During a speech following a visit to Arraiolos, Évora, at a luncheon rally, Paulo Raimundo praised the work of CDU’s local officials in Arraiolos, emphasizing that they faced “head-on, the political crime that was the transfer of powers,” a process begun in 2018.
Arraiolos’ Mayor, Sílvia Pinto, noted that half of the local population lacks a family doctor.
She likened the situation to a “transfer of headaches without the necessary remedies for the municipalities,” particularly criticizing the transfer of responsibilities in the health sector, which left municipalities with the burden of managing and constructing primary health care units.
Paulo Raimundo argued that “the only way to democratically ensure the National Health Service (SNS) for all is through the responsibility of the State, rather than offloading it like any other package onto the municipalities.”
He asserted that “the responsibility of the SNS is, and can only be, the State’s, because only the State can ensure the same resources, the same care, the same doctors and nurses needed across the entire country, whether on the coast, inland, Alentejo, or Minho,” affirming that Arraiolos “will not forgo this path, this claim, and the mobilization of the populations.”
The PCP’s secretary-general also addressed the issue of current mayors who cannot run again in these local elections due to reaching the constitutional limit of three consecutive terms.
In the case of the CDU, managing 19 municipalities, 11 mayors face this situation, including in Arraiolos, where the current Mayor, Sílvia Pinto, will be replaced in the candidacy by her deputy, Jorge Macau.
Speaking after Sílvia Pinto and Jorge Macau, and before hundreds of CDU supporters, Paulo Raimundo emphasized that the coalition is “very calm” about the changes in its municipal heads of lists.
“In the CDU, each is like everyone else. Each has their own style, their way of being, even their preferred football club. We are all different from each other, but there is one thing in which we are all the same: in principles, in objectives, and in commitment to the population,” he remarked, noting that it is not the first time the CDU has “changed faces” in its municipalities.
“And we can say with great pride that the protagonists have changed, the first faces have changed, but the work, the project, the collaboration with and for the populations has not. On the contrary, it has intensified,” he stated.
Before this rally, Paulo Raimundo took a morning walk through Arraiolos, the only council in the Évora district that has always been led by the communists since 1976.
When asked about the CDU’s electoral goals in this district, Paulo Raimundo indicated that “various municipalities are in contention,” stressing that the main opponent in this region is the PS.
“We have every condition to strengthen our vote here in Arraiolos, to go further, and to maintain, in a condition that allows us to work, the Évora municipality,” he said, considering that in the last term, the CDU’s work in Évora was “profoundly hindered” by the PS.
