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Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa tried to call Rui Rio and Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos to understand the situation of Novo Banco. On Wednesday night and during the morning of Thursday, a majority began to draw in Parliament to approve the diploma of the Left Bloc and stop the injection of almost 500 million euros in the Novo Banco. And Marcelo decided to go out into the field.
The Observer knows that the President of the Republic tried to anticipate the vote of the CDS, since a possible vote against the Christian Democrats would destroy the diploma of the Left Bloc. Marcelo was concerned about the effects of the approval of the measure on the stability of the financial sector and on the credibility of the country’s external image.
He would try the same with Rui Rio. But without success. The PSD maintained its vote in favor of the diploma that prevented the transfer of public money to Novo Banco without first having an audit that accredits, in black and white, what the invoice has and must pay the State. Even with António Costa taking the case to dramatize, blaming those who, in his opinion, “wanted to play with fire” and burn the country.
Rio didn’t move a muscle. On Thursday, in Parliament, the Social Democratic leader assured that the party will not question the commitments of the Portuguese State, but left a notice to navigation: “The Portuguese State must comply, but we must be sure that on the other hand they are also complying. The contracts have two sides and we are here to defend the Portuguese taxpayers ”.
This Friday, Rio returned to the charge: “This is not the Republic of bananas. We all look at the price at which things were sold and we are left with obvious doubts and it is once and there are two and there are four and there are five. We need to clarify this. The best thing the PSD did was request, with the support of other parliamentary groups, an audit of an independent body such as the Court of Accounts, which will reach a conclusion ”.
At CDS, the pressure was enormous. At first, the Christian Democrats abstained from voting for the diploma of the Left Bloc. If they changed sides, the government could stop the offensive led by Catarina Martins and Rui Rio. The Socialists also took the field and tried to convince the CDS to opt for the leadership. And, for a moment, it was thought that the IVA da Luz brochure could be repeated, when the CDS helped save the State Budget for 2019.
On Thursday morning, the last day for the approval of the State Budget, the buzz was enormous in the CDS parliamentary office, with the five CDS deputies in an uproar because there was information that the party leader, Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos, it could give freedom to vote for some deputies to get out of alignment. None of the members of the CDS requested it and this rumor was not confirmed. The CDS ended without changing the course of the vote and maintaining the abstention.
This was not even the first time that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa tried to avoid a parliamentary and political crisis by directly linking party leaders. In May 2019, the President of the Republic picked up the phone and wanted to make clear his position on the recovery from the time when teaching careers were frozen, warning of the risks that the measure represented for the sustainability of public accounts.
At that time, António Costa threatened to resign and together they swore that the Socialists were ready to vote in early elections. PSD and CDS, who had taken the left hand, decided to back down and avoid the political crisis. Costa and Marcelo were winners.
This time, however, everything was different. First, the context. Contrary to what happened during the teachers crisis, the prime minister cannot threaten new elections due to the electoral calendar. Furthermore, in the eyes of PSD and CDS, the topic is much more popular with the public opinion: it is not about increasing spending as happened with the thaw of the teaching career, but before stopping the injection of more public money into Novo. Bank. Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos and, above all, Rui Rio kept their pulse.
Despite the concern and efforts of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of the Republic had to abide by the decisions of the PSD and the CDS. It remains to be seen what the President of the Republic will do when he receives the final version of the State Budget. Will you be tempted to request the preventive inspection of the constitutionality of the regulation or, with the Budget already underway, proceed to a successive request for an inspection that will necessarily take longer? The ball is on Marcelo’s side.
Pauses, pressure and ringing of phones. How PS tried to save the transfer to Novo Banco until the end, and it failed
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