The right is discussing whether an agreement with Chega is acceptable or not. PSD’s approach to André Ventura has been widely criticized. Should PSD and CDS be available for agreements with Chega?
The agreement made with Chega is a parliamentary agreement, not a Government agreement, and covers very concrete issues. I think this agreement is very positive. It was just what was lacking that the PS could make agreements with Stalinists and Trotskyists, and the PSD and CDS could not do with parties on the right that the Constitutional Court considered valid and that do not contradict the Constitution. Didn’t the left like it? Patience, get used to it.
It wasn’t just the left that didn’t like it. Some people on the right also criticized this approach to André Ventura.
It is essential that those who lead the parties on the right have the ability to build an alternative and are not preparing for just a negative alternation. It was important that they work together to create a real positive alternative and not just a right-wing contraption to replace the left, without a project and prospects for the future.
How do you see the growth of phenomena like Chega at the same time that the CDS is losing support from the electorate?
Chega grows, first of all, because of the CDS. It is true that there is also responsibility for the PSD, but the main responsibility is the CDS for not knowing how to capture the discontent of the electorate that does not vote on the left. It is true that there may be left-wing voters wanting to vote Enough, but most of their voters are not from the left, they are working citizens tired of the rot that the system has reached, and that, the CDS is not understanding. When parties fail to provide answers to people’s problems and stop speaking the language of ordinary people, a gap arises that opens the door to parties that interpret and understand what people need and feel.
Don’t you think that traditional parties are falling into a trap when they agree to debate the flags of a party with the characteristics of Chega?
Are we talking about reducing the number of deputies? The wages of politicians? The fight against corruption? The review of penalties for child rapists? The hardening of penalties for the corrupt? These were already CDS flags. There were those at CDS who conveniently forgot it, go ahead and find out why, but these were, in the past, flags that the CDS carried out.
Are you an advocate of a pre-electoral coalition between the right-wing parties in the next legislatures?
There is still a long time to go. For now, I understand that the CDS must go to votes alone. Wanting to form coalitions in haste can only serve to help save those who have no ideas and fear losing their place.
There are those who think that the CDS is in danger of disappearing. Do you agree that there is such a risk?
I agree. I have been completely calm, but I know that there are many militants who have tried to move towards creating an organized group, within the CDS, that demonstrates that the criticisms of Rodrigues dos Santos are not only led by the liberal group, led by Adolfo Mesquita Nunes. I know they have tried to mobilize a lot of people, they already told me. I have told everyone that it is not the time to participate in groups of this nature.
Who are these people?
They are militants from all over the country, concerned with the continuous erasure of the CDS at the national political level. At the moment, the salvation of the CDS, its existence is at stake.
Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos is not managing to turn around the loss of electorate?
Rodrigues dos Santos was a disappointment. When we expected him to appear without tibia to be able to make the party grow, he went zigzagging to please the system, because the system is also within the CDS. The most evident proof of this is that, despite the result in the Azores, there is evidence that the CDS is irrelevant from the national political point of view. Many people who voted Rodrigues dos Santos are disappointed. Many voters expected him to bring a new soul and a dynamic flame of affirmation from the CDS as a conservative right-wing party and are deeply disappointed.
Should the CDS support Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s re-election?
What would be required is that, if the CDS has so far not given support to prof. Marcelo, be consistent and say that the conservative right is not with him and has his own candidate. But that would require and imply a CDS with a capacity for affirmation and leadership with a capacity for mobilization that, so far, has not shown itself to have. I look forward to the next CDS national council, particularly with regard to the presidential elections. I was pleased to see the position of the Popular Youth and I wish Rodrigues dos Santos to surprise us, mobilizing the conservative right for his own candidacy.
Do you think that the President of the Republic was too close to the Socialist Government?
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has shown himself to be the President of the PS Republic and the Government. He is not the President of the Portuguese conservative right. In the worst moments of government, the President of the Republic could not be expected to criticize the Government, but it never crossed our minds to have the President of the Republic as the Government’s spokesman.
Have you decided who to vote for?
I don’t vote for Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, for sure.
At the congress he defended that the CDS must have an identity again. What are the causes with which this identity is recovered?
The CDS is no longer a party of causes, values and principles, but it is necessary to recover them.
How?
We have to be genuine. We cannot be afraid of the politically correct, nor of the attacks of the left and of the controlled press, which only allows an authorized, cute and trained right. Then, we have to have a project for the country, something that takes us out of the crooked strain and allows the Portuguese to dream of a better Portugal. We must have a clear idea of our position in Europe and in the world, but also understand the problems of the Portuguese and not shy away from issues such as crime, corruption or addiction.
I would have a clearer position on fracturing issues, for example …
I believe that these themes are essential, not fracturing. They are essential to develop a supportive and positive society, and not a society where disposable predominates. Human beings cannot be disposable and the fundamental values of human dignity must be the basis for political affirmation. The cultural combat that the left does and dominates must have an effective response from a muscular and courageous right. We cannot have a cowardly right.
Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos has been the target of internal criticism. Deputy João Gonçalves Pereira defended that Cecília Meireles would be a good solution for the leadership. Does it make sense to be already talking about the dispute for leadership?
Some people’s reasons for concern are not mine. I am concerned only with the future of the party, not with my political future. Unlike others, I have a profession and do not live, as I have never lived, for years and years of the wages of politics.
Isn’t the CDS problem just in the lead?
There is no point in discussing leadership for the future if you do not know what you want for that future. But this discussion is not available to everyone. It is certainly not within the reach of those who do not know what the real life of the Portuguese who work and who do not live leaning against the public budget table is.
He decided to resign from the executive committee of the CDS-PP after a controversy because of the praise he gives Salazar. At that time, he spoke of a black campaign coming from “unscrupulous politicians”. Do you want to explain better who started this black campaign?
Of those who missed the congress, but what goes on, there goes! It was a moment of great fragility in the CDS because, more than the attack on me, it was an attack on the party president and he did not see it. I believe that one day he will understand.
Did you write those texts again on the social networks where you called Aristides de Sousa Mendes “moneylender of the Jews” and praised Salazar?
About this, I say no more. All of that was maliciously decontextualized in order to, through me, besiege the president of the CDS, and they succeeded. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Christian, a Catholic, and I have never moved against ethnic, religious or other groups. I move in favor of causes, values and principles, because I am a humanist. It is as a humanist that I have remained at the CDS.
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