Marcelo gives option of morning meeting, or evening
Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is available to receive the leader of right wing party CHEGA, at his request, tomorrow morning or evening, according to a letter sent to André Ventura today, writes Lusa.
According to a source in the Presidency office, in a letter signed by the Chief of Staff, Fernando Frutuoso de Melo, and addressed to André Ventura, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will be able to receive a delegation from CHEGA at 11am or 6pm tomorrow. He is asked to choose one of these two possibilities and to indicate the composition of the delegation.
This all stems from André Ventura’s perceived outrage over the visits by the president last week to the neighbourhoods of Zambujal and Cova da Moura, where Cape Verdean citizen Odair Moniz lived and was shot dead by the police in the early hours of October 21 – unleashing days of violence and unrest in outer Lisbon boroughs.
According to statements made by André Ventura, he was planning to present a formal complaint to Belém “on Wednesday” – as well as enter a similar action in parliament.
Ventura’s beef appears to be with the fact that the president had not met with either of the PSP agents involved in the fatal shooting (something that would almost certainly have been seen as legally questionable given that both are involved in an active investigation). Otherwise, there was nothing in the visit that looked ‘partial’ – Marcelo met with residents from the two neighbourhoods, but he also met with PSP police at the local police station, he met with firefighters and with the local mayor.
None of Marcelo’s visits were publicly announced; thus no journalists were on hand to take photographs, or ask questions – but that does not seem to be part of CHEGA’s outrage.
In André Ventura’s statement he also cited the president’s failure to meet “victims of the violence perpetrated by these groups”, which could mean the bus passengers bundled off buses before they were set alight, and/ or vehicle owners whose cars were torched in the nights of rampage. Were Marcelo to meet with all these people, he would have had to be up all night.
The worst injured person in the unrest that followed Odair Moniz’s shooting – the Carris Metropolitana bus driver – cannot be visited, by dint of his fragile state of health.
Thus, it was always a little unclear what CHEGA was complaining about.
Yesterday, Mr Ventura claimed in a new statement that the office of the presidency had informed him, by letter, that any kind of audience was “rejected” – something he said he was not prepared to accept, and would be going to Belém anyway, with all 50 MPs in his party.
Now, this seems to be ‘in the past’ and we can only wait to see what ‘time slot’ André Ventura chooses tomorrow to formally register his indignation.
Source: Lusa
