For Rui Rio, political parties are “completely entrenched” and “having difficulty debating society’s problems”
Social democrat Rui Rio defended today in Porto that political parties should be “reformed” because they are “completely encysted” and have “enormous difficulty” in dialoguing with society.
“As we all know, some more, others less, unfortunately for me, I’m the most, they are completely encysted and have enormous difficulty in opening up to society and debating problems, they always debate in a club way, in an encysted way. , in which the others are all bad and we are all good and we are all miserable and the others ruin our lives”, said Rui Rio, who today closed the debate “What Porto for 2045?”, organized by the civic movement Porto with Porto.
In the opinion of the former mayor of Porto and former leader of the PSD, “it is essential that the parties reform themselves and once again have the capacity to dialogue with society. Or to put it another way, even better to be an integral part of society. We can wait and sit , it won’t happen. Unless civil society has the necessary vitality to, from the outside in, force a change in political parties”.
“What I have observed is that perhaps the parties no longer even have the capacity to regenerate themselves. What will happen is that new parties will appear, I have the impression that it is easier for new parties to appear than to ask those who are institutional to reform themselves and are capable of freeing themselves from internal constraints and opening up to society”, he highlighted.
Therefore, Rui Rio said he “applauds” the emergence of a movement, an association or a gathering, like the one created by the doctor António Araújo, who today organized his first major initiative aimed at Security, Mobility and Urbanism , the three areas that were identified by Porto com Porto as “those that most concern Porto residents”.
Regarding these problems in the city, Rui Rio drew a parallel between the situation he found when he arrived at Porto City Hall and the current situation, saying that “a lot has been done, many structures have been created” and “there is a lot more tourism”, but in terms of Rio mobility left criticisms, namely, of the works being carried out on Avenida da Boavista.
“I’m not going to talk about the destruction of Avenida da Boavista, because life has already taught me that we need some time to calm down and if I were to talk about the destruction of Avenida da Boavista, I don’t know if I could do it without saying some bad words”, he said in the his closing speech at the meeting.
At the end of the ceremony, Lusa questioned him about this matter, but Rui Rio declined to provide further clarification, as he considered he was not in “emotional conditions to speak without swearing”.
