The president of Podemos, Albino Forquilha, has accused the Attorney General's Office of attempting to intimidate him, his party and presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.

Reacting to the civil lawsuit filed by the Attorney General's Office against him and his candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, Forquilha says that the authorities are trying to escape a political problem by seeking legal solutions.

"I think this is a process, let's say, a political process that is trying to be pushed to the legal side. In my opinion, the first impression I get is that someone is trying to intimidate in order to get away from the problem. If there were justice, we would also have some kind of penalty for the prejudice that fraud causes," he said, quoted by the newspaper "O País."

Regarding the accusation against Venâncio Mondlane that he was recruiting members of the Defense and Security Forces to promote a coup d'état, Forquilha believes that "the first coup d'état is when we promote fraud, when some kind of state institutions try to promote fraud to facilitate a certain side. This is the first coup d'état.

Still quoted by the newspaper, the Podemos leader points out that "we've had successive coups d'état that have never been resolved, carried out by state institutions. This is the first coup. People don't know how much prejudice an action like this causes, over the five years that a people have lived."

 Forked reiterates that the best way to resolve this dispute is with political and not legal action.