The spokesperson of Livre, Rui Tavares, has called for a united Left in the municipal elections to prevent “handing over councils to the extreme right.”
“The reflection on the Left can and should be significant, and the Left loves to reflect, but decisions also need to be made. […] No one should think they have the luxury to reflect and reach conclusions by autumn,” he stated in an interview with SIC Notícias.
As an example, the historian pointed out that if no action is taken on the Left, “we could wake up on the morning of September 22 with an entirely changed political map.”
“In the 60 municipalities where Chega came first, for legislative elections, this does not mean much, but for municipal elections, it means 60 presidents. In 49 of these municipalities, the Left is ahead. Therefore, it does not make sense to hand over 60 councils to the extreme right when we can reduce that number to 11 or fewer,” he explained.
According to Livre’s spokesperson, “what makes sense is for progressives and democrats in these municipalities to understand the clear alternative they have to defeat the extreme right.”
He also noted that meetings are expected with various Left parties to devise a strategy.
Regarding the results of the snap legislative elections, Rui Tavares highlighted that “essentially three things” were missing from the Left, among them “having a discourse that claims freedom.”
“A program anchored in freedom that has been in our matrix since the April 25 Revolution has been somewhat neglected by the Left. The word has been occupied and even monopolized by the Right, either by the extreme right, which does not genuinely value freedom and, when in power, becomes the worst authoritarians, or by a neoliberal Right, which also claims freedom but is ‘limited,’” he said.
The historian also considered that “the Left allowed the State to become either a regulator or charitable,” in addition to showing “little pragmatism.”
“The Right is too pragmatic; the Left is not pragmatic enough. Now we face a huge challenge with the municipal elections, where the Left is failing,” he noted.
The spokesperson of Livre stated that the party focused “its proposals on being universal,” since, “in Portugal, there is a situation of enormous social distrust, significant fractures where the poor distrust the destitute, the destitute distrust the middle class, and this cannot continue.”
“We have an obligation to unite the country and reweave social bonds,” he conveyed.
