Party stalwart continues to uphold possibility most see as unlikely
Alexandra Leitão, coordinator of the PS Socialist Party’s electoral campaign, has argued that the PS should be called to govern Portugal if emigré votes trounce the tenuous lead that AD (the Democratic Alliance) managed in last Sunday’s legislative elections.
Those votes, coming from constituencies within Europe, and beyond, are being counted today, and should be published on Wednesday – the day President Marcelo is expected to declare AD’s leader, Luís Montenegro, Portugal’s new prime minister.
Leitão’s position very much reflects that of smaller opposition parties – albeit PS secretary general Pedro Nuno Santos has already acknowledged his party’s defeat.
The former secretary of State for education during an earlier executive of António Costa admits, however, that it is unlikely that the PS will find the emigré votes radically change the picture.
Talking on CNN last night, she conceded that “people expect the PS to be the leader of the opposition, to have an alternative programme for the country, to have a set of different options for solving the country’s problems”. That is why it is “not worth putting pressure on the PS to become a kind of crutch for the government,” she added, pouring yet more negativity at the notion of any kind of ‘central bloc’ to guide Portugal’s future.
The fierce anti-right wing ‘feeling’ powered by left-leaning parties is not quite as crushing as it has been made out to be. Still president of parliament, Augusto Santos Silva has defended that the PS should enter into certain agreements with the new government. “To be in opposition, in a democracy, is not “to be against”; it is to be critical, combative, alternative and also available for useful and indispensable commitments, for example, in the area of justice, or regarding the EU, even in public finances”, he wrote in an opinion article published in Público.
The votes of Portuguese emigrants will elect four new members of parliament. Also talking last night on SIC Notícias, State advisor and political commentator Luís Marques Mendes suggested it is distinctly possible at least one of them will be representing CHEGA.
Marques Mendes also stressed that the 1.1 million plus citizens nationally who voted for CHEGA are not “all racists and xenophobes”. They are people who are “angry and frustrated” with the way in which the country has been governed over the past few years.
Source: LUSA
