Prime Minister “has not gone blind or mute”, but “does not enter tournaments”

O spokesman of the PSD, Sebastião Bugalho, today defended that there was proportionality in the police response to the demonstrations this morning by the right to housing and accused the secretary-general of the PS of irresponsibility and hypocrisy.

In statements to journalists broadcast by TVs from Aveiro, Sebastião Bugalho stated that the PSD refuses “a false cleavage” between the police authority and the protesters’ freedom of expression, saying that there was throwing of objects by the seconds against the police and the media.

“ It is important to convey from the PSD a word of tranquility and serenity. The police, in our view, acted with proportionality and the legal framework that is presumed to happen to protect the right to demonstration, which we obviously respect. But the rules of the demonstration must be respected and, at some point, that was unfortunately not happening.

In reaction to the criticisms of José Luís Carneiro, who today demanded clarification to the Prime Minister, the PSD spokesman said that Luís Montenegro “does not enter press conference tournaments” with deputies or party leaders.

“The Prime Minister was neither blind nor deaf nor mute in the last week”, said the vice president of the PSD.

“What changes the lives of those who want to have public housing in Portugal? Was it the 30,000 public housing houses we delivered within the PRR? Were the 130 thousand young people whose housing policies of this government helped buy their first home? (...) Or the press conferences of Dr. José Luís Carneiro, who was sitting at the Council of Ministers, who left the housing unfunded, with little budget to build? ", countered.

Bugalho considered “worried and even shocking” the reaction of the PS leader, recalling that he was Minister of Internal Administration of the last Government of the PS.

“Today he revealed total incapacity for someone who aspires to perform, in the future, functions of head of government. With his opportunist and irresponsible statement, José Luís Carneiro did not unequivocally condemn the throwing of objects against the police, nor did he unequivocally condemn acts of disorder that call into question the authority of the State and the rules of functioning of democracy,” he said.

Bugalho also accused the PS of “screaming hypocrisy”, saying that the housing problem “was unresolved” after eight years of socialist executives.

Bugalho said that the income support created by socialist executives was, in eight years, half of the current PSD/CDS-PP government in two, and accused José Luís Carneiro of having “vote four times against youth housing measures”, which he believes are already giving results.

“ I understand that the housing crisis is a priority and is a priority of the government from the first day it took office and that it is a priority of all of us who are concerned about the country and the Portuguese”, he assured.

The spokesman for the PSD called for other parties not to fall into temptation – as he considers happened to the PS – “to fabricate a cleavage between freedom and authority, among those who want more homes and those who defend the security and integrity forces of our police forces”.

The PSP dispersed today at dawn, batonada and with the use of dogs, demonstrations for the right to housing in Lisbon and Porto, after more than two hours of tension and orders for people to leave and tents to be removed.

The demonstrators did not follow orders, invoking the constitutional right to the demonstration.

According to the PSP, there were 11 wounded, five in Lisbon and six in Porto, and 31 arrested for disobedience (25 in Lisbon and six in Porto). In a statement, the Lisbon Camp mentions dozens of wounded, 37 of them in Porto.