The socialist Pedro Nuno Santos said this Sunday in Coimbra that the candidacy for the post of PS general secretary is aimed at “victory over the right” and called on his opponent José Luis Carneiro to do the same.
“I expected my opponent to have the same focus and the same concentration when fighting from the right. This is simply not what happened: my internal opponent chose to attack me more than on the right,” said Pedro Nuno Santos.
The former infrastructure minister spoke to reporters before starting a meeting with district structures of his campaign for the national leadership of the Socialist Party.
“We are aimed exclusively at the defeat of the right and the SDP, and it is precisely according to this scenario that we are working,” he emphasized.
At various points in his statement he tried to distinguish himself on this issue from his opponent José Luis Carneiro, recalling that the current Minister of the Interior had already admitted that if he headed the PS, a PSD government would be possible. socialists, if this party comes to power, will win the elections on March 10 without an absolute majority.
“The goal of this candidacy is to defeat the right and nothing more,” he repeated, defending the importance of a political project “that mobilizes and continues to transform Portugal” so that people can “live better.”
In this dispute for the leadership of the PS, which was joined on Saturday by a third candidate presented by leader Daniel Adrian, it is above all important to “talk about the country and respond to the right, which is preparing to unite everything together.” “, defended Pedro Nuno Santos.
If he is elected secretary general, “the PS will not be anyone’s crutch”; it will rather “fight in these elections” [legislativas] to be able to win them,” he assured.
Pedro Nuno Santos, the MP elected by Aveiro, recalled that in 2015, under the leadership of António Costa, the PS managed to “expand its strategic autonomy” in the context of parliamentary agreements with the parties to its left, BE, PCP and the Greens. .
“In 2015, António Costa demolished the walls to his left,” he emphasized.
In his opinion, the PS must strive to maintain this strategic autonomy so as not to “return to 2014,” as his opponent José Luis Carneiro admitted and accused.
Before the PS won the 2015 legislative elections with a relative majority, the party was “almost exclusively dependent on either the absolute majority or the SDP to be able to govern,” emphasized the former Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs, who coordinated PS arrangements during this capacity with the parties to her left in the Assembly of the Republic.
“If there is anyone who knows how to guarantee the strategic autonomy of the PS, it is me, who was at the center of coordination in the early years of the so-called ‘cunning’,” he emphasized.
During this period, he added, “my role was to ensure that budgets [de Estado] passed, but also that they adhered to the fundamental value matrix and the PS program,” which “was successfully achieved.”
“These have been four years of stability, economic and social development, and not once has any of the country’s international or European commitments been called into question, and during which the intention of getting the accounts right has been fulfilled,” also stressed the candidate to succeed António Costa in the Socialist leadership .
Direct elections for the position of Secretary General are scheduled for December 15 and 16, and the congress will take place on January 5, 6 and 7.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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