“This is a Government program that should look to the future, but what it actually does is look to the past, to a past with bad memories that reminds us of the ‘troika’ era. The similarities are clear and are based on the weakening of the State’s responsibilities in essential areas,” argued MP Jorge Pinto, speaking to journalists in parliament.
The Livre party MP stated that the program of the XXV Constitutional Government, set to be debated in parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday, indicates that the Government intends to abandon its duties in areas such as the National Health Service, education, and housing, and to attack labor rights, “starting with the right to strike.”
“We needed a strong, ambitious Government program with vision and originality. None of that is presented to us. All we have is a look to the past, a backward view, little ambition, and above all, an acknowledgment of this Government’s lack of capacity to respond to the urgent needs of the Portuguese,” he emphasized.
Asked whether, in light of these criticisms, Livre would vote in favor of the motion of rejection against the Government program presented by the PCP, Jorge Pinto replied that he had not yet received the text and noted that the party typically does not disclose its voting position before the vote, despite distancing itself from the document presented by the executive.
Jorge Pinto also accused the executive of including in the document measures that were not proposed during last month’s legislative election campaign, citing the “attack on the strike law” as an example.
Minutes after the Government announced it had included 80 opposition measures in the PSD/CDS-PP executive program, including six from Livre, the MP accused the executive of conducting “a monologue disguised as a dialogue.”
“Despite liking board games, I’m not fond of this guessing game by the Government, which claims to include proposals from all parties, including Livre, and we don’t even know what proposals they are. (…) Picking one or another proposal, perhaps innocuous individually and not in the package it was presented in, says very little about this will for dialogue,” he criticized.
