Centre-right politicians are in shock today after Portugal’s popular ‘people’s president’ Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa appears to have dropped something of a bombshell in interview with German newspaper, Die Welt.
Ubiquitous Marcelo, who has been industriously on the move here and there since his inauguration in March, said that the current Socialist government – supported by dyed-in-the-wool communists and feisty Left Bloc firebrands – was not really “that far” from doing what its PSD predecessors did.
Considering PSD MPs and their CDS allies have been howling from the rooftops over what they see as the folly of all manner of Socialist decisions, there has been a great deal of head-scratching back home.
“There is a huge difference between the current and last government, from the outstart over the distinction of the results obtained by the PSD/CDS and that which the PS proposes to do,” said an indignant PSD parliamentary leader Luís Montenegro.
National tabloid explains the similarities cited by Marcelo were in the government’s commitment to “comply with European objectives”.
Marcelo suggested that communist and Left Bloc allies were “accepting reality” by supporting to the PS government, and reiterated his feelings that there would be “no drama” over difficulties of Portugal attaining deficit targets.
