Ferro Rodrigues, former PS Socialist speaker, enters presidential debate
In a move that many will consider exemplifies the absolute tonal deafness of the PS Socialist party, former parliamentary speaker Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, has chosen this week – when the country is focused on fighting raging forest fires, and getting through the heat – to say Portugal needs a candidate for the presidency ‘who firmly opposes the far right’.
Notwithstanding what this says about Mr Rodrigues’ feelings towards former Socialist leader António José Seguro – who has already declared that he is running for the presidency, or towards communist stalwart António Filipe (who has done the same) – the great question here is what can his motives be?
“I regret that by the end of July, no candidate for the Presidency of the Republic had been announced who responds to the aspirations of the Democratic Left electorate in general and a significant part of the PS,” he said.
“A democratic and humanist candidacy is necessary and urgent in the short term. Let us hope that this will happen in the coming weeks. (That) no one is left out of this challenge.”
When asked by journalists if he wanted to put forward any names, the former PS heavyweight said that he had already said “what was necessary” but feels “there is a global challenge facing the entire democratic left, and that even those who have already said ‘no, never, ever’ should reconsider their position.
“Portugal needs a candidate who says no and who firmly opposes the rise of the far right’s influence in the democratic state, which aims to weaken and even destroy it”, he went on.
In the opinion of the former president of the Assembly of the Republic, a presidential candidate is needed who “intervenes in the crisis of confidence that exists in the European Union, now aggravated by very dangerous concessions to the Trump administration, especially in the areas of energy and defence”.
“Portugal needs a candidate who will stand up against the exterminations, massacres, death sentences through starvation in the Gaza Strip and the continued disregard for the UN in the West Bank, and who will commit to actively contributing to the recognition of the Palestinian state by our country,” he added.
The ‘thing’ about this sudden outburst by a political figure from the past at such an inappropriate time (given the fires/ the holidays/ the fact that first the country has still to contend with municipal elections) is that Ferro Rodrigues himself does not elicit any great excitement among the general population.
Comments under the SIC story on Ferro Rodrigues’ call to arms, range from people outing him for being part of the “jobs for the boys” network, rife with scandals: “Socialism has turned us into one of the poorest countries in Europe, which is why they fear the far right”; to those who point out that the constant bleating of the “far right” in Portugal ignores the threat posed by the far left “that brought the country to the misery we have today. And if today we talk about excessive immigration and the housing crisis, it is because the left is far left, and wanted us all to end up where we are today”.
More to the point, commentators have questioned whether Ferro Rodrigues’ strangely-timed pontifications herald an announcement in the pipeline from Mário Centeno, former Socialist finance minister who went on to govern the Bank of Portugal, and whose services have recently been terminated by the centre-right government.
Source material: SIC/ Facebook
