Outgoing Portuguese PM calls for stability of legislatures

The next government should serve its term to the end, said outgoing Prime Minister António Costa, calling for ‘legislative stability.’

“I think legislatures should be completed. I think it has been an important competitive advantage for Portugal to have had stable legislatures,” Costa told journalists at the end of the morning session of the second Annual Meeting of Mobilising Agendas, held at Europarque in Santa Maria da Feira.

Costa said he hoped that the instability in the legislature that is now coming to an end would not become the new standard and that the country would return to “stability in legislatures”.

He declined to comment on the Socialist Party’s (PS/S&D) position on a new state budget, saying that was up to the current Socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos.

“There’s nothing worse than someone who is no longer at the wheel giving opinions on who is now in charge of driving,” said António Costa, adding that he had the great honour of leading the PS for nine years, but that phase of his life “is over.”

Commenting on the performance of the far-right Chega (Enough) party in the parliamentary elections, Costa said it was necessary to reflect and understand the causes of this electoral behaviour.

“I don’t think many people would have said that those would have been the results, and we need to understand what the root causes are that make a million people realise that they should cast their vote for that political possibility,” he said, taking responsibility for the election results.

(José Duarte Neves | Lusa.pt)