Candidate rains notes on supporters

Aníbal Pinto's candidacy for the Porto City Council, for the New Right, today caused an undetermined amount of five euro notes to 'rain' on supporters when the candidate finished his speech, an initiative that, he promised, will continue to happen.

When asked about the release of dozens of notes from a drone at the end of the speech, Aníbal Pinto explained that “the greatest happiness is to contribute to people’s happiness” and that, instead of announcing the candidacy in a hotel, his team decided that “part of the campaign budget will always go to supporters and the people of Porto”.

“We will always throw notes, we will always make it rain money. Many people didn’t believe it, but apparently it really did rain, they were real notes, as expected”, promised the lawyer, who is running as an independent on the New Right list, without, however, disclosing how much money fell on the approximately 50 supporters present, saying only that “it was enough to rent half a dozen rooms in a five-star hotel”.

Regarding his program, Aníbal Pinto began by talking about housing and proposed that the local authority “sell all the social housing it has, allowing those who live in these homes to buy them for symbolic amounts of 20 or 30 thousand euros, and that they can go to the bank with the council as guarantor”.

In this way, he continued, “people continue to pay their monthly fee, which is low, but in a short or medium-term period they can have a house that is theirs, no longer having to worry about whether their children will keep the house”.

“If Porto City Council sells the social housing that currently exists, which is a cancer, which is a huge cost for the council, it can carry out the largest financial operation”, raising “more than 300 million euros and, with that money associated with 50 million that are already planned for new housing, then yes, they can solve the housing problem, building not five thousand, but 10 thousand houses”, he indicated.

Aníbal Pinto also advocates increasing the tourist tax to five euros per night, estimating an annual gain of around 50 million euros for the municipality, to then invest in the city.

In terms of security, the candidate wants “police officers to be paid bonuses in places where they are needed, not only at night, but in shops, in Bonfim, in places where there are problems”. This bonus “would be paid by the traders”, who, however, would receive “benefits from the council to offset this cost in terms of licensing”.

As for mobility, for Aníbal Pinto the solution to get cars out of the city is the creation of “an urban toll”, a measure that he acknowledged is unpopular, but which should be applied to those who visit Porto, ensuring that it does not apply to those who go to work or study in the city, or even to visit family, thus prioritizing the use of public transport to enter the city.

“Transport, by the way, which Porto had an obligation to provide to the people of Porto free of charge”, he argued.

When asked about the money being thrown today and at upcoming events for the candidacy, the president of Nova Direita, Ossanda Líber, denied that it was a way of buying votes. “What do you mean, buying votes? Look, if there is a billboard on the street saying, ‘look, I’m going to reduce VAT by 10%’, it’s still money, isn’t it?”, she argued.

So far, the candidacies for the Porto City Council have been confirmed for Manuel Pizarro, for the PS, Pedro Duarte, for the PSD, Diana Ferreira, for the CDU, Nuno Cardoso, for the Porto Primeiro movement, Vitorino Silva (known as Tino de Rans), for the RIR, António Araújo, for the Porto à Porto movement, Aníbal Pinto, for the New Right, Sérgio Aires, for the BE, and the current vice-president Filipe Araújo, also as an independent.

The current executive is made up of six elected by Rui Moreira's independent movement, three elected by the PS, two from the PSD, one from the CDU and one from the BE.

The local elections are scheduled to take place between September 22 and October 14 of this year.