Ventura accuses Carneiro of “hypocrisy”: “Fleeing from responsibility”

O president of the Aquida, André Ventura, accused, this Monday, the Socialist Party (PS) of “hypocrisy”, following the statements given by the socialist leader, José Luís Carneiro. 

“ When the leader of a party that makes a difference in mathematics in the Assembly – which, as everyone knows, only the Aça, the PSD and the PS can make the true approval of diplomas – decides to give the budget the green light without knowing it and give a set of separate measures that the government can decide by its will without even being scrutinized, that they will have the possibility of the PS, that is hypocrisy, that is not to care about people”, he said, in a press conference, at the Lisbon headquarters. 

For André Ventura, “when the PS ended its government, the price of the houses had risen 90% since 2015 – the beginning of the government of Geringonça”. The leader of the Aquista also points out that “even comparing incomes, there has been a 30% increase since the beginning of the socialist government”. 

Ventura retreated until 2018, saying that at the time, the then Prime Minister, António Costa, “said to the country in the name of Geringonça” and promised that “in the 50 years of April 25” would end “the housing shortage” and would “have housing for everyone”. 

“António Costa, on behalf of Gerigonça, on behalf of BE leaders, PCP, announces that there will be homes for everyone in 2024. We've reached 2024. Not only there are no houses for everyone, but there are houses for much less people ", he said.

And he added: “We’ve reached 2026. Not only is there no home for everyone, there are plenty of homeless people, but they let in about 1.6 million people who also needed home and many of them do not have it.”. 

André Ventura, however, went further, stressing that “those who are on the street protesting on behalf of the Left for wanting more housing should remember that it was the Left precisely, with BE and PCP who were governing or supporting governance, when we had the biggest housing crisis in Portugal”. 

“ Now that's hypocrisy. To escape this is to escape our own responsibility which is what the leader of the PS is doing ", shot. 

“Enough was neither in government nor with the ER nor with the PSD. It is therefore free to realize that the crisis we live in housing is a cross-sectional crisis, not a crisis of the lower, higher or middle class. It is a crisis that affects the generality of the Portuguese population, which affects everyone and indirectly affects the entire population”.

“ Therefore, we should not let the protests and demands on housing be from a group of troublemakers encouraged by the Left or the extreme left, but should make this a national cause of the people who work, who strive and who have the right to have a decent housing in Portugal”, he said. 

It should be recalled that on Sunday, PS Secretary-General José Luís Carneiro considered that André Ventura could win the Nobel Prize for hypocrisy because he is concerned about housing, but supports the government's income law. 

“ I would say that he is really in a position to win the Nobel Prize in hypocrisy,” said José Luís Carneiro on the margins of presenting a book on Germano Sousa at the Palácio da Bolsa in Porto.

The socialist leader recalled that André Ventura was concerned about the rents of the houses when, himself, he supported the law of the incomes of the PSD/CDS-PP government and was against the movements that manifested themselves by the right to housing.

“He [André Ventura] supported the government’s rent law that allows young people to be thrown into instability and unpredictability and who, by this means, have more difficulty in accessing the lease and also launched the unpredictability in the future of older people living in large cities,” he insisted.