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The interview with the presidential candidate and leader of Chega took place in two parts: the first, on Tuesday, between the hearing of the Minister of the Interior in Parliament and the interview with RTP; and the second, the following day, after meeting his rival Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The presidential candidate says that if he won the elections it was because in the following legislatures his party was going to have a large vote: thus he could “lead” the state from the Presidency of the Republic.
He is a candidate to swear to the Constitution. Do you swear to enforce a Constitution that you want to make a blank slate?
I swear to comply and enforce because I play the democratic game and institutional loyalty. I defend another regime and another constitution. I never appealed to subversion or insurrection, it would even be a crime. I will do my best to have a new Constitution, even if I swear to it. Whatever he did, it would be through the sphere of influence: if he were president, there would soon be a very different composition of Parliament.
So you are defending a president who may have an armed wing in Parliament?
Yes, who can lead the state and not just be a tape cutter, to take selfies and appear at award ceremonies.
How would your coexistence with a government of António Costa with the left?
It may not have been easy because, for example, it would never allow the replacement of the attorney general of the Republic at the time we meet. I would hardly accept the dismissal of the president of the Court of Auditors at this time, especially after all the suspicions that arose in the inspection of public funds and the relaxation of the previous visa of the Court of Auditors. We started to have many works that are no longer seen by the Court of Auditors and I would not allow these people to be expelled in that context.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa returned the diploma to Parliament …
Yes, I am referring to even the replacements of the highest officials. The issue is the public image that has given the idea that the Government wants to remove everything that is uncomfortable, and that is very negative. If the extreme left and the PS insisted on maintaining this model of control, on replacing directors in the Judicial Police, etc., they would have a very difficult relationship with me. Now, would you immediately say that the socialist government has come to an end? No, I wouldn’t say that. That is what the Portuguese choose. And it certainly would not be me who created instability at a time when the country needs a lot of stability.
Has not Marcelo been sufficiently interventionist?
No, it hasn’t. In the case of the fires, he was not interventionist at all, just look at how long the minister still lasted, when the whole country saw the calamity that was happening. This case of the SEF is one more example that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa appears only in good times, never in bad times. Budgets, the same. He cannot exercise a judiciary of influence because, in fact, the parties are very suspicious of the president.
This is an article from the weekly Expresso. Click HERE to continue reading.
