As a cameo performance in an election campaign it left much to be desired. No sooner had deputy prime minister Paulo Portas arrived at his party’s CDS-PP “Escola de Quadros” rally in Ofir, Esposende, on Sunday, than the legions of the indignant – the middle-aged investors caught out in the BES collapse and clamouring for the return of their money – set up a hue and cry, blowing whistles, shouting insults and waving accusatory placards.
Portas “ignored” the throngs, reports the media, as he went inside to exhort the party faithful to the folly of leaving the country to “enter into rupture and convulsions”.
Rupture and convulsions are the likely outcome, he claimed, if the coalition government is not returned to power in October’s elections.
With opinion polls still giving no clear winners, Portas said it was important for his party to “convince the undecided”.
He then emerged into the sunlight outside where few seemed undecided, nor unconvinced.
As the nation’s media reported: “The vice prime minister and leader of the CDS-PP left with difficulties”, with police moving in to push crowds back as they rounded on Portas in ugly scenes which left at least one protestor unconscious and requiring medical assistance.
