“Not that it surprises us – it doesn’t surprise us – but this decision, by the National Directorate of the PPD/PSD, whose first person in charge is Dr Luís Montenegro, speaks well to what the right is coming to in Portugal: there are no red lines against the extreme , there are no red lines for those who make xenophobic, racist speeches, there are no red lines for those who try to introduce in the penal code penalties that violate the dignity of the human being”, considered Eurico Brilhante Dias.

In statements to journalists at the Assembly of the Republic, Eurico Brilhante Dias said that "it is a particularly sad day for Portuguese democracy", referring to the appeal by the direction of the PSD bench for deputies to vote in favour of the deputy from Chega for the vice-presidency of parliament.

“For the first time, a founding party of democracy, a party that calls itself social democracy, a party whose founders were democrats who were democrats even before the 25th of April" gave a vote direction “for a candidate of the extreme right” he said.

The socialist deputy defended that “the PS and the parliamentary left remain to defend democracy and, it must be said, some deputies, or a part of the deputies of the PPD/PSD, who, naturally, given this gravity, did not follow the orientation of vote".

Chega failed, for the third time, to elect a deputy president of parliament, despite the candidate Rui Paulo Sousa having collected about three dozen more favourable votes than the deputies nominated at the beginning of the legislature.

Contrary to the two previous votes, in which the PSD gave freedom to vote to its deputies, the Social Democrat parliamentary leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, appealed to his bench to be in favour of the Chega candidate.