The candidate, campaigning today in Ponta Delgada, expressed concern over the reaction of PS leader José Luís Carneiro regarding the wiretaps in the Influencer case. When questioned by journalists, Carneiro was reportedly “laughing calmly at the cameras” about “asking for jobs for friends and attempting to pull strings,” as if it were a “normal thing.”
Under the title “The Favours of José Luís Carneiro and Manuel Pizarro,” the magazine reports today on wiretaps conducted during Operation Influencer, revealing that the current PS leader had supposedly asked the then Minister of Environment, Matos Fernandes, for a job for former deputy and former mayor of Aljustrel, Nelson Brito.
José Luís Carneiro has since denied asking for favors from the former Environment Minister, stating that he merely recommended a person’s profile for certain functions while serving as the deputy secretary-general of the PS.
André Ventura argued that “in recent years, the PS managed to build a system so powerful, degrading, and conditioned” to democracy, emphasizing the need for “scrutiny and oversight to ensure that the current government does not fall into the same vices as socialist governments of despotism, corruption, and nepotism.”
The candidate, referring to the petition on the “evaluation of unconstitutionality” of Chega, commented that this initiative reflects a “terrible democratic sense” and a “poor relationship with freedom.”
Some representatives of the “Contra Narrativa” movement, the first signatory of the petition, were today heard in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees of the Assembly of the Republic.
André Ventura noted that Chega is the second-largest party in the country and claimed there are people “still nostalgic for the Revolutionary Process in Progress (PREC)” who reveal they “would like to live in a country like Venezuela, China, and North Korea.”
According to the Chega leader, if there were to be an extinction, it should be proposed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Constitutional Court, not by parliament.
“We should aim to extinguish not Chega, but this environment of favoritism and promiscuity,” he asserted, stating he disagrees with other parties without wishing to extinguish them, “because they are part of the democratic regime.”
André Ventura participated today in a session on regional autonomies at Chega’s headquarters in the Azores, Ponta Delgada, and stated that the current Law of Finances of the Autonomous Regions is “outdated.”
He asserted that it constitutes an “injustice that puts the Azores in a difficult financial survival situation,” impacting the regional budget and in fiscal terms, especially concerning VAT.
According to the candidate, strengthening autonomy for the Azores means “better and more development,” arguing that the position of representative of the Republic makes no sense as it “only creates obstacles” and acts as a “blocking force.”
André Ventura stated that Cavaco Silva and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa viewed the Azores “as accessories” and promised, if elected, to fight for the “right to equality,” noting it is up to the President of the Republic to highlight to political power the issues of the autonomous regions.
