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This time it was boneless, straight to the point: Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wants António Costa to knock on Rui Rio’s door if the left fails to make the State Budget viable, and that the PSD is, in this case, the guarantor of the Government stability. After leaving the notices to navigation yesterday, in an act of the Confederation of Farmers of Portugal, in Lisbon, the President of the Republic explained a day later what he wanted to say: with the accelerating pandemic crisis, with the economic crisis in full, with funds from Brussels to manage, with the Portuguese presidency of the European Union approaching, and especially at a time when the President of the Republic cannot dissolve the Assembly of the Republic, this is not the time for a political crisis. Rio must be there, as Marcelo was there for António Guterres to make budgets possible in Portugal’s accession process to the euro.
“It does not occur to me that the Budget will fail. He is the leader of the opposition who … in fact, for much less, I made possible three budgets of Prime Minister António Guterres. And with my party, a part of him rebelled, he didn’t like it at all, he protested, with part of the electorate he protested. It’s common sense, ”he told reporters in Faro.
In an interview with Expresso, at the end of August, António Costa even said that “The day that subsistence [do Governo] depend on the PSD, this government is over “. At that time, BE and PCP saw these words of the Prime Minister as an “ultimatum” and a “threat”, which was nothing more than Costa’s dramatization to pressure them. In any case, since September 9, Marcelo was prevented from dissolving the Assembly of the Republic and calling early elections, but there would always be the possibility that the Government, not understanding the left, would continue to govern with the budget in place. . twelfth until the understanding of a new budget. Scenario that Marcelo doesn’t even want to dream of.
Asked if it is advice he is giving Rui Rio, Marcelo rejects it saying that it is fair. “common sense”. “There is a limit, I think, for democracy itself, which is the free choice of parties and politicians, and that limit is simple: it faces a situation that is serious in the pandemic, serious in the economic and social crisis, important for European funds and when Portugal will assume the presidency of the EU, And is it then that a political crisis is going to be provoked? “, He said.
Even more so “when the President cannot even dissolve the Assembly of the Republic”, and the new President (possibly himself) will only have that power again in March or April of the following year. In other words, in this context, Marcelo says: Anyone with common sense would say that he does it for the interest of the country, and for the year that we will see soon ”. For the year, at the limit, if there is no stability in the budget again, there will be early elections.
In other words, Plan A is the viability of the Left’s Budget, because that has always been António Costa’s choice since he formed the contraption five years ago. But the PSD has to be Plan B. At a time when the President has his hands and feet tied without being able to dissolve the Assembly and, with it, call elections, Marcelo makes the most of his influence from the magistracy to leave all warnings : on the left, Rio and especially Costa, tell the prime minister that he has no alternative but to knock on PSD’s door if plan A fails.
“The normal thing is that there is a government supported by the left, it is what has been normal since the elections. But in the case of the budget, if it is not possible to have this natural support for the left, the opposition that aspires to be a government will think what I thought as an opposition leader at that time: ‘what the hell, here we have an important path for the euro , an important and difficult path, that is why it is important to make the budget feasible, voters who are sad but it is justified by the national interest, ‘”he said.
All to say that, although part of the PSD (and PSD voters) does not want to see Rui Rio alongside Costa in the photograph, Rio will have to do it anyway in the name of the national interest. “For much less” Marcelo did the same at the end of the 90s.
Center. The Portuguese do not want a political crisis, and even admit negotiations between Costa and Rio
This is also what the latest Aximage and Intercampus polls say, showing that the majority of Portuguese do not want a political crisis, and prefer to see the PSD to make budgets feasible than to have a political crisis with an uncertain outcome. In the Aximage barometer, respondents were even divided into which would be the preferred partner for budget negotiations, if the left (26.1%), if the PSD (24.3%).
