September 17, 2020. How did one of the worst days in Costa’s political life turn out?

In his long political life of more than 40 years, António Costa, 59, has lived quite difficult days, if not to say deeply painful.

No one forgets, starting with his, on June 17, 2017, when a fire in Pedrógão, which spread to several neighboring counties, killed 65 people, most of whom (47) were trapped in cars escaping through the road. National Route 236.

Or later, in the same year, in the early morning of October 16, the drama of seeing the Pedrógão tragedy repeat itself point by point – cyclopean fires and chaos in the Civil Protection – with 45 people dying victims of dozens of fires in 27 municipalities of the central region (especially the districts of Viseu, Guarda, Castelo Branco, Aveiro and Leiria)

Costa also does not forget that on May 22, 2003, a Thursday, when a young investigating judge, Rui Teixeira, went to Parliament to question and then preventively arrest a PS deputy, under the horrible suspicion of pedophilia. – something never seen in a democracy and incomparably worse than a suspicion of corruption or the like.

At that time, the parliamentary leader of the PS, Costa had known for days that the storm was coming and tried by all means, together with his friends from the justice sector, to free Pedroso from jail, but to no avail. (Pedroso was in preventive prison for four months and then he was released. He was never charged with anything).

Equally unforgettable, in the worst sense, was that Wednesday June 9, 2004, when, being number two on the PS list to the European Parliament, he saw the number one on the list, António Sousa Franco, die of a heart attack. after a very hectic campaign action at the Matosinhos auction, where the head of the list served as a throwing weapon in a factional war that had been unleashed in PS-Porto.