“Today is May 11, just a few days away from the elections on May 18, and I want to leave you a promise you already feel. We, mark my words, will be the surprise on election night, make no mistake about it,” stated Fabian Figueiredo at a “rally-party” organized by the party at the LX Factory in the country’s capital.
The current parliamentary leader and the party’s second on the lists for Lisbon recalled how in 2007 the party “ended that horrendous, hateful practice of imprisoning women for seeking abortions,” and in 2009 “fought against the absolute majority of the PS, which attacked labor rights, privatized, and managed the country poorly.”
“In 2015, with Catarina Martins, we ended the governance of the right represented by Passos [Coelho] and [Paulo] Portas and restored dignity. In 2025, with Mariana, we will do exactly the same, putting the right back in the past where it belongs, because their ideas are from the past,” he criticized.
The BE has adopted a different campaign approach than usual, avoiding fairs, market visits, or traditional walkabouts, and has focused strongly on door-to-door engagement with voters in key districts.
According to Fabian Figueiredo, the party “is changing how politics is done in Portugal.”
“Do not confuse those who think that the Bloc is conducting a hidden campaign, afraid of the people, not walking the streets. We are on the streets like never before, walking them as the left never has,” he argued.
He justified his confidence in the BE’s electoral results, mentioning that through door-to-door efforts, the party has attracted more members, particularly young people, and highlighted growth on social media — another focus for the Bloc in recent months.
“You do not accept the ‘little Portugal’ that all the right wants to impose on you; you are in politics and with us because you want a new Portugal,” he praised.
Fabian Figueiredo also took the opportunity to criticize the PSD leader and Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro.
“This new Portugal we are fighting for is a country that respects and knows the problem is not your mother and father, who work every day to the bone, nor your grandmother, who likely started working in childhood and has such a low pension, while a cruel and inhumane prime minister tells her that if the pension isn’t enough to live on, despite her aches from a lifetime of work, she must go back to work,” he criticized.
The Bloc member advocated for a country “where the governors stand by those who have worked all their lives” and for a “prime minister, when faced with a woman who has had a difficult life, says, ‘I am in the executive to fight for you every day.'”
Fabian Figueiredo emphasized that not everyone “is lucky enough to win the DNA lottery,” and for many, “the sun doesn’t shine because life is hard, because housing is expensive, because the workday is long, because they suffer in traffic and public transport.”
“But there is a small elite for whom the sun has always shone, or if you prefer, for whom the sun is green,” he quipped.
For those on the right who defend meritocracy, Fabian Figueiredo countered that “Portugal is a country full of merits,” with people who “wake up early to get the economy producing and public services functioning, earning 800 or a thousand euros net.”
He did not forget the Palestinian cause and reminded that May 11 marks the international day of the ‘kufiya,’ a scarf symbolizing the Palestinian cause.
“They know that BE deputies and leaders will never be seen alongside representatives of genocide. There is no Bloc member beside an ambassador who advocates genocide, whitewashes war crimes, attacks António Guterres. You know us, we don’t turn with the wind, we are the party of international justice, human rights, Palestine’s self-determination, peace,” he stressed.
[Updated at 19:39]
