Paulo Portas recalled that the coalition had taken office with “Portugal under the most vexing of circumstances (…) as I am not given to ill-feelings, I would not wish any adversary to pass through the experience that we had: governing while bankrupt.”
In addition to wishing “from the bottom of my heart that Portugal never again approaches this abyss,” the Popular Party leader said that he had every “faith and hope” in the “new generation and new cycle for the party” under its incoming leader Assunção Cristas and that it was time to hand over the baton.
He told his youth party activist audience that they should get themselves a profession as they would be “better politicians were they to remain independent of politics” before adding that while he had taken “a life decision to change my horizons, the address of my political option is with the house.”
Portas signed off with a re-run of his jibe towards the incumbent centre-left minority government and how its disparate members were now Best Friends Forever, thanking the party and promising that he and they would also both be Best Friends Forever.”