“We will vote in favor of the motion of rejection [submitted by the PCP] of the Government’s program because this Government program is not what Portugal needs,” declared Isabel Mendes Lopes, closing the debate on the program of the 25th Constitutional Government, held in parliament.
Isabel Mendes Lopes affirmed that Livre will serve as a “loyal and constructive opposition, but very attentive.”
The deputy emphasized that the executive “calls for stability in a situation grounded in a minority but does not engage with the parliament.”
After criticizing the Government on the first day of debate for including 80 opposition measures in its legislative program without consulting parties, Isabel Mendes Lopes highlighted that “dialogue means sitting at the table and talking.”
“Copy-pasting isolated measures from other parties’ programs without even talking to us is not dialogue. Considering that discussions on Defense investments should only be held with the three major parties does not respect the parliament and does not respect all voters,” she stated, referring to the executive’s meetings this afternoon with PS and Chega.
The Livre deputy warned that “if the Government wants stability, it needs to work for that stability and respect the parliament.”
Isabel Mendes Lopes began by quoting a phrase from the Government program and repeated it several times during her speech: “This is a time of great historical significance.”
“This Government program is not up to the historical moment we are living. On the contrary, this program recalls a recent past of austerity, disrespect for pensioners and workers. A past where it was understood that the country was and should be a country of low wages, without ambition,” she accused.
The parliamentary leader of Livre noted that “a transformative agenda” for the country that “does not include science, does not include higher education, does not include culture, does not invest in knowledge, only shows the lack of ambition to truly transform Portugal” and advocated “a new development model based on knowledge and ecology, where the entire economy rises in the value chain.”
Isabel Mendes Lopes agreed that to solve structural poverty “it is necessary to create wealth,” as the Government points out, but criticized how the executive intends to do so.
“The way it is presented is: first, we grow and then solve the problems. But it is not so. Ensuring greater social justice, investing in families, investing in people, ensuring no child grows up in poverty is, in itself, a measure of wealth creation and productivity increase and should never be left as secondary when discussing the country’s economic improvement,” she argued.
The Livre deputy accused the Government of implementing a “fiscal policy that exacerbates inequalities” and creating “the bogeyman of immigration” to divert attention “from the very real problems of the country,” such as “the chaos in healthcare or problems in public schooling and the lack of teachers.”
“Being up to the historical moment we live requires honoring our history of immigration and emigration. It is about treating immigrants as the human beings they are and not trailing behind a divisive rhetoric and practice,” she warned.
In addition to warnings about the housing crisis in Portugal or the scourge of domestic violence, Isabel Mendes Lopes did not forget the war in the Gaza Strip, emphasizing that “this is the time when democrats need to know clearly which side they are on, both within and beyond borders, and defend human rights without hesitation.”
[News updated at 11h13]
