Santos Silva defends respect for every institution’s time without incident

The President of the Assembly of the Republic warned on Tuesday that the time of every democratic institution must be respected without incident or haste and that populist zeal threatens to spread like a virus in public space.

Augusto Santos Silva spoke at a solemn commemorative meeting on April 25 in Parliament, shortly before the closing speech of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a speech that he devoted to the topic of political time in democracy and the division of powers.

“Here in Parliament, which, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution adopted in April, is the heart of pluralistic representation and free debate, as well as the center of the dialectic between the government and the opposition. Now that a certain zeal is threatening to spread like a virus in the space community, jeopardizing the precious benefits of the solid democracy that we are, recognized worldwide as such,” he said.

The former Minister of State and Foreign Minister pointed out that in a democracy everything can be called into question, that “democratic time is inherently fleeting, plastic, differentiated” and that the regime “has mechanisms in place to avoid perpetuating situations that become unsustainable”. “.

“But democratic time is also cyclical, it has a certain rhythm and duration. And if the Assembly [da República] works, discusses, checks, investigates, adopts laws; if the government develops and implements its policies with varying precision and enjoys the confidence of parliament; if oppositions give way to the formation and approval of alternatives; whether sovereign bodies cooperate, respecting each other’s powers; if the problems of the people and the country are innumerable, and the main responsibility for solving them lies with the various decision makers – then we must respect the time of each institution, without haste and haste,” he said.

When Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa listened to him, and after a long standing ovation from the PS deputies, Augusto Santos Silva defended that one should “prefer the slow breathing typical of a mature democracy to the heavy breathing typical of populist excitement, for the good of all”.

“Because if we all lose a day, we recognize that political dynamics must be insensitive to needs and the social environment and guided solely by administrative and formal procedures; we will also all lose the day when we cease to distinguish between local errors, even serious, protracted and systemic crises, and the day when we recognize that the life of a parliament or government – whatever it may be – depends on the level of protest in one sector or another, from the favor of the published opinion, from the perception of the media, the noise in social networks or the evolution of the polls,” he stressed, having received the applause of the PS here too.