Ribeira Grande, Portugal, May 1, 2025 (Lusa) — The PS secretary-general, Pedro Nuno Santos, warned on Thursday that the "seriousness of the candidates" must not be overlooked in the electoral campaign. He said Luís Montenegro threw the country into elections when he was "squeezed".
"We have different visions and different paths to the country's problems. That was demonstrated well yesterday [Wednesday]. Then, there is a different way of being in life and politics. This is very important and cannot be left out of the campaign, namely the seriousness of the candidates," the Socialist leader told journalists during a visit to the Santana agricultural market on the Azorean island of São Miguel during a pre-campaign campaign for the 18 May elections.
The PS secretary-general once again accused Montenegro of being the main cause of political instability.
"Luís Montenegro has serious problems that brought us to these elections. When he's squeezed, he throws the country into elections. It happened once, and it would happen more often if, for some reason, he won the next elections."
Questioned about the statements made by the prime minister, who today denied any interference in the signing of contracts between the state and companies that worked with Spinumviva, his family business, Pedro Nuno Santos argued that Montenegro continues to "evade clarification" about his dealings.
"Every piece of information is leaked, drop by drop. Luís Montenegro hid several accounts from the Constitutional Court and does the same concerning his company's clients," he denounced.
The Socialist also considered that a prime minister cannot govern under a "cloak of suspicion" and criticised the release of Spinumviva's client list on the eve of the debate between the leaders of the two largest parties.
"Either Luís Montenegro wanted to release [the information] before the debate, and that's mocking us all because he's always had this information and preferred to throw the country into elections (...), or he didn't want to and wanted to continue hiding it. Both are bad," he said.
On Wednesday, Expresso reported that the prime minister had delivered a new declaration to the Transparency Authority, mentioning more companies that Spinumviva worked with. He did so on the eve of his face-to-face meeting with the PS secretary-general, Pedro Nuno Santos.
On his visit to the Azores, Pedro Nuno Santos defended the need to review the social mobility subsidy. He promised to include the region's farmers in national support for the sector to mitigate the increase in production costs, which is currently not the case.
RPYP/ADB// ADB.
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