IL criticizes PR’s ‘painful week’ and says government is right to scrap colonial reparations

This Saturday, the IL President said that the President of the Republic “has had a difficult week” and that reparations for the colonial past are inappropriate, arguing that the government responded “in the right way” and that common sense will prevail.

“I believe that the President of the Republic, to my regret, has had a difficult week, and therefore many aspects have come to public discussion that are of no interest, and are also out of time, out of time. context This is one of them,” Rui Rocha told reporters when asked about Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s proposal that Portugal should restore its former colonies.

According to the liberal leader, it is necessary to compensate for the damage “to the Portuguese who today face low wages, poverty that cannot be overcome, forced emigration, especially in the case of our youth.”

“[Portugueses] who will look at all this and ask: what are the priorities of the President of the Republic, when in Portugal there are so many problems, so many issues that need to be resolved, and the President of the Republic repeatedly sets himself these priorities, which seem completely unreasonable? me?” he criticized.

According to Rui Rocha, “in the end, common sense will prevail”, noting as positive the statement issued this afternoon in which the government assured that “what is at stake and not at stake is any process or program of concrete action with a view to” redressing damages from – for the Portuguese colonial past and said that it would be guided by the “same line” as previous leaders.

“There are those who say that [o primeiro-ministro] slow. “I don’t argue now whether she reacted quickly or slowly, but it seems to me that she reacted in the right direction,” he emphasized.

The IL President presented the hypothesis that Marcelo Rebelo “feels that the support he has earned from the Portuguese is diminishing” and may seek support “in increasingly less representative sections of Portuguese society” or outside Portugal.

“One thing I am sure of is that these proposals do not reflect what was the basis of their support. I am sure of this because these are not the priorities of the Portuguese,” he stressed.