In Paulo Portas’s keynote speech at the 25th Congress of the CDS he highlighted the ‘new frontier’ of May 17th 2014, the day he expects the Troika to leave town, leaving Portugal to fend for itself in international waters.
At the conference Portas was re-elected leader of the CDS with 85.93 % of the votes.
Portas pointed out the need for a constructive dialogue with the socialist opposition and called for a truce in the coming months leading up to May 17th when "the principle of the right to live normally and to live in a normal country, begins."
"Help Portugal - not the government, it’s the country that needs to finish the programme. Finishing the bailout is more important than being popular."
"No one is asking that the Socialist Party stops being the opposition party," he insisted. "It's peace I ask you for in the national interest."
After the bailout has finished, the time will come for economic growth, said Portas, outlining various aspects of the economic turnaround and giving more than a dozen examples of proposed CDS reforms and measures that herald the arrival of the normality that Portas yearns for after the Troika leaves town.
After the conference ended the national secretary of the oppostion Socialsit Party João Proença said that Portas "did not speak on behalf of the Government, he spoke only for the CDS and for CDS policies."
The socialists refuse to agree to any suggested truce when it involves "disregarding the Constitution," said Proença.
Portas is on safe political ground when exhorting the opposition to join forces 'for the good of the country.' No one belives this would help in any way as without a vociferous opposition Portas and his plolitical duplicity could run unchallenged.
Portas is saying all the right things but in the certainty that the opposition will never join forces with either coalition party.
Passos Coelho also was at this conference keeping an eye on Portas, his coalition 'partner,' whose wayward political behaviour last year nearly brought the government to its knees.
Old scores are still to be settled and as Portas performs in front of an easy home crowd, Passos Coelho will be working out ways of gaining an outright victory in the next election so as to shed the pretence of a happy coaltion and to ditch Portas who currently is trying to gain ground in the reflected glory of the few successes the government has managed to achieve.
