“We are tired of this comedy. It has not stopped since May. It is one scandal after another.” Silvia lives in Mortal, near Lisbon, and the “bad Costa” case does not really appeal to her. “It is something unlikely but it is real,” she comments. 20 minutes The 36-year-old Portuguese woman. “They got the name wrong, it’s so stupid. And then you add the instability, the far right that’s on the rise… it’s killing us.”
António Costa, who has been in power since late 2015, won an absolute majority for the first time during the early legislative elections in January 2022. But on November 7, a development occurred: the Prime Minister resigned. That day The process of “influence” It led to the fall of the Portuguese government. This is the revelation. On a corruption scandal linked to the granting of lithium mining licenses in northern Portugal and the construction of a huge data center in Sines, about a hundred kilometers south of Lisbon.
“Shame on our politicians and our justice”
The scandal involving Antonio Costa concerns, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Republic, suspicions of “embezzlement, active and passive corruption of political office holders and influence peddling”. The prime minister is suspected of having intervened himself “to open the proceedings”, as the prosecutor's office specifies. According to Costa's closest collaborators, observerespecially his chief of staff and Minister of Infrastructure João Galamba. “End of the cycle”, “November 7 earthquake”, political “bombshell”, will make headlines to describe this chaotic day for those in power.
The local media never imagined for a moment that November 14 could overshadow the “7th.” A week after Antonio Costa’s resignation, prosecutors announced that they had confused Antonio Costa with Antonio Costa e Silva, the economy minister. According to the account Nova Portugal who resumes France informationThe “surreal” mistake would come from the text of the phone tap. “We are so deep in this big nonsense right now that this blunder doesn’t even surprise me,” replied Ines, a young Portuguese woman reached by phone. “It makes you laugh because there are 100,000 Costas in our country, but it upsets us and brings us back to an endless crisis. And frankly, it’s a disgrace to our politicians and our justice system.”
“For Portugal, it's over.”
The Portuguese public prosecutor admitted that there was a “big mistake” in the case. “Justice, after saying: 'Yes, we have a wiretap that implicates him', announced a week later: 'In fact, we got the name wrong, it wasn't him, it was the Minister of State'.” The economy, also called Costa, sums up France information Ana Navarro Pedro, a Portuguese journalist in Paris. That was all it took to discredit the prosecutor. Especially since the lawyer who was remanded in custody in the case was the one who noticed the transcription error. And he was the one who said the famous line at the origin of the scandal. Back to the case, the judges warned that he was talking about the economy minister, not the prime minister.
But according to information published by the local press, this “Costa mistake” does not exonerate the prime minister or raise doubts about his resignation. The name of the prime minister has been mentioned in dozens of telephone recordings of conversations between the various suspects. “Antonio Costa was supposed to succeed Charles Michel as head of the European Council, but his future is now in the hands of Portuguese justice. Anna Navarro Pedro concludesFor Portugal, it's over.
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Meanwhile, the race to succeed António Costa has begun. Within the Socialist Party, former Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos will oppose current Interior Minister José Luis Carneiro. The winner will be chosen by activists in mid-December. Until March 10, the date of the early legislative elections, António Costa and António Costa Silva will remain in power.
