By CHRIS GRAEME chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva called on the Portuguese to adopt a “culture of responsibility” on Tuesday.
Addressing the people as part of celebrations to mark the Centenary of the Portuguese Republic, the President warned that it had been the “instability of and indifference to the 1st Republic” that had led to a 50 year dictatorship.
And in a warning to learn from lessons in the past, he said that the 1st Republic had fallen because it had been a regime embroiled by “petty partisan quarrels which were of a secondary nature given the problems the country was facing at the time”.
The allusion was that today Portugal is once again facing seemingly intractable economic and social problems and a lack of cultural responsibility and cross-party consensus which could lead to collapse, chaos and instability.
“The important thing is not the rows and political fights. One hundred years ago, as today what is essential are the actual and real lives of people,” he said.
“Obviously responsibility is not the same as unanimity. In a free country each person must choose his or her path. In an open and plural society there must be room for various concepts of the world, different doctrines and beliefs, because the Republic is a place of liberty,” he added.
Calling on civic and company responsibility, he said, in a nod to forthcoming national strikes, that employers and employees had to find the best solution for all sides.
He also called on the press to be socially responsible in providing balanced, plural, free and objective news and opinion.
Above all he called on national cohesion by stating that a “firm and serious compromise” was needed and an “understanding of the gravity of the times”.
However, he distanced himself from being caught up in cross-party fire by stating categorically that “a President of the Republic cannot fuel division”. His main role was to “unite the Portuguese”, he said.
The Prime Minister, José Sócrates, in his own address to the nation admitted that the country was going through a “hard and demanding” time which called on politicians and social agents to act with “responsibility, determination and lucidity” to defend the “essential in our model of society” rejecting “an exacerbated sense of negativism”.
Also calling on “national consensus and cohesion” at a moment of world crisis, “a time full of uncertainties and challenges” he said that it was at such times that “politicians should prove their sense of responsibility and convictions” and understand “what was at stake”.
“In this emergency what is at stake is the very essence of our model of society,” he warned.
