“Government wearout”. Santos Silva admits Legislative before 2029

O former president of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, today admitted that the next legislatures may be anticipated due to the “level of government weariness”, praising the President of the Republic for having received the protesters for housing.

In statements to journalists in the margins of the new General States of the PS, Santos Silva considered that his party is in “accelerated preparation process”.

“ We do not have a pressing electoral calendar and it is good that we do not. The country does not need four legislative elections in four or five years, but it is beginning to be the time to prepare for what is to be the electoral programme that the PS is to present to the next legislative elections, whether they are held in 2029 or earlier”, he said.

Questioned as to whether the legislative elections can be anticipated, the former President of Parliament admitted so.

“ I think it may be before [of 2029] because the level of wear the government presents and the level of complicity and compromises that in Parliament, unfortunately, the centre-right and the radical right today have, does not augurate great destination to the current political situation”, anticipated.

On the demonstrations for housing, which this afternoon return to dozens of cities in Portugal, Santos Silva admitted that if he were not in the General States he himself would join the protests in Porto.

“ These people have to be heard and they deserve not police charges, but to be heard. You did very well by the President of the Republic yesterday. ... I hope that the same sense of listening also has the government”, he emphasized.

About the announcement by the mayor of Oeiras, Isaltino Morais, that he intends to create a new party, the former minister considered that this is a premise that “is inscribed in the Constitution” and said he did not feel “no disturbance because” of this announcement.

“ If there is one thing that the PS is, it is a very large, large house in the sense of different, which today welcomes people who turn their backs on democratic socialism, social democracy, Christian democracy itself, liberal leftists. We are a very living family, very diverse, and that welcomes everyone ", pointed out.

Asked if this party could electorally harm the PS, Santos Silva began by saying that, on parties, “it is more difficult to create them than to say that they will be created”.

“ Some of these people, if I can well interpret, have already been with the candidacy of Admiral Gouveia Melo and already on that occasion it was possible to show how it is the political landscape in Portugal and the importance that parties such as the PS, but also the PSD, of course, and others, have in the Portuguese political landscape ", said.

The coordinator of the PS Strategic Council also insisted that the government should withdraw the current proposal to amend the rent law.

“There are, moreover, public policies that have been conducted with clear goals in their own time, which now have to be reversed because their objectives have been met and, however, perverse effects have been generated. I am talking about local housing policies, policies to support the taxation of unusual residents, gold visas, had their time, but today they have to be reversed, because today they put enormous pressure that overheats the housing market, both the sales market and the rental market, with the loss of thousands and thousands of people”, he suggested.