Former President of the Republic Cavaco Silva admits that the head of government must fire ministers if they are disloyal or in case of “signs of corruption”, in a book to be presented this Friday in Lisbon.
If a minister, despite an “excellent technical resume”, turns out to be “a disaster due to a lack of political qualities, common sense, stability” or “psychological stability”, he should be fired, writes former PSD leader and former Prime Minister Minister Cavaco Silva (1985 -1995) in The Prime Minister and the Art of Government, launched this Friday.
“In such a case, the prime minister should put aside personal feelings and replace the minister as soon as he realizes the mistake made in the selection,” says the chapter on ministerial selection in the book, which does not cite any cases. Nor does he refer to names.
Keeping ministers incapacitated “for personal reasons or poor judgment” leads to “serious damage to the country,” he concluded.
In a chapter on the evaluation of ministers, Cavaco argues that the head of government cannot criticize a minister “in the presence of anyone”, but emphasizes that he must fire him in five cases: lack of loyalty, “behaviour indicating a lack of feeling for the State, use of offensive language , signs of corruption, malfeasance and other serious violations of political ethics.”
If he fails to do so, he said, the Prime Minister’s “political and moral credibility and authority will be seriously damaged.”
And keeping rulers solely based on their popularity ratings is also inappropriate and should not be a “performance evaluation criterion with significant weight.”
“As has been verified, a popular minister cannot be a good minister from the point of view of national interest,” Cavaco Silva wrote, without naming names or cases.
In the book, the former head of the SDP government (1985-1995) also warns that “vetting the people” elected as ministers “is their exclusive responsibility and cannot be carried out in the public square.”
Invitations to ministers, he writes, should begin with independent, non-party members, to whom departmental policy should be explained in more detail, be done secretly and not take more than “a day or two.”
The 226-page book, which includes an original essay by Cavaco Silva on the “art of government”, brings together articles published on European, economic and political topics, including “Politicians and Gresham’s Law”, according to which “bad currency stimulates outside of good currency”, published in 2004, when Pedro Santana López (PSD) was Prime Minister.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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