The leader of Chega, Andre Ventura, this Thursday accused the President of the Assembly of the Republic of wanting to condition justice and considered that Augusto Santos Silva is not capable of continuing to hold this position.
“This intervention is a vile, low, but very significant attempt to achieve justice,” President Chegi said.
Speaking to reporters in parliament, Andre Ventura said that Augusto Santos Silva “does not have any conditions of impartiality to continue as President of the Assembly of the Republic.”
This is an interview that Augusto Santos Silva gave RTP3 on Wednesday evening, in which he said that the Supreme Court (STJ) must quickly clarify, before the March 10 elections, the criminal situation of Prime Minister António Costa, stressing that the case marked the beginning of a political crisis.
The Chegi leader accused the state’s No. 2 figure of wanting “special treatment for the Prime Minister” in the “hope that the process will be delayed” and the PS will not reach the early legislative elections on March 10 with its image affected.
Criticizing the fact that the President of the Assembly of the Republic demanded clarification of the criminal situation of António Costa before the elections, the leader of Chegi said that if this happened, “it would be a disgrace for the justice system.”
“The time for justice is not the time of the Prime Minister, and this is not the time that the PS wants,” he stressed, wondering why the process involving the Prime Minister, and not others, would be expedited.
Andre Ventura also said that he would discuss this situation at the Conference of Parliamentary Leaders and propose “very strict censorship of Santos Silva.”
President Chegi also asked the President of the Republic to give his “word to distance himself from this,” saying that “the normal functioning of the institutions is at stake.”
“When it comes to them, it’s all about accelerating as much as possible. The rest of us can wait,” Ventura criticized, noting that “the best PS can do” “is wait for Justice to do his job.”
The leader of the Chega party, which has been involved in several tense relations with Augusto Santos Silva, accused the president of “discrediting the Assembly of the Republic” by “failing to take off the coat of the PS.”
“If you want to preserve the dignity of this institution, then you must resign and leave your seat,” he said.
Noting the fact that in the same interview, Augusto Santos Silva expressed support for the candidacy of José Luis Carneiro for the post of PS leader, André Ventura believes that the candidate should come forward and say whether he is “reconsidering himself in this attempt to condition himself.”
In Portugal, on March 10, 2024, early elections will be held for legislative bodies appointed by the President of the Republic after the resignation of the Prime Minister.
António Costa became the subject of an investigation carried out by the Ministry of State (MP) in the Supreme Court after suspects in the investigation into influence peddling in the Sines data center business named him as the person who interfered with the unlocking procedures but had already refused to do “what -or illegal or reprehensible actions.”
On November 10, the deputy detained five people: the chief of staff of Prime Minister Vitor Escaria, the mayor of Sines Nuno Mascarenhas, two administrators of the Start Campus society Afonso Salema and Rui Oliveira Neves, as well as lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado, a friend of Antonio Costa, who was released after the judicial interrogation.
In total, there are nine defendants in the investigation into the lithium, green hydrogen and Sines data centers, including former infrastructure minister João Galamba, Portuguese Environmental Agency president Nuno Lacasta, lawyer and former PS representative João Thiago Silveira and the company Start Campus.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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