According to Alegre, this is a date that the PS should be proud of and should celebrate, but that “cannot be compared to the 25th of April”.
“The 25th of April overthrows a regime, overthrows a State. The 25th of November didn’t overthrow anything, it defeated the political line of the Gonçalves and the PC, but it didn’t overthrow anything, it didn’t even overthrow the government, it didn’t overthrow the Council of the Revolution, nor any of the institutional bodies”, he compared.
The historic socialist considered that “the 25th of November should be celebrated as a victory, in which the Socialist Party is the dominant party, the party that embodies resistance to the totalitarian project”.
“The 25th of November is a consequence of the 25th of April. The 25th of November is a correction of the deviations that were introduced on the 25th of April. It is the restoration of the democratic spirit of the 25th of April”, he emphasized.
For Alegre, this date “is a victory for the 25th of April” and also “a defeat for those who, further to the right, thought of making Portugal a new Chile”.
“Therefore, we are here as winners, with democratic humility, making the distinction between what is the 25th of November and the 25th of April, for us, the founding date, the unrepeatable date, the date on which everyone else was born is the 25th of April”, he praised.
In addition to Carneiro and Manuel Alegre, Mário Soares’ daughter, Isabel Soares, and Colonel Manuel Pedroso Marques, who presided over the RTP Board of Directors on November 25, 1975, spoke.
After the end of this first part of the PS National Political Commission, the work was closed to the media so that the second part could take place, during which the national political situation would be analyzed.
This second part was very brief, according to information provided to Lusa by socialist sources, with only the secretary general of the PS speaking.
According to the same sources, Carneiro argued that the PS’s position in the State Budget for 2026 (OE2026) – deciding to abstain and make the document viable – “emptying Chega’s position in the budget debate”.
“The Government will have no excuses from the PS for the failure of its economic forecasts. Given the votes already announced, it is to the PS that the country is owed the country not to plunge into a new political crisis at this moment. This is an irrefutable fact”, he said.