Hugo Soares, during a debate in the Standing Committee of the Assembly of the Republic on the situation of fires, challenged José Luís Carneiro to clarify his whereabouts when this summer’s fires began.
“You were at the Sardine Festival in Portimão, talking about the sardine in Portimão and the quality of the Algarve sardine. You know, Mr. José Luís Carneiro, I don’t blame you for being at the Sardine Festival in Portimão—I even commend your good taste—what I criticize is how often you join the far-right’s demagoguery,” he accused.
Hugo Soares accused the PS secretary-general of joining Chega’s demagoguery “to criticize a government that was calmly doing what was required, which was to be at the helm of political coordination and ensuring nothing failed the populations.”
Addressing José Luís Carneiro’s intervention minutes earlier—in which he sought to distance himself from Montenegro’s stance, emphasizing that when he was Minister of Internal Administration, he was with the populations after tragedies—Hugo Soares stated that the current PS secretary-general did “nothing more than his duty.”
“Like this government does more than the duty of being with the populations after events to repair, to be able to be with the people and restore to the previous condition what happened,” he said.
Hugo Soares also cited statements from years ago by José Luís Carneiro and António Costa during the PS government, in which they emphasized that fires would be recurrent due to climate change, to highlight that “it is unfortunate, but unanimous, the inevitability” of these phenomena and that what is important is ensuring everything is done “upstream, during the fight, and downstream to mitigate the effects.”
Following these criticisms of the PS secretary-general, Hugo Soares addressed André Ventura, who had advised him to visit burnt areas, to highlight that while the current leader of Chega “was on television with a scarf discussing football,” he was already visiting burnt areas in 2017.
“Do you know what the big difference is? Neither I, nor the deputies sitting behind me who helped the populations fight the fires, made the sad figure of posting on social media fighting a fire that was already extinguished,” he accused, alluding to a social media post by André Ventura.
Hugo Soares reiterated that “in general, the state did not fail the populations because the roads were closed in a timely manner, the populations were evacuated in a timely manner,” and because it ensured there were no “lives lost.”
After this intervention, André Ventura assured that Chega will impose a commission of inquiry into the management of fires since 2017 and, in response to Hugo Soares, emphasized that he prefers to go to the firefighters rather than to Gaza, criticizing the coordinator of BE, who will join a humanitarian flotilla traveling to the Palestinian enclave.
This criticism sparked a discussion between Mariana Mortágua and André Ventura, with the BE coordinator arguing that she chose to side with a territory where “war crimes” are being committed, and “thousands of people” are being exterminated, showing a photo of the Chega leader alongside a minister of Netanyahu’s government.
“We both took a side. I will be on the side of history that fought against genocide and wanted to take humanitarian aid to Gaza. Mr. Deputy will be on the side of history that pretended not to see thousands of children dying and still wanted to use that as a political game,” she accused.
