The new secretary general of the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS), Pedro Nuno Santos, was officially inducted this Sunday, January 7 by activists from the party of Prime Minister Antonio Costa, whose resignation caused the calling of early legislative elections for the March 10.
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“ It is on us that the enormous responsibility of writing a new chapter in the book of PS governments and the development of the country falls. “, declared Pedro Nuno Santos in his closing speech at the congress which brought together the activists of his party in Lisbon, in the presence of the Resigned Prime Minister Antonio Costain power since 2015.
Coming from the left wing of the Socialist Party, this trained economist had played a key role within the first Costa government, as Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs in charge of relations with the radical left parties which enabled the socialists to gain power with the aim of “turning the page” on the austerity policy pursued until then by the right.
Portugal plunged into political crisis in early November after a series of arrests and searches led to the indictment of Antonio Costa’s chief of staff and his Minister of Infrastructure for a case of influence peddling. The prosecution then informed that the head of government was the subject of a separate investigation, and he immediately announced his resignation, specifying that he would not seek a new mandate.
Although favorites in the polls, the Socialists poorly conceal their fear of losing the vote, even though they held an absolute majority in Parliament, points out our correspondent in Lisbon, Marie-Line Darcy. But the new strong man of the PS, 46 years old, has serious assets to renew the political alliance. The left wing of the party calls for the need to reconcile the middle class with the welfare state in order to avoid democratic breakdown. A barely veiled reference to the far right of the Chega party, in dire straits.
According to information published Friday by the media ObservadorAntonio Costa would be implicated for acts of prevarication, suspected of having participated in the development of a land planning law which benefited a company which planned to build a mega-data center near from the port of Sines (southwest).
(And with AFP)