Liberal Initiative criticizes parties for lack of sense of State in fortnightly debate

The parliamentary leader of the Liberal Initiative, Mário Amorim Lopes, criticized this Thursday the “lack of sense of state” of the other parties with parliamentary representation, which at the leaders’ conference the day before had insisted on rescheduling the fortnightly debate with the prime minister for Friday morning. And he also referred to the “vehement position” in this sense of the president of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, who would back down after the Government requested that Luís Montenegro’s departure only take place next week.

“We proposed that it be carried out on time and at the right time. There will be plenty of time to confront the Government, to understand what went wrong, and we will be at the front doing this work too. And the attitude of the parties, which did not know how to put the country’s interests ahead of their party interests, is inexplicable.”, said Amorim Lopes, after the fortnightly debate, initially scheduled for Wednesday, was rescheduled again, this time for next Thursday, February 19th.

For the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Initiative, it was “an unnecessary situation”, which should result in “an important lesson” for the Assembly of the Republic, arguing that “extraordinary moments require an extraordinary response”.

One of the Liberal Initiative’s arguments for postponing the fortnightly debate until next week was the fact that, following the resignation of Maria Lúcia Amaral, on Tuesday, Luís Montenegro holds the position of Minister of Internal Administration. And to coordinate the response to the effects of bad weather, which has already caused damage to an A1 viaduct and the suspension of the Northern railway line, in addition to 16 fatalities.