PSD Congress. Rui Rio wants to win legislatives to “govern Portugal with rigor and courage” that the PS has lacked
In the opening speech of the 39th National Congress of the PSD, which runs until Sunday in Santa Maria da Feira, district of Aveiro, Rui Rio began with a tribute to former deputy António Topa, who died a little over a month ago, and a thanks to all party members.
“The PSD is not its president, nor its leaders. The PSD is its bases, who, in a free and disinterested way, every day, fight for Portugal, through our party – which, all days, claim social democracy as a path to development, that is, to freedom, social justice, equal opportunities and respect and tolerance for differences,” he said.
According to the president of the PSD, “it is for the free and democratically expressed will” of the militants, that the party is meeting in yet another magnificent meeting which it wants to constitute “an important step” towards a victory in the previous legislative sessions of 30 January.
Rio with posture in the center for “excess correction” of right and left
The PSD president reiterated his defense of the party’s position in the center, considering that the Social Democrats must “always be available to correct excesses, whether on the right or left”.
“We are not ideologically amorphous, nor do we subscribe to the theses of the end of ideologies. One thing is to realize that classical thinking has evolved and is not fully in line with the reality we live in. Something different is to subordinate the governance of a country to a bare technicality of ideology and concerns with people and with those who, at each moment in their historical journey, are their values, their ethical principles and their just aspirations”, said Rui Rio.
The PSD leader stressed that if being a social democrat in 2022 “is not the same as having been one 50 years ago”, “the principles and objectives that guided a social democracy remain, today, strictly the same”.
“There are times when social democracy has more right-wing responses, and others when it does so with a more left-wing posture. And that’s how it has to be, precisely because we place ourselves at the center , we must always be available to correct excesses, whether they are on the right or on the left,” he said.
Rio rejected that the party is liberal in the sense of “minimizing or even despising the State”, but it is “for the total and complete individual freedom, when it does not limit the rights of each and every one”.
“That is why, even today, so many years later, the one who inspires me the most is the same one who has always inspired me the most: Francisco Sá Carneiro. His directness, coherence, and courage, allied to the periods in which he lived his life, politics erased and its memory a beacon for all Social Democrats, “he affirmed.
Rio also left a compliment to the party’s number one militant, Francisco Pinto Balsemão, at the head, and a word by the party’s historical advisor, Zeca Mendonça.
Rio proposes to win legislatives to govern “with rigor and courage” that has been lacking
Finally, Rui Rio pointed out as an objective for the party to win the January 30 legislatives to “govern Portugal with the rigor and courage” that he accused the PS of not having had in the last six years: “The Social Democratic Party proposes to win to govern Portugal with the reformist vision that a dynamic and constantly changing society demands from those who propose to govern it”.
Focusing his speech on areas such as decentralization and justice, the PSD leader promised to devote more time in closing interventions to sectors such as the economy, health, education or the environment.
“In all of them there is a noticeable degradation, the result of the lack of rigor, the ease and lack of courage on the part of those who governed us in the last two legislatures”, he criticized.
Rio defended that, despite the pandemic, the objectives of his previous term “are fulfilling what was promised”.
“We have a strongly reinforced municipal implantation, we have achieved penetration in society and gained credibility with the electorate. We also managed to recover the Government of the Azores and the Lisbon City Council, successes in which very few believed”, he stressed.
Therefore, the president of the PSD chooses to end the opening speech with the same words that ended the previous Congress.
“This is the path that the party will follow, in the sense of reaching the next National Congress with the electoral support of the Portuguese fully achieved and with a country governed by a PSD executive”, he said, expressing his conviction that, after two years, , may repeat “that the objectives were achieved and that the Portuguese chose a social democracy to lead Portugal”.
“I’m sure that, together, we will succeed,” he said, saying, expect help, encouragement and “loyalty from everyone else”.