Pedro Nuno Santos will attend the 24th PS Congress on Friday, which will proclaim him leader of the Socialists, promising a “new cycle” of reforms, social consultations, government stability and accusing right-wing forces of political radicalism.
These have been some of the main policies that the former Minister of Infrastructure and Housing has pursued since he announced his candidacy for the post of PS secretary general on November 13, six days after António Costa resigned as First Minister.
“We want to give new impetus to the work done by António Costa over the past eight years and open a new cycle of reforms in Portugal. In this new cycle, only the PS is able to provide a governance project that guarantees stability, protects democratic institutions, develops and reforms the welfare state and accelerates economic transformation,” he said in his recent New Year message.
Holding public office, from November 2015 to December 2022, Pedro Nuno Santos was the first Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs (until March 2019) and then Minister of Infrastructure and Housing. At the political level, especially since 2018, he has conveyed to the left several signs of demarcation regarding the line followed by the leaders to which he belonged.
However, as soon as the internal succession process of António Costa as Secretary General of the PS began, and in the race for the leadership he was ahead of José Luis Carneiro – an opponent who complained about the moderate space – Pedro Nuno Santos tried to reorient or change the position. himself – in several areas, mainly in relation to the legacy of his predecessor.
“The Socialists are very proud of António Costa and the results achieved by the Socialist Party governments led by him. We hope to count on him in the legislative election campaign,” he said. But he went further: “António Costa is the best Portuguese politician” and “I hope he will have the opportunity to continue to serve the country, whether here or abroad.”
However, to avoid being labeled as a member of the left wing of the Socialist Party, the new Socialist leader emphasized the support he received from the socialist Francisco Assis, who is associated with the very right wing of the party. And on the economic front, he said he is an enthusiast for social dialogue.
Accused by the leaders of the SDP, IL and Chegi of being a radical socialist, he tried to answer: “What I say is not radical, not moderate, not socialist. In Portugal, radicalism is confused with having convictions. I have beliefs. and I’m frontal,” he said.
On the contrary, according to Pedro Nuno Santos, what is radical is the current PSD, a party that is now “infected” by the discourse of “deregulation and the welfare state” of the Liberal Initiative and, above all, by the “extremism of Chegi”. .
“I would say that a possible PSD government with the Liberal Initiative will be more right-wing than the government of Passos Coelho,” he told SIC.
He also used Chega to cast suspicion on Luis Montenegro’s promise that the PSD would not enter into government agreements with the party. He cited the case of the Azores as an example, while at the same time, he said, he identified a growing similarity between the current language of the Social Democrats and the language used by André Ventura.
During the internal campaign, in which he refused to debate with his opponents in the struggle for leadership of the PS, the current PS secretary general tried, above all, to draw a line of demarcation from the SDP.
Among other episodes, he took advantage of the PSD’s announcement that, before deciding on the new location of Lisbon airport, it would create a working group to accuse the Social Democrats of “slowness”, introducing himself, on the other hand, as a politician. action, who does not like delays and wants to finish the job.
If in relation to the PSD, it also sought to discredit Luis Montenegro’s proposed plan to increase the incomes of the poorest elderly, using as an argument the idea that the government of Pedro Passos Coelho had cut pensions and wages between 2011 and 2015. As for the parties to the left of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos has said little or nothing to highlight his strategic preferences in terms of government arrangements.
He was clear when he said he would refuse to support a PSD-led government, but he has decided to this day not to commit to re-launching a socialist executive with the support of the BE, PCP, Livre and PAN. In this regard, on the night of his election as secretary general of the PS, he said that he did not like to call the first government led by António Costa “geringons”. And he explained why: “Everything was fine with Geringonça. It was really stable and worked well. She was reliable,” he said.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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