Former PS leader António José Seguro would again be available for a national salvation agreement, with PSD and CDS-PP as was considered during the troika period, despite the misunderstanding that this attitude earned him. This idea appears in the book “António José Seguro, um de nos”, which is presented this Tuesday in Lisbon and brings together testimonies about the various phases of the presidential candidate’s life and statements by the candidate himself, written by journalist Rui Gomes, who was Jorge Coelho’s deputy in the Government and a member of the ERC Regulatory Council.
The commitment to national salvation proposed by former President of the Republic Aníbal Cavaco Silva, in July 2013, is one of the themes that the book addresses in detail, with several statements by Seguro and using the testimony of Alberto Martins, who led the PS delegation – also composed of the current parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, and the former Secretary of State Óscar Gaspar – for these negotiations with PSD and CDS, which ended without an agreement. The then leader of the PS states that he would repeat “the availability for a national salvation agreement”, despite “the greater misunderstanding he had”.
However, an error is recognized, which was the fact that he remained silent during the negotiations and only spoke to the country at the end, assuming that, if he could go back, he would have publicly reported the daily situation. “It would have prevented the consolidation of narratives that manipulate reality“, he points out.
Seguro assumes that, if he were in Cavaco’s position, he would not have said before what he would do if there was no agreement. “It worked, consciously or not, as an incentive for the Government not to want to reach an agreement. The Government wanted the remodeling and to continue”, he laments.
It is at this stage of the book that the author talks about a phone call from former President of the Republic Mário Soares, who “expressed uneasiness” with a possible agreement between the PS and the PSD. Seguro claims to have refused to be conditioned in his decision-making capacity because he was not a “weathervane”.
“Soares reacted badly to the response, the call ended quickly and at the end of the day the secretary general of the PS warned those closest to him that he was anticipating a ‘storm’”, reports the author, who considers that from this point onwards “a siege” was set up for Seguro with the intensification of an image of “alleged proximity to Passos Coelho” and “not defending the legacy of José Sócrates”.
The “chosen moment” was the 2014 European Championships, according to the book, recalling António Costa’s statements about “the little one” and Seguro’s decision to call primary elections. “Even at the risk of losing, I would like to leave a legacy: the affirmation of greater internal democracy”, says Rui Gomes, recounting a conversation he had with Seguro, considering that losing would not have surprised him and that the day before he had already drafted the defeat speech.
The former leader of the PS made the decision regarding the candidacy for Belém during the campaign for the legislative elections on May 18, says the author.
In the decade that he was away from politics after the dismissal of the socialist leadership, he refused to comment on the PS – “I will not do to others what they did to me” – and “the surprise” came after the summer of 2024, at a lunch with friends, where Rui Gomes was also present. “I have been approached by several people to run for President… my desire, as you know, is to have a television space, but now… what is your opinion”, he says. A process of “several weeks” followed to arrange its comment space with CNN, which “coincides with a statement” by former PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos, October 2024, when he spoke of Seguro among the “good names” to be a presidential candidate.
“The fact that the PS leader cited António José Seguro – 10 years removed from political life – marked the interview, released ghosts and awakened more people’s encouragement for Seguro to be a candidate for President of the Republic”, is suggested in the book.
About himself, Seguro says: “I don’t forget, but I’m not vengeful. Nor do I look for the future inside the past.”
The book begins with a text by François Hollande, former President of the French Republic, recalling some meetings he had with Seguro, one of them during the financial crisis in Portugal when the now candidate for Belém defended “an alternative path” and a way of “honoring international commitments without imposing unsustainable sacrifices” on the Portuguese.
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