Belly full of frogs – Opinion – SAPO.pt

Almost 13 years have passed since an insurgent young socialist spoke out against the creditors of the Portuguese state at a Christmas dinner with his comrades in Fort Paiva. Putting his hand on his chest, he said in an angry tone that he was “marimbandu” these statements because the Portuguese came first. Simón Bolívar from São João da Madeira then suggested that those who lend us money should be threatened with a kind of “atomic bomb”: “Either you get in trouble or we don’t pay you back. If we don’t pay our debts, if we tell them, the legs of the German bankers will even tremble!”

As you know, I am referring to Pedro Nuno Santos (PNS). We are facing heavy years. The Three HorsemenJosé Sócrates – to whom the current Socialist leader has paid countless compliments – landed him in Lisbon. A resume that was already full of bravado and frogs, at least publicly, began to be swallowed by a politician who was no longer a politician. child This is just Bad His party was led by Antonio José Seguro at the time.

The PNS still talks about the Third Way without a beard (championed in Portugal by António Guterres and his disciples like Socrates and Seguro), Mohammed will not talk about Bacon as a concession of social democracy to neoliberalism, markets, austerity and the economy. To hell with the four men who were one of the faces of the guerrillas against the chief of duty.

He opposed the “violent abstention” in the 2012 state budget and the review of labor legislation proposed by the Pedro Paços Coelho government, which was essentially left untouched by António Costa. The PNS was one of the inventors of this device and a sympathizer of some of the labor fantasies of the BE and PCP, but it did not follow through. New frog.

In the process, he also disputed the ratification of the Budget Treaty, whose rules were suspended only due to the need to take measures to combat Covid-19. And public figures such as the PNS, the Secretary of State and the Ministers heard nothing. The third frog.

Having resisted orthodox budgetary discipline to the letter and loudly opposed the massive tax increases of the PSD/CDS coalition, the PNS did not roar or bleat when Costa redesigned austerity and made the Portuguese pay for it in a joking manner, with the excesses of the Cyclops and ineffective state.

With a tax burden of 35.8% of GDP in 2023 and a continuous increase in labor taxes, Portugal is the eighth most heavily burdened country in the OECD. You can go to the pulpit of Congress and quote Marx, who, in his executive office, adopted a policy of “smooth talk” that used to denounce and yield to the cruelty of “certain accounts”, confusing and undermining public services, marking the consulates of Mario Centeno, João Leão and Fernando Medina in Terreiro do Paço.

In this frog-eating process, the workers’ patron saint, the PNS, agreed to implement one of the country’s largest collective layoffs in living memory and acquiesced to TAP’s restructuring plan and draconian wage cuts.

Likewise, visionaries, decision-makers and doers set out to build not one, but two airports. A provisional one, in Montijo; the other, decisive, in Alcochete. A day later, returning from the NATO summit, Costa repudiated his claims, revoked the order and forced him to make a public confession. With the departure of the former rector, the PNS announced that it agreed with the PSD’s opinion on restoring the teachers’ service hours, but submitted to the guidance of the superiors. He was desperate, but still protected himself with voting discipline, justifying the flagrant inconsistency.

Since then, between strategic uncertainty, the inability to regulate the political and media agenda and tactical twists and turns, the PNS is ready to swallow two more frogs.Violent opponents of Seguro’s “violent abstention” denounced to make the state budget of the Democratic Alliance (AD) viable.

Punished by the burden of a political crisis and knowing that it will lose more than it did in March, it will seek to transform a costly and “practically impossible” ratification into more acceptable details. Carlos César and Francisco Assis have already paved the way and started a story that we all know how it ends.

More pointed is the “2026 Presidential” dossier. With his usual subterfuge, Costa has solved this problem in 2021 by endorsing Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa while pretending not to. The PNS has consolidated its position and is siding with the most populist of activist socialists, Ana Gomes. This time, he cannot afford to sponsor factional candidates or settle internal accounts – he is the party’s general secretary and will be asked to come up with a winning solution, or at least end the struggle in an honorable defeat.

However, as ironic as it may seem, the only viable alternative without Guterres and Costa is Centeno (if he is not reappointed to the Bank of Portugal). This is the man with whom Costa tried to take his seat in Sao Bento without the Portuguese going to the polls. This is the man the outgoing leader wants to use to resist the PNS’s desire to become prime minister. This is the man who once served as the president of the Eurogroup and rolled his eyes at the PNS’s leftist statements and this incident. New Wave Took over Rato Square.

In the absence of a more credible candidate — which says a lot about the political drought in which the left finds itself — and because it’s their own survival at stake, the choice will be obvious. Between Centeno and the wall, the PNS will prefer Centeno, his old enemy. Just as, for a while, I suppose, you also preferred little frog legs. He no longer has the stomach for so many frogs.

PS: Maria Luis Albuquerque is a poor choice for an EU commissioner. According to his CV, he does not appear to have graduated from one of the religious schools that churn out elite Lisbon. Her last name does not automatically authorize her to exercise public functions without providing any prior proof of competence. Nor does he appear to have jumped from one government office to another under the influence of any family members. It did not go directly from the government to the regulator. And there is no indication that, as a holder of a political office, he is cozying up to the regime’s working people. Everything can go wrong in Brussels.