Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s uncomfortable silence has surprised those who have seen him politics on the street for many years, but the expectation in Belém Palace is that the president will maintain a more modest political record until the March elections. Without remaining silent – this Thursday he only came out to say that he “prefers” Antonio Costa to any of the candidates to succeed him (perhaps Luis Montenegro will thank him for that sentence) and that Costa would be a good presidential candidate if he “does not become President of the European Council” (perhaps that is Costa thanks him) – Marcelo will manage the final stage of the cost without responding directly to the attacks of the Prime Minister, whom he accuses of being the “bad guy” in this political crisis. But he insisted again that “it was he who wanted to leave. It was not me who said Go. This is an indirect response to those who accuse him of cutting the rope.
There are two reasons, as they explain in the Presidency, for this more conservative administration in which the president avoids being drawn into a “mud fight”: on the one hand, the president wants to maintain a minimum of institutional normalcy, because he will still have to work with Antonio Costa until March; On the other hand, “replying to the Prime Minister would be like joining the PS campaign.”
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