Portugal’s president breaks silence over scandal

Just days after Portugal’s general election, the country’s president has broken his silence over an alleged wire tapping scandal at the highest level.

During the campaign two leading newspapers ran rival stories, one claiming the president feared he was under surveillance from the secret service, the other claiming, that was a leak put about by his personal aid to discredit the Socialist government.

In a televised address, President Cavaco Silva explained that he had never intended to talk about the scandal during the election campaign, that he would now like to make the Portuguese people understand that no one spoke for him, that he himself had never spoken on the subject of bugging either directly or indirectly and that he had been forced by a fabrication of allegations into an uncomfortable position of having to explain things and act due to the ensuing media storm.

But with Jose Socrates and his Socialist party returned to power in Sunday’s election , the fall-out from the scandal continues. Part of the debate had been whether the whole issue was manufactured in the first place by them to distract the voters from the economic ills of the country. That has now been categorically denied by the Socialist party.

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tags: Portugal, President, Scandal