The secretary-general of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, announced today that the PS will abstain on the motion of censure presented by Chega against the Government. This position was assumed at the opening of the debate on the motion of censure in the Assembly of the Republic.
José Luís Carneiro explained that the abstention serves two purposes: on one hand, to block a political crisis that it considers to be "against the will of the Portuguese" and, on the other, to censure the action of the PSD/CDS Government. The socialist leader thus criticized the actions of the minority executive of the PSD/CDS without, however, toppling the executive.
In the same debate, José Luís Carneiro associated the leader of Chega, André Ventura, with conspiracy theories. This accusation arose in the context of the motion of censure presented by the radical right party against the Government.
As a concrete example of this association with conspiratorial theories, the secretary-general of the PS referred to an episode in which André Ventura reportedly considered a flight to Morocco, suggesting that such an episode illustrates the Chega leader's tendency towards conspiratorial positions that are unbecoming of a responsible political leader.
