PS has condemned the acts as a crime against “political freedom”
Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS) filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office after its campaign billboards in the Algarve were vandalised with offensive inscriptions “that promote insult and incite” violence, the party announced today.
In a statement, the regional socialist federation of the Algarve said that its electoral campaign materials have been “completely damaged in the region”.
The socialists add that the criminal complaint is supported by “evidence collected from destroyed and altered campaign posters, with inscriptions that promote “insult and incite verbal violence”.
“The (…) billboard network was completely damaged, with offensive inscriptions, repeatedly and in an organised manner,” the statement says.
PS Algarve has lambasted “the total absence of democratic spirit” by the authors of this crime against “political freedom and freedom of expression.”
Despite the cases of vandalism, the party says it remains committed to the “values of April” – referring to the values of liberty from the country’s April 25 Carnation Revolution – and adds that it is determined to “fight in defence of the Constitution of the Republic and the European project, and against obscurantism, isolationism, and democratic regression.”
Portugal’s early legislative elections are scheduled for March 10 and were called by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, following the resignation of Prime Minister, António Costa, on November 7, who is under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Supreme Court of Justice. The electoral campaign for the legislative elections will take place between February 25 and March 8.
michael.bruxo@portugalresident.com
