“There is no agreement on the right without support for ending tolls”: Andre Ventura on a possible post-election agreement on the right

Chegi President André Ventura said this Monday that after the elections there will be no agreement on the right unless the PSD supports the abolition of tolls in the interior and a uniform allowance for the security forces.

“If the SDP believes that it is not important to stop training and it is not important to equate the replenishment of police PS with the security forces, I will tell you one thing: there will be no agreement on the right,” he said, referring to “issues of principle” rather than specific ones measures”.

On the sidelines of the campaign for the regional legislature of the Azores, Social Democratic leader Luis Montenegro may think he is making a serious attack on the PS, but he is rather “contributing to an even greater one,” according to Andre Ventura, who spoke to journalists in Ponta Delgada. discrediting the right.”

It is, he added, “pure political amateurism, pure social insensitivity” that forces many voters to choose PS.

On Saturday, PS Secretary General Pedro Nuno Santos promised in Porto that all tolls on old highways for users (SCUT) in the interior and the Algarve would be waived free of charge.

On Sunday, Luis Montenegro criticized the proposal of the Socialist secretary general and candidate in the national legislative elections on March 10, quipping: “Suddenly it is possible to give everything to everyone.”

“Part of the exaggeration occurs when someone has the audacity to announce, to propose stopping payment of road tolls, when they have the responsibility to implement a decision taken in parliament at the initiative of the SDP, which was not about the abolition of tolls, but there was a reduction in tolls, and even that is not managed to be realized. This is the case when they say that there is oil in Largo do Rato. [sede do PS]”, he accused.

The Social Democrat also said he “respects the demands” of various specialists, including education, health, the judiciary and the police, without wanting to make promises.

“I have already given the opportunity to meet with these representatives and analyze their employment situation, their remuneration situation, but I want to say that if they are looking for a prime minister who will answer “yes” to all their demands, then now he has five left “Six weeks until the election, if this is the Prime Minister you are looking for, then I am the wrong Prime Minister,” he suggested.

Regarding tolls in the interior of the country and in the Algarve, Ventura emphasized, Chega proposed their abolition and insisted on including this in the electoral program. The party believed that this was a “fundamental convergence of the right” as it was a matter of cohesion.

The leader of Chegi hopes that the PSD President will urgently clarify his position and what he meant when he said, according to Andre Ventura, that he does not seek the abolition of tolls and the equalization of surcharges from PSP and GNR. and prison guards to prison guards, remembering that the President of the Republic himself defended this measure.

“So the leader of the SDP comes and says that he has no consensus on this issue and that he does not accept any obligations? […] There will be no convergence to the right if Luis Montenegro does not explain this and if he does not explain that this is the intention of all parties in these elections,” he said.

Andre Ventura also criticized the Socialists for “sheer hypocrisy” for the PS voting against Chega’s proposal to abolish tariffs in the interior and the Algarve during the discussion of the state budget, and for not implementing this measure while it was in government.

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, told the heads of the PNP and PSP, as well as the platform of associations and trade union leaders, that he advocates for these forces a compensation regime equivalent to that of the PS.