To presidential candidate Catarina Martins promises to try to find alternatives to Chega’s participation in a future Governmentexpressing confidence that “there will always be solutions that involve democracy and decency” to form majorities in parliament.
“With me President, Chega will never be a Government. Because my fight is a fight for political culture. And it is a fight to win majorities in the name of decency and democracy. And if this path is successful, there will not be a country that gives Chega this power”, defended the former coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda (BE), in an interview with the Lusa agency, after launching her candidacy on Saturday.
Asked about what she would do as President of the Republic in a scenario in which Chega won the legislative elections, Catarina Martins expressed confidence that “there will always be solutions that involve democracy and decency”.
“What I tell you is: the same country that gives strength to my candidacy, that can elect me as President, that can make this political space strong, is the same country that will never allow Chega to have that type of power”, he stressed.
The candidate for Belém said she had “a very literal understanding of the Constitution of the Republic”, stating that “whoever has the majority” forms a Government to do so.
“And as far as I’m concerned, majorities will never be made in a democracy with those who don’t respect democracy. And also with respect for the Constitution: a party that does not want to comply with the Constitution, which in fact has successive statements of wanting to subvert the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, can never be part of a Government or a majority of a Government”, he added.
For Catarina Martins, her candidacy for Belém and the eventual result it may have “is the greatest force that exists to stop any scenario of this type”.
In an interview in which he refused to set concrete electoral goals, stating that his objective “is not to let this presidential campaign be the burial of democracy in Portugal”the former BE leader rejected a “closed from the start” race.
Distancing herself from the current President of the Republic, Catarina Martins criticized Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for having dissolved parliament several times due to failures in the State Budget and said that she will not do the same if she is elected to the position.
“I am inspired by solutions that are common in Europe, of promoting new negotiations to reach understandings. Permanent negotiation, which respects the parliamentary framework that emerges from the elections, is very important”, he highlighted.
Regarding whether she would admit to doing so if the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, is accused in a criminal investigation in relation to the case of the family company Spinumviva, Catarina Martins argued that a chief executive “under strong suspicion is not in a position” to remain in office, despite respecting the right to the presumption of innocence.
However, from the perspective of the former BE leader, “The first step” will always have to be finding alternatives to dissolving parliament.
“When the President of the Republic introduced this feature by dissolving parliament when there was no understanding on the State Budget, what he was saying is that the party that is in Government, instead of being obliged to negotiate and reach understandings, can simply blackmail to provoke elections, victimizing itself and try to have an absolute majority”, he criticized.
Catarina Martins he also considered it unacceptable that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “does not have the capacity to say anything about what is happening in the National Health Service and the actions of the Minister of Health” – the head of State has forwarded a statement on the subject to the future – instead of pronouncing “on all the cases and all the absurd things that go through the Assembly of the Republic”.
Asked about priorities for a possible mandate, the MEP defended the need to start “a process of refounding the National Health Service”, with public and universal access, and in which pregnant women do not fear “when the time comes to give birth”.
Catarina Martins intends to pressure the Government to act in this field, using “the judiciary of influence”, which “is not about defending one party against another” but rather “defending the Portuguese people”.