“New government, same policy, same accomplices, and the same supporters of that policy. What we need is to enforce the Constitution regarding salaries, pensions, the National Health Service [SNS], Housing, Education, Children’s Rights, Peace, and Justice,” stated the communist leader.
In a statement to journalists in Grândola, in the Setúbal district, during the presentation of CDU’s leading candidate for the municipal council in this year’s local elections, Fátima Luzia, the PCP secretary-general declared that he will uphold the motion of rejection against the Government.
“Of course, it is not a motion of rejection against the individuals in the Government, not A, B, or C,” but “against the Government’s policy,” affirmed Paulo Raimundo, adding that the new executive led by Luís Montenegro will “emphasize what has preceded.”
PCP, he said, does not look “at the compositions, individuals are not irrelevant, what matters is the policy, but if there were any doubts about the policy, just look at this Government’s continuity to understand what’s coming.”
When questioned about his concerns regarding the current Government’s policies, Paulo Raimundo argued that the country “cannot expect anything” regarding health, education, or housing issues.
“We had a Government that focused entirely on dismantling the SNS” and “at the 25th hour moved towards privatizing 174 health centers and five more hospitals through PPP routes,” he exemplified.
He added that, currently, “we have 85,000 students without a teacher in some subject, 4,000 teachers will leave at the end of the school year and 400 will join, what can be expected from this Government.”
Regarding housing policy, he argued, “all the measures the Government took were not to solve any problem,” but “to create a niche for wealthy young people” while “all others were left out.”
“What can be expected from a Government that persists in the rhetoric that we need to grow first to then distribute, when we have more than 2.5 million workers earning less than a thousand euros gross salary per month and 800,000 workers earning the national minimum wage and at the same time we have this increasing concentration of wealth,” he emphasized.
For Paulo Raimundo, the Government that took office today will “continue what is already underway” and may even do “worse” in the case of Social Security and the SNS.
“They want to get their hands on the Social Security money, once and for all open the privatization package, continue and accelerate the dismantling of the SNS and alter labor laws which, in practice, means more precariousness added to the existing precariousness.”
He reaffirmed that, from the PCP’s side, only confrontation can be expected: “Either we bow down and wait for time to pass or we confront it. Some will bow down, on our part we confront,” he concluded.
