The leader of the right-wing nationalist Chega party, André Ventura, who reached the second round of the election for president of Portugal, asked other conservative parties to support him in the dispute with the socialist António José Seguro.
“The right has fragmented like never before [nesta eleição]but the Portuguese gave us the leadership of this right in Portugal”, said Ventura at the party headquarters in Lisbon, according to information from the SIC Notícias website, after it was confirmed on Sunday (18) that the right-wing candidate was the second most voted candidate in the first round.
“We will only lose these elections due to the selfishness of the PSD [Partido Social Democrata]IL [Iniciativa Liberal] or other parties that claim to be right-wing”, he added, asking these parties to support him in the campaign for the second round, scheduled for February 8th.
On Sunday, Seguro, from the Socialist Party (PS), came in first place, with 31% of the votes, while Ventura had 23%.
João Cotrim de Figueiredo, from IL, came in third place, with 16%, while Luís Marques Mendes, from PSD, the party of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, came in fifth place, with 11%, behind the independent Henrique Gouveia e Melo (12%).
In his speech, Ventura criticized Seguro and said that socialism “destroys, kills and corrupts”.
“He wants more taxes to distribute more subsidies, he wants to continue to suffocate companies with more bureaucracy, he wants more uncontrolled immigration, he wants less security and more lack of control in our Justice”, he accused.
