At the conclusion of the debate in the specialty of the State Budget proposal for 2026, in the Assembly of the Republic, Mariana Leitão remarked that what should have been a discussion about the future had instead become a display of government self-praise.
“The Government, through the hands of the Finance Minister, tried to expel politics from the Budget. In doing so, it also expelled vision, ambition, and any reformist spirit,” she criticized.
Mariana Leitão accused the Government of making the State Budget “increasingly technical in form but increasingly distant from the harsh reality in which the Portuguese live.”
“This is the political and moral error of this Budget: treating people as footnotes in statistics. The truth is that there is no better country with worse Portuguese people. And all of this has a name: lack of courage,” she accused.
For the IL leader, it is “a Budget that is not ambitious for the Portuguese and very greedy for the State.”
“IL votes against it again because it refuses to continue deceiving the Portuguese. We vote against it because we reject the illusion that a failed model can be eternalized. Portugal deserves better than this,” she stated.
Mariana Leitão highlighted that during the debate in the specialty, IL “presented around a hundred budget amendment proposals” that offered “concrete, responsible, practicable solutions, all with a simple goal: to improve the lives of the Portuguese.”
“And what did the Government and its supporting parties do? (…) Everything rejected. One by one. They rejected everything that could make Portugal better,” she accused.
Addressing Luís Montenegro, Mariana Leitão argued that “if there is something this legislature has made clear, it is that courage does not reside in São Bento, but in the people who fight daily to live in a country where the State complicates their lives.”
“The State grows, but the quality of life for Portuguese people does not grow with it. And that, Mr. Prime Minister, is the clearest proof that something is profoundly wrong,” she criticized, rejecting the idea that this Budget includes “the greatest tax relief ever.”
“What tax relief? What the Government calls tax relief is a minimal return of what it previously took in excess. It’s like taking an entire cake from the Portuguese and then returning a small slice expecting applause from us all,” she compared.
Mariana Leitão argued that it is for “telling the truth” and “knowing what needs to be done” that IL “bothers this Government so much.”
“We bother because we do not wrap the country in propaganda, we do not sacrifice honesty for short-term gains, we do not succumb to the temptation of electoral calculus. And that is why they try to pin an imaginary radicalism on us to mask what is impossible to hide: your lack of courage and solutions for the country,” she asserted.
Mariana Leitão argued that “there is an alternative” to the path followed by the Government, embodied by IL, which, she said, chooses courage over comfort.
“While others choose propaganda, we choose the truth. While others choose to win at any cost, we choose to do what is right. This is our path. A path in which, finally, the country will be better because the Portuguese people will be better,” she declared.
