Commentators suggest Pedro Nuno Santos personifies “more of the same”
The PS Socialist Party’s new leader is Pedro Nuno Santos, who won internal elections that took place over Friday and Saturday ‘hands down’: over 60% of the 60,000 militants able to vote plumped for the dyed-in-the-wool Socialist who is known to be completely ready for pacts with the radical Left if circumstances post-elections in March require.
Admitting that it has been his long-held dream to be the leader of the party he joined when just 14 years of age, Pedro Nuno Santos is, commentators suggest, the perfect adversary for the country’s centre right: he is sufficiently radical, to be the stuff of warning speeches – speeches which to a large extent have already started.
Talking today, PSD leader – and Nuno Santos’ opponent in the race for power – Luís Montenegro essentially trashed the Socialist’s victory speech, saying it was devoid of ideas/ solutions/ a plan or a goal.
“I think that was well understood last night”, he told his audience of PSD activists and sympathizers in Aveiro. “You squeeze and squeeze, but nothing comes out… Since the PS doesn’t have any ideas, we’ll tell them what ours are, and they’ll say whether they agree or not”.
And thus, in what he jocularly suggested was in the Christmas spirit, the aspirant prime minister put forwards his party’s proposals for various sectors – starting with the pledge that young people under the age of 35 will not have to pay more than a 15% rate of IRS (income tax), in order to bring an end to what he described as the country’s largest waste: its younger generations who leave the country to work, better paid, abroad.
Young couples will have free access to crèches, the network of which will be expanded, involving the social and private sectors, he went on
Stressing the PSD plan for full recovery of teachers’ length of service over five years, corresponding to 20% each year – a measure which he said would cost the state 300 million euros – he said that if he becomes prime minister, his government will guarantee the recovery of learning (ie make up for the recent dismal results from PISA).
Mr Montenegro is not going to let Pedro Nuno Santos off the hook for all the years he was at the helm of the ministry of Infrastructures and Housing, only to leave housing in a situation of abject crisis.
If PSD Social Democrats take over in government, there will be public investment in housing, he said, and incentives given to the private sector to build more housing.
And so it went on: For the middle class, IRS will be going down. For pensioners, by 2028, “every pensioner will have a guaranteed income of €820 euros per month, guaranteed by the State.
For the PSD, writes Lusa, “the time has come to put an end to the ideology in health and education policies pursued by the PS governments and inspired by the PCP (communistst) and BE (Bloco de Esquerda).
“The Left is ruining public services,” said Montenegro, pointing to the situation in which schools and hospitals find themselves after so many years of Socialist governance, pushing people to go private.
Asserting that he doesn’t want to privatise anything, Montenegro argued that the PSD is not actually right-wing.
“We’re not right-wing, we’re more of the centre, we are for the people, we are the people’s party,” he said.
Pedro Nuno Santos’ victory speech did, to a large extent, play perfectly into Mr Montenegro’s hands. He promised “a new cycle, a new phase (…) of continuity, and above all change”. (A bit of an oxymoron). He also seemed to think he is “not the leader the right wants” – when, according to commentators, he is every bit the leader that ‘other parties’ want, as his policies (or lack of them) and lacklustre debating skills will be easier to ‘expose’.
Mr Nuno Santos’ competitor (José Luís Carneiro) had never seemingly put a foot wrong in government; he was rated ‘the best minister’ in the current administration. Under his watch, Portugal weathered the ‘best fire season’ in terms of areas burnt/ serious fires/ and casualties, in years. Pedro Nuno Santos, on the other hand, will be forever remembered as the minister who okayed a €500,000 ‘golden handshake’ (that has subsequently been proved to have been illegal) via Whatsapp. What’s more, he initially ‘forgot that he had ever done so’ … He also initiated a government dispatch when the PM was out of the country – without checking it was ‘okay to do so’ – which the PM instantly cancelled.
As one of the habitual leader writers in Correio da Manhã – executive director Paulo João Santos – has written today: “The Socialist electors have voted for continuity, they have chosen a style – between the impulsive and the moderate.
“No new PS comes out of this election.
“The question is whether the Portuguese people, in March’s elections, are still satisfied with the path the PS has set for the country, already eight years in the making, and if they are prepared to forgive the sins of the government in health, justice, education and housing.
“It is up to the PSD to do its work and present alternatives, which we haven’t seen yet. There are only three months until (legislative elections); it is about time Montenegro showed his mettle, because the government, even in caretaker mode, will be making the most of every moment to capture votes and help Pedro Nuno establish himself as a good successor to Costa in São Bento”.
