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The presidential candidate supported by the Liberal Initiative, Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, accuses Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa of not having been President of the Republic, but “minister of propaganda” of the Socialist Government, considering that this collaboration was “merely narcissistic” to achieve reelection.
In an interview with Lusa, about four months after announcing his candidacy for the Palace of Belém, supported by the Liberal Initiative -party of which he was founder and currently president of the Council of Jurisdiction- Tiago Mayan Gonçalves does not skimp on criticizing the current President of the Republic.
“Marcelo was not president. Marcelo was the government’s propaganda minister and this is, from the beginning, the biggest criticism I can make of him because this has been continuously demonstrated” it means.
Marking a clear difference with the current head of state, the liberal candidate affirms that, “regardless of the right and the left,” he expects “voters who do not see themselves in this president, who has abdicated to exercise his mandate,” and see in his “a valid and moderate proposal”.
“I am also a candidate against all types of extremism, of any spectrum and of any extreme in this spectrum of left / right,” he assures, answering that a good result “is to be able to transmit what a liberal president represents for the Portuguese.”
The liberal lists a long list of situations to support his criticism of the current president of the Republic, starting with the flu vaccine and going through the “narrative of the Portuguese miracle, the proclamation of football matches in the heart of Belém while they close flight channels for the country, the Pedrógão fire, the tragedy of the deaths in Lar de Reguengos e Tancos “.
“So many, so many examples where Marcelo, when he acts, acts to cover up or to distract and allow the Government to act without control and without the institutions working regularly,” he condemns.
For the 43-year-old Buenos Aires lawyer, this way of acting of the current head of state is guided “by a purely narcissistic and personal goal of wanting re-election” in next year’s presidential elections.
“Marcelo, what he did, from the first day he took office, was to stop being president and become a presidential candidate and the strategy for that was to collaborate with the Government, which was what it was at that time. If it were someone else, probably I would do the same, “he said.
From the perspective of Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, “the strategy was to be a collaborator with the government because it hoped to guarantee re-election.”
“What I criticize is the performance of Marcelo in his presidential functions”
“And not just a re-election because I think it was also within his dream to guarantee an apotheotic re-election. Here the pandemic ended up causing difficulties for that goal, but the goal of re-election still has it and, therefore, that was a strategy” . , justifies.
The announced liberal candidate sees other of his competitors in these elections “praising Marcelo’s presidential performance, but criticizing his style.”
“I do precisely the opposite. What I criticize is the performance of Marcelo in his presidential functions. But the style, the approach, the dislike with the people, was important and that is what makes him so popular,” he considers.
When asked who is his great opponent in the presidential elections to which he is running, Tiago Mayan Gonçalves does not doubt it for a second: “It’s Marcelo, of course. He is the incumbent and I think he will be a candidate – although he still maintains the taboo – and it’s who I’m competing against. “
Regarding the name supported by Chega, André Ventura, the liberal points out that “apparently he is not a presidential candidate because he rarely talks about this aspect”, but makes it clear that he represents “diametrically opposed values in practically everything.”
“I don’t understand why Graça Freitas continues to be the general director of Health”
For the location of the interview with Lusa, the candidate supported by the Liberal Initiative symbolically chooses a restaurant, since this is one of the sectors most affected by the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, whose government management is very critical.
“I do not understand why the Director General of Health [Graça Freitas] He is also the general director of Health. I can not understand, honestly, “critical, considering that The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, “has been in favor of a government without direction, without direction, in this pandemic.”
Tiago Mayan Gonçalves points out several “aspects of the total incompetence of the Government in handling the pandemic.”
“When we saw [o primeiro-ministro] António Costa supporting the declaration of a state of emergency with a cheese in which 95% of infections are identified there – when, in other countries, most of the infections have an unknown origin, but we were able to miraculously identify 95% of the infections- and 68% are to come from families. There is some information here that is not correct “, exemplified.
A “country and two systems” is another criticism of Tiago Mayan Gonçalves in relation to the performance of the socialist executive in the covid-19, saying that “rules are created, but then exceptions are created alongside, incomprehensible exceptions for the common citizen” . and then undermine confidence in the measures being tested. “
“The ideological blindness of not having resorted to the private in time has killed people, is killing people and will continue to kill people”
“The first thing I would do, as president, if elected, would be to meet urgently with the government, the Council of State and other agents to determine and plan as soon as possible the return to constitutional normality,” he added.shock.
From the lawyer’s perspective, the current situation, “of continuous arbitrary impositions, ‘conjectures’, of limitations on rights, freedoms and guarantees, destroys lives”.
“Closing on weekends after 1 pm destroys businesses and destroys lives. The ideological blindness of not having resorted to the private in time and hours has killed people, is killing people and will continue to kill people ”, he condemns.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, by Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, “has been the spokesperson for the Government’s narratives and in that sense, it is only the Government doing what it thinks, exercising acts and omissions due to ideological blindness, incompetence, and incapacity.”
Still on the issue of the pandemic and questioned by the blockade upon the arrival of the so-called “European bazooka”, the liberal candidate took the opportunity to point out the socialists again.
“There is a lot of talk about agreements with the extreme right and there was an agreement that Costa made with the extreme right of Viktor Orbán that failed. He tried to do it, but failed. And we really have this problem now: the European bazooka is at least a few behind. months, ”he says.
The problem, from the perspective of Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, is why the Portuguese have to “be beggars” and “go begging.”
“Why are we not in a country that has taken advantage of all these years of the European Union to create a prosperous country, which could endure this struggle without having to go hand in hand with Europe again?”
The Liberal agrees that the European Union “has placed the issue of respect for the rule of law as a conditional clause”, since this is fundamental.
“What I find unacceptable is that our Prime Minister thinks that respect for the rule of law is something dispensable just because he needs to receive the European bazooka. That shocks me,” he condemns.
Tiago Mayan Gonçalves was a PSD activist – from where he still receives the bulletins in an email, but assures that “they go to spam, of course” – and is elected as a substitute by the Rui Moreira Movement to the Assembly of the Parish Union of Aldoar, Foz do Douro and Nevogilde.
