Despite pressure from the Algarve branch of the Socialist Party (PS), David Santos has refused to resign as president of the regional development commission (CCDR-Algarve) following news that he has also just been appointed president of the region’s PSD (centre-right) political party.
The wrangle issues on Socialists’ contention that the two positions are mutually exclusive and that in the past, when similar situations have come up, Socialists have always quit and offered their position to someone from the government in power.
Santos “doesn’t have the political conditions” to stay in both jobs, the PS have told Barlavento newspaper.
But Santos thinks otherwise. “I became president of CCDR-Algarve after taking part in a national tender that 10 people applied for,” he told the paper.
“I was subject to a curricular analysis, after which six people were chosen for an interview with four members of CRESAP, Portugal’s recruitment commission for public administration. After that, they chose three people, including myself, to be interviewed by three Secretaries of State of the former government. That’s when I was chosen as the new president,” he added – failing to address the fact that the last government was centre-right, and not Socialist.
Santos has added that PS Algarve should have spoken to him “directly” about their reservations, and they never have.
