One day after the Liberal Initiative publicly called for the resignation of the Minister of Internal Administration, the Left Bloc also intensifies its criticism of Maria Lúcia Amaral’s actions during Storm Kristin, considering that the minister revealed a serious failure of priorities at a time of national emergency. In a formal request for clarification sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the party points out contradictions between the ruler’s public speech and her actions on the most critical day of the catastrophe.
Maria Lúcia Amaral only appeared in public in Leiria two days after the impact of Depression Kristin, which hit Portugal in the early hours of January 28th with gusts of wind that reportedly exceeded 200 kilometers per hour, causing fatalities, significant destruction and leaving more than a million people without electricity. At that time, the minister explained to journalists her absence from the most affected areas with the need for coordination work carried out “in a context of invisibility, in the office”, involving “information, reflection, planning and, above all, coordination”.
However, the party claims that this narrative is contradicted by “documented facts“. According to the request sent by BE’s sole deputy, Fabian Figueiredo, “photographic and journalistic records prove that, on January 28th – precisely when the country was facing the height of devastation and the first fatalities were being counted – the Minister of Internal Administration presided over a ceremony at the Carmo Barracks, in Lisbon”.
The ceremony, which included promotions and the delivery of swords to the GNR, was also attended by the Deputy Secretary of State for Internal Administration, Paulo Ribeiro. For the Bloc, maintaining this institutional agenda in a context of national calamity constitutes a “clear sign of disarticulation between the gravity of the situation and the top political response”.
In the document sent to MAI, the party formulates harsh criticisms of the guardianship’s performance, stating that “It appears legally incomprehensible and politically reprehensible that, at the epicenter of a national emergency – at a time when communications were collapsing and the country was counting its first fatalities -, the Minister of Internal Administration and the Deputy Secretary of State privileged participation in a protocol ceremony for handing over swords and promotions in the GNR, to the detriment of the direct and in-person coordination of the relief device”.
The Bloc points out that this option is even more serious considering that the national commander of Civil Protection has been out of the country since January 26th. This absence, the request states, transferred to political supervision a reinforced responsibility for ensuring “an effective, continuous and technically vigilant command presence” at the center of the crisis, which did not happen.
Also the target of criticism from the Bloc is the fact that “on the 28th of January, at 5:11 pm”, Secretary of State Paulo Ribeiro sent an email to PSD activists announcing his re-candidacy for the district of Setúbal. Even admitting the explanation that the sending was automatic, the party considers it politically unsustainable that, in the aftermath of the “deadliest storm of this cycle”, the guardianship was involved in partisan dynamics.
The application also questions the GNR’s public communication management, after publications about the ceremony were deleted from social media a few hours after being released. For the Bloc, the official explanation does not eliminate the suspicion of an attempt to hide the presence of the minister and the Secretary of State at a festive ceremony while the country was facing a tragedy.
In total, the party addresses six questions to the Ministry of Internal Affairs:
1) Why was the guardianship’s participation in the ceremony at Quartel do Carmo, in Lisbon, on January 28th not cancelled, given the catastrophic warnings issued by the IPMA and the reports of calamity occurring in the most affected regions?
2) Do you consider that participation in a ceremony to promote and hand out swords technically falls within the “work of information, reflection, planning and coordination” in a “context of invisibility” that you invoked to justify your absence from the affected areas?
3) With the minister and the Deputy Secretary of State present at the aforementioned ceremony, who held the operational and political command of the response to Storm Kristin in those critical hours that in the Government’s Organic Law fall under the responsibility of Civil Protection?
4) Were the Minister of Internal Administration and the Deputy Secretary of State and Internal Administration the subject of a formal exemption or express authorization, granted by the Prime Minister, which relieved them of their strategic coordination functions or their mandatory presence – physical or remote – at CORGOV (Government Operations and Response Center), specifically to enable their respective participation in the protocol ceremony of promotion and delivery of swords at the Carmo Barracks, in Lisbon?
5) Considering that CORGOV was activated as a centralized command structure for the management of the national emergency, how is it justified, in light of the executive hierarchy and the principle of continuity of government action, that political tutelage was authorized to defer to the direction of the crisis center in favor of an agenda of institutional representation at a time of extreme operational gravity and immediate response to the populations buffeted by the storm?
6) Is the Ministry of Internal Administration aware of any instructions, direct or indirect, given to the GNR to delete publications relating to the ceremony on January 28th? How does the Ministry guarantee that this removal of content does not constitute an attempt to manipulate public opinion regarding the guardianship’s activity during the crisis?
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