“Here, we vote for the candidates present. And here, we are faced with deciding whether we will have two deputies from the right and far-right again or if, instead, at least one will go to the CDU to strengthen policies of progress, equality, and development,” stated Bernardino Soares during a luncheon in Beja organized by the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU), which comprises the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Ecologist Party “The Greens”.
In the 2024 legislative elections, the CDU failed to elect João Dias to the parliament in Beja, a constituency where the three seats were distributed among the Socialist Party (PS), Alliance for Democracy (AD), and Chega (in 2022, Beja elected two deputies from the PS and one from the CDU).
Bernardino Soares criticized that the three deputies elected from the district in 2024 “did nothing” for Beja and claimed that “nobody knows who they are.”
He emphasized that the “Alentejo is abandoned” and called for investments in the IP8 highway, Beja Hospital, and a direct railway connection to Lisbon and the Algarve.
According to the former parliamentary leader of the PCP, there is a need to “clarify confused minds” and remind voters that they are electing 230 deputies, not the prime minister.
During the same event held at the Beja Volunteer Firefighters’ headquarters, former “The Greens” deputy Heloísa Apolónia advocated for Bernardino Soares’s election, asserting that “the truly useful vote is for the CDU.”
PCP General Secretary Paulo Raimundo also urged everyone to mobilize for the CDU to regain a deputy position from that constituency.
Addressing the retirees present, Paulo Raimundo issued a challenge to resist complacency in light of the democratic risks at hand.
“No one is permitted to relax. Put on sneakers, put on boots, go barefoot if necessary, but let us all engage in this battle we need to fight,” he asserted.
