Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke at the closing of a presentation session for the study "The Portuguese and April 25th", carried out by a team from the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and ISCTE -- Lisbon University Institute, coordinated by Pedro Magalhães, in partnership with the Commemorative Commission for the 50th anniversary of April 25th, Expresso and SIC.

The Head of State highlighted that the Portuguese surveyed for this study expressed "an overwhelming choice of April 25th" 1974 as the most important date in the History of Portugal, expressed "an overall negative judgment about the dictatorship" and "the pride of a transition like the one that was carried out".

"And the impressive thing about this is that it does not correspond, on the one hand, to some recent trends in narratives and discourses that are evocative of the past before April 25th or very critical of the course of April 25th, it does not correspond. There is no correspondence here", he pointed out.

The President of the Republic said that the study shows "a more positive judgment than in 2014 and 2004 and generally very positive or quite positive, but not uncritical", and confessed that he had "much less positive expectations regarding the Portuguese people's view of April 25th".

"But there are more surprises: it is a homogeneity by political sectors. The Right, although even when a more left-wing connotation with April 25th is admitted than more to the Right, the Right shares the same pride in the peaceful transition, it is even slightly higher, has judgments that are not dissimilar from the judgments of the Left", he continued.

"This means that April 25th, if true and to take this appreciation as good, this qualitative judgment, April 25th has become national. If it was born on the Left, more than on the Right, today, from a qualitative point of view, it is seen almost in the same way by the Right and the Left", he concluded.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that "there is no tendency to associate April 25th with any political party, but in those that do have connotations, the PS and the PCP naturally appear with the highest volume of connotations, and then, in this order, Chega and the PSD, with a very small expression, but they do appear".

"There are surprising things in this study, but which are consistent with the homogeneous judgment on the Left and the Right on several questions that are the judgment of April 25th and the post-April 25th", he added.

For the President of the Republic, "there is an obvious reality: that April 25th is national, today".

In this regard, he highlighted the predominance of the PSD in power even in the "initial period of democracy", from 1980 to 1995 -- with two years of Bloco Central in between --, a "long period of 15 years of Right-wing Government", when "what would be expected is that the Left would dominate governance".

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa pointed out that, later, there was a situation "almost opposite, which is a long period of Left-wing Government", of the PS, "with small openings in the centre-Right and on the Right, of almost 30 years".

"The balance of the judgment of the Portuguese, including those more to the centre-Right or more to the Right, is a global, national vision of April 25th. That is why I said that the expectations for the study were one thing, the result is another", he reiterated.

In his opinion, "all in all, the balance, seen with distance, is positive, it is good news for Portugal".

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