is no difference,” said Pedro Nuno Santos.
The PS leader highlighted a difference: “This time, we have a prime minister who says that people have to be expelled from the national territory, says it with a smile, and even asks Chega to praise his policy.”
“It is truly the only difference, and in this case, there is a ‘Trumpization’ of Luís Montenegro,” he added, referring to the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
He further stated, “There is really no reason for the AD to even contemplate winning elections.”
Asked whether he feared that AD might achieve a majority in these elections with the Liberal Initiative (IL), Pedro Nuno Santos confidently replied, “I have no fear at all that AD will win these elections.”
“And I am confident because we currently have someone leading the government who has already shown to be dishonest. We have a government that systematically deceives the Portuguese and has shown over the last year to be incompetent in addressing the major issues facing the Portuguese,” he emphasized.
Therefore, he reiterated, “There is really no reason for the AD to even contemplate winning elections,” stressing that what the PS intends to do over these two weeks is to present itself as a secure change.
On this day when early voting registration begins, the PS leader announced that he will vote on May 18 and urged as many Portuguese as possible to participate in this electoral act.
“We need people to celebrate democracy by participating and voting because it is through voting that we have the possibility of making a secure change,” he stressed, repeating that the PS did not wish for these elections, which were provoked by an “outgoing prime minister who, feeling under pressure, decided to throw the country into elections.”
Pedro Nuno Santos started the first official day of the election campaign in Ponte de Lima, accompanied by Marina Gonçalves, the PS’s head of the list for the Viana do Castelo district, where he was received with festivities, to the sound of concertinas and castanets.
Given that today is Mother’s Day, the PS leader took the opportunity to convey a “message of hope for the future of the country, for them, for their families, for their children.”
“I do not want a country that is unable to care, especially for pregnant women, who face closed obstetrics emergency services every weekend, living in a state of anxiety and insecurity because they never know whether the National Health Service (SNS) and emergency services can respond, while we have a government and an outgoing prime minister who, throughout these weeks with closed obstetrics emergency services, has never been able to give a word of empathy and hope to Portuguese mothers,” he stated.
In his opinion, “this is just one example of how often the country still treats our mothers, those who are about to become mothers, poorly,” which is why he aimed to give “a message of great hope to Portuguese women.”
