“The PSD—that very party that claims to be an alternative—is showing dangerous signs, signs of yielding, signs of those who trade principles for convenience, signs of those who think power is worth more than coherence,” stated Mariana Leitão during the opening of the National Council meeting of the IL, taking place today in Coimbra.
The leader of Iniciativa Liberal said that when Chega “puts its foot in the door, demands, pressures, imposes,” the PSD, “instead of saying no, does the math,” accusing the social democrats of yielding to the far-right.
“Iniciativa Liberal does not yield. Freedom, responsibility, and equality before the law are non-negotiable, because we will not allow freedom to be held hostage by populism, wherever it comes from,” she emphasized.
According to Mariana Leitão, the IL is the only alternative ensuring that under no circumstances “will there be any agreements with the extremes.”
“If the PSD wants to continue playing at being socialists in the morning and populists in the afternoon, then let it do so alone. If Luís Montenegro wants to betray his own ‘no means no,’ and the commitments he makes with the Portuguese, he can be sure that I will not,” she added.
In a roughly ten-minute intervention, the IL leader also criticized the fact that there are people who work “and are poor,” pointed to the housing crisis, and addressed health, refusing that the debate centers on the minister’s resignation.
“Will the minister’s departure solve the waiting lists? Will it solve the system inefficiencies? Will it motivate health professionals who are worn out? No, it will not. Iniciativa Liberal doesn’t care who sits in the chair, it cares who has the solutions and the courage to implement them,” she stated, advocating that “all installed capacity—public, private, and social—should be put at the service of the people.”
In her speech, Mariana Leitão also criticized the 2026 State Budget, considering it a “huge disappointment” because it shows “that this Government lacks the courage to change the country.”
“When the Government had the opportunity to show that it wanted to be different from the PS, what did it do? It presented a document that could have been written by a socialist government. The obsession with keeping the State fat, slow, and heavy remains the same,” she noted.
According to Mariana Leitão, people will continue to be “suffocated by taxes” and the economy “tied down by bureaucracy.”
