Pedro Nuño Santos arrived at the meeting of the National Political Commission with the decision on the Budget taken and announced. He surmised that the process that brought him here was not easy because there were never any obvious options, but that now is the time to focus on the opposition he wants the party to lead clearly. After meetings with a divided party about what to do in the OE, the socialist leader managed to calm things down with the anticipation of the decision, but still listened repair the process and doubts about the cycle that follows. In the end, Carlos César summed it all up with “of course it costs, but the country comes first.”
At the end of the night, the National Political Commission of the PS unanimously supported the leader’s decision to abstain from the Budget vote, allowing the Government’s proposal to be viable. But the PS came out to guarantee that this was not what it wanted to do to try to maintain its space as the main opposition party. the president of the party aggregate argument that the Secretary General Pedro Nuno Santos had already used to justify the abstention in the OE. “More than knowing what the elections would yield,” César said, “the administration would be arrest“.
Therefore, “it is difficult”, because the PS “does not like the Budget and does not trust this Government”, but the viability of the proposal will remain in force, “at least national interest“summarized the president of the socialists after four hours of a peaceful meeting, but with reservations and concerns about which party will emerge for the next cycle.
At the beginning of the meeting and before the socialists, Pedro Nuño justified the negotiation process – which was reviewed – considering that the PS could not be left out, refusing to approve blank checks to the Government. But also ensure that this positioning will allow the PS to oppose from now on and that the exit will never be easy, since there were never obvious options. he was “very justifying”according to those who heard him at the meeting, but ensuring that this had been the correct option.
Within the party, before the decision, there was growing public pressure for the feasibilitycoming from names like that of the former Minister of Finance. Fernando Medina, José Luís Carneiro or José António Vieira da Silva. They all intervened in the Monday night meeting, but this time mainly to point guns at the Government.
Vieira da Silva also referred to the chapter that shocked the socialists, that of Pedro Nuno’s interventions asking the party commentators who were on television to “come down from the pedestal” and listen to the PS. The socialist confronted the leader, according to the Observer, saying that he did not like the words spoken at the federative congresses and that he would continue to give his opinion from now on. In the final intervention, Pedro Nuño framed what was said at the moment in which some of the commentators had made statements and how that, at that moment, could harm the position of the party.
Pedro Nuño hunts down critics in the PS, brings “astonishment” and memories of his time as an ‘enfant terrible’
Otherwise, Fernando Medina He defended turning the page on the Budgets, after a process whose management he had criticized at the parliamentary bench meeting two weeks ago. He supported the decision to abstain, but said that the party’s speech should now focus on the concerns of the Portuguese and less on those within the party, according to Observer sources who were at the meeting. Jose Luis CarneiroFor his part, he said at the meeting that the decision presented by Pedro Nuño demonstrates a “sense of responsibility.”
The socialist who ran against Pedro Nuño in the December elections last year supported the classification of this as “a bad budget” and the criticism of the Government, which was where the socialists followed the most this afternoon, after months of a winding path in regarding the position relative to the Budget. One of the outspoken critics of the current leadership, José António scallop da silvawas especially harsh on this front, and several sources went so far as to say that they described this Government as “the worst in history”, complaining that its “state of grace” was being “prolonged” in the media space.
As soon as the night opens, María Antónia Almeida Santos He intervened with some criticism of the negotiation process, which he considered too long and “uninteresting” for most people. He left Pedro Nuño with a very specific question, according to El Observador, about what the leader intends when he talks about taking advantage of the States General to “renew” the party, warning of the possible idea of “sectarianism” that could remain with Pedro Nuño. She was not the only one to touch on this point, José Luís Carneiro also wanted to know who the PS intends to include on this front where Pedro Nuno wants to prepare the party’s next electoral program. In the end, the leader insisted on the need for renewal.
But there were also those who were more interested in the chapter that follows: the local authorities. Luisa Salgueiropresident of the ANMP and mayor of Matosinhos, intervened to talk about it but also to say that at this moment there was no alternative to the position reached by the PS on the Budget. Several interventions were directed in this direction and several socialists guaranteed what they saw on the ground: the people did not want elections.
The socialists also showed themselves angry with a government based on what they say are its achievements, with the distribution of resources between various sectors with money left by the previous Government, they questioned. In the end, Carlos César spoke about this and in the “tens and dozens of inaugurations” by the Government “of works that it neither executed nor planned.” He pointed to a “Government that makes flowers with the funds that the PS, through a serious public finance management policy, managed to reserve and that if it continued with its mandate it would not satisfy claims of some professional classes.”
“We know that at this point there should not be an interruption of the administration in Portugal and a moment of paralysis that would complicate the tasks even more,” justified Carlos César once again, who guaranteed that the PS will oppose and that “it will.” show daily” what the Government said it was. Regarding the Budget for 2025 and the discussion in the specialty, the single commitment What the PS assumes is the budget balance planned by the Government. “The PS will decide on a case-by-case basis, depending on the circumstances, what it will do without the ambition to make this its Budget”; guaranteed, leaving the details of this strategy for a next chapter.
Source: Observadora
