Lisbon mayor, Minister for Territorial Cohesion and presidential hopeful all hold out for stability
There are multiple strategies underway today to try and pull the country back from the awful prospect of a new ‘general election’ in May.
Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas has echoed so many others in saying “the country doesn’t want to go to elections”.
“The government (of PSD/CDS-PP, which governs without an absolute majority) was forced to launch this motion of confidence. There is a responsibility here on everyone’s part, obviously, but there’s a responsibility on the part of the largest opposition party (PS Socialists). The Portuguese want stability, they want to continue to have a government and that government must remain in office,” he told journalists today on the sidelines of the first meeting this year of the Municipal Security Council.
“People are shocked by the moment we’re experiencing in the country in political terms”, he said. “I am shocked at the possibility of having elections again. It doesn’t make any sense to people.”
Repeating several times that “the country doesn’t want to go to elections”, Carlos Moedas said PS Socialists should “think very carefully before deciding on the motion of confidence“.
“I know that we’re going through a moment in the country, I am aware of that moment, but what worries people in the street is everyday life; it is security situations that happen in the city,” emphasised the PSD mayor, indicating that in Lisbon he is “always working on stability”, since he also governs without an absolute majority.
Almost in unison, Minister for Territorial Cohesion Manuel Castro Almeida and presidential candidate Luís Marques Mendes have come up with their ‘ideas’ for saving the country from the turmoil of three elections in the matter of months (the country has municipal elections coming up in the autumn, and presidential elections in January next year).
Castro Almeida has suggested the government could simply withdraw the motion of confidence – but for the crisis to truly be allowed to pass, the PS would have to withdraw their bid for a Commission of Inquiry.
Luís Marques Mendes – whose upcoming campaign will concentrate on the importance of dialogue as a president, and of impartiality – has argued that the prime minister must allow press questions into his family business, and answer them all satisfactorily; that the PS could then withdraw its intention for a Commission of Inquiry – and the government would be in a position to withdraw its motion of confidence, already scheduled for debate next Tuesday.
There is a sense of exasperation in all quarters: political commentators insist there is actually no reason for a snap election to be called at all: it is simply that attitudes, on almost all sides, have lost focus over what politicians are meant to be doing, which is serving their electorate, not themselves and/ or their own interests.
