The leader of the far-right Chega party, André Ventura, harshly criticized the parties that condemned his statements about the Turkish people during the plenary session on Friday morning, considering that “the Left and some of the center-Right miss Augusto Santos Silva”, the former president of the Assembly of the Republic (AR) who “boasted before the country of being the professor of good morals, good ethics, and good words”.

“The Left and some of the center-Right miss Santos Silva, who would take the floor away from Chega, who would prevent the president of Chega from speaking, who would admonish him in public as if he were a teacher, and who boasted before the country of being the professor of good morals, good ethics, and good words. It just so happens that the Portuguese people made their choice regarding Augusto Santos Silva, and they chose a Chega deputy instead of choosing Augusto Santos Silva. I think that this choice should send a signal to the politicians, who have spent the last 72 hours saying that there should be meetings. […] The country is going crazy, while there are so many problems to solve,” he said in statements to journalists on Tuesday.

The official also reported that the far-right group “will not oppose any hearing that it wants to hold”, a thesis that he shared with the president of the AR, José Aguiar-Branco, who considered that former presidents of the Constitutional Court (TC) should be heard at a conference of leaders on the freedom of expression of deputies and compatibility with possible "red lines". However, Ventura pointed out that “Parliament regulates itself and does not need anyone to teach it”.

“I am convinced that most Portuguese people understood what I meant and do not want any restrictions,” he said, while emphasizing that “deputies and party leaders represent those who voted for them”.

“In this case, more than one million and 200 thousand Portuguese people. No one, being the leader of a political force or its representative, can be censored or limited in their thinking or expression in Portugal. They can face, if applicable, the criminal, civil, and administrative consequences of this action, but to admit or want a president of the AR, elected by his peers, to say what he considers offensive or not, to take the floor away from a deputy, or to admonish him as if we were in kindergarten, shows the political vision of those who defend him,” he added.

The far-right leader went further, accusing the left-wing parties of defending freedom of expression “until a party like Chega enters the AR”, at which point “they began to understand that there should be limits, and that there is a teacher in the room, who would be the president of the AR”.

“It is unfortunate that a country with 50 years of democracy still does not know how to live well with freedom of expression, even when it can, through images or any other stylistic resource, be more or less intrusive, more or less intense, more or less disruptive. […] What happened in recent days is not so much about freedom of expression, but a concerted strategy by the Left, with the consent of the weak Right, to attack Chega and consequently the president of the AR. The goal is always the same: to associate racism, xenophobia, and excess with Chega and its president,” he said.

And he added: “The Left made the noise, the PS followed, the weaker and more cowardly Right allowed itself to be intimidated and cornered. The president of the AR is isolated, with only the support of one party, which is Chega, ironically, […] because he defended freedom of expression and said the obvious. It is not up to him, but to the Portuguese people to defend the limits of Parliament and its action, to say who they like or what they consider acceptable.”

André Ventura also reacted to the accusations of Isabel Moreira, who accuses the party and its leader of racism. "I don't know what racism she is talking about, we are the only bench that has black people in Parliament", said the far-right politician, challenging her to present evidence of the accusations she makes against him, before stating that he is one of the "most insulted" people in the AR.

Isabel Moreira reported several episodes of racism and misogyny by Chega in an interview with Observador.

It is recalled that Aguiar-Branco's initiative consisted of a missive sent to the presidents of the parliamentary groups and to the PAN deputy, as well as to the "vice-presidents" of Parliament and members of the board on the agenda of the next meeting of the conference of leaders.

The question arose after the leader of the far-right party referred to the work capacities of the Turkish people, regarding the construction of the new Lisbon airport, which led the BE, Livre, and PS benches to defend the intervention of the president of Parliament to prevent this type of speech, which they considered to be "xenophobic".

Even so, the president of the Assembly argued that it is not his responsibility to censor the positions or opinions of deputies, referring to the Public Prosecutor's Office for possible criminal liability for parliamentary speech, a position that was censored by all the left-wing parties.

Read Also: Freedom of expression in the AR is an internal issue? What the parties say (Portuguese version)