“This is not my time”: Passos Coelho refuses to take a leading role in the PSD campaign

Former Prime Minister Passos Coelho warned this Thursday that “in politics it is fatal” when you lose your memory and everyone seems the same and, answering a question about current events, he repeated that this is not his time in the PSD, but the time of Luis Montenegro.

At the presentation of the book “Lendas e Contos Populares Transmontanos – Tesouros da Memória (Vol. I: Bragança e Vinhais)” by Alexandre Parafita, whom he knew as a child in Vila Real, Passos Coelho never spoke about parties, but left several warnings about the current political reality.

“When you lose your memory, we are all equal, and this is a terrible thing in politics, in economics too, because if everything is the same, there is no difference. Nothing can be determined, there is no reason for competition to find more efficiency, more welfare,” he said.

And he added: “It’s disastrous in politics if we’re all the same, it doesn’t matter whether we’re there, it doesn’t matter.”

“Memory, the past are very important for defining us and, even more so, how we see it. It is very important that every person knows how to interpret this past and this heritage in order to renew their identity and communicate with others,” defended the former Prime Minister from 2011 to 2015.

After leaving the meeting, Passos Coelho refused to make statements to journalists, saying that he was “watching everything” but did not want to interfere.

“This is not my time, the PSD has a leader, Dr. Luis Montenegro, and it is he who leads the PSD strategy and prepares the electoral campaign, he should be the authorized voice that should lead the PSD at this stage. ,” He said.

While he said he had not taken a “vow of silence”, he acknowledged that, given his previous roles as SDP leader and prime minister, what he says could have a “different interpretation”.

Asked whether he would participate in the campaign for the March 10 legislative elections, he simply replied: “This issue concerns the SDP.”

In his half-hour speech at the book launch, Passos Coelho warned that “when societies fall apart, something follows them, it is not the end of the world.”

“But it would be strange if people watched this passively, as if they were not agents of history, as if they had no will and surrendered to what should be,” he said.

At this point, the current university professor left a call to refute the adage that “what should be has more power.”

“There is great strength in this, but if I don’t like it, I have to do something, and this reaction is not always timely. When it is not timely, it takes other forms, which we then rush to condemn. too late, deep down we condemn ourselves for not taking action when we should have,” he said in an apparent message about the growth of the Chega Party.

In front of a small audience, the former prime minister spoke of “the threat posed by nationalism and extremism, whether of the right or the left” in Europe.

“There are moments that almost determine the profile of the Union under construction, doubt about where the border and limit lie. Can we push this border, this limit a little further without losing unity, or do we take a few more steps a little wider and people will start electing governments that want to end this and want to break out of this European imbalance that has been going on for almost decades.” , he wondered.

In the end, he left a guarantee: “The future always defines us more than the past, but without the past we are nothing.”

The President of the Chamber of Trás os Montes and Alto Douro, where the initiative took place, took the opportunity to leave him an invitation: “If in 2026 you want to present your candidacy for President at our headquarters, we will be with open arms,” said he issued a challenge that went unanswered.