Santos Silva states that PS commemorates November 25, 1975.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, said this Wednesday at a meeting of the organizing committee for the parliamentary celebrations of the 50th anniversary of April 25 that he argued that the PS should celebrate November 25, 1975.

Augusto Santos Silva was answering a question in Parliament from Socialist Democratic MP Hugo Oliveira about whether he believed that November 25, 1975 should be included in the official program of parliamentary celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 1974 Carnation Revolution.

“When we discussed this issue in the organizing committee, which we did, I very well remember saying: “I understand that consensus is impossible, but I must say that I hope that my party will celebrate November 25.” I think I answered the deputy,” Santos Silva said.

The topic arose after a political statement by the Liberal Initiative, in which the party’s president, Rui Rocha, sharply criticized Santos Silva, accusing him of not including the military operation of November 25, 1975, in the official commemoration program. in the fiftieth anniversary parliament on April 25.

Believing that the celebration of November 25 “is indeed a moral imperative”, Rui Rocha said that “this decision shows a deep disregard for the history of the consolidation of democracy in Portugal and represents enormous political cowardice, deplorable opportunism and enormous hypocrisy.”

Rocha accused the parliament president of “hiding behind consensus” by not including the date in parliamentary celebrations, and said this was done to “please the radical left.”

In his response, Santos Silva insisted that the official program of parliament is the result of consensus between all parties that are represented in the committee for the organization of parliamentary celebrations, chaired by himself, and that this committee “takes decisions by consensus”, that is, that “if there is no unanimity , not a single parliamentary group is against it.”