During the closing speech at the program of the 25th Constitutional Government, Paulo Raimundo, the Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), referred to the phrase used by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro on Tuesday, who accused him of having a discourse that “reeks of old communist immobility,” to criticize the PSD/CDS-PP executive today.
“Their choices are an affront to the difficult lives of the majority and a declaration of war on those who work. Their old and immobile recipe of low wages, exploitation, attacks on rights, more precariousness, further deregulation of working hours serves the big interests well, but it does not serve the workers, youth, and the country,” he criticized.
Raimundo accused the Montenegro Government of bringing back “the old and immobile neoliberal recipe at its best, serving a minority that profits millions and millions of euros at the cost of injustice,” and “to whom the Government wants to further reduce the Corporate Income Tax (IRC).”
The PCP’s Secretary-General argued that this minority, “which has control over banks, airports, industry, energy, telecommunications, hospitals, insurance companies,” will grow “at the expense of tax benefits, community funds, the diversion of public resources, and State supports.”
“Their old and immobile policy in favor of this minority would turn Portugal into a poorer, more unjust, and unequal country. A disastrous path that the PCP could not allow,” he said, justifying the presentation of a motion of rejection against the program, the only one to be voted on.
For the PCP, that vote at the end of the debate will be “a moment of clarification,” although the outcome is already anticipated.
“It is clear: Chega, Liberal Initiative (IL), and the Socialist Party (PS) are the trio supporting the policy that smells of the ‘troika,'” he stated.
Raimundo foresaw that these parties will “support each other but issued a warning for the future.
“Those who support and uphold this policy today will be held accountable for the disastrous consequences of their choices tomorrow. Sooner or later, this policy will be defeated by the struggle of workers, the people, and the youth,” he predicted.
The PCP’s Secretary-General also noted that the government program debate, ongoing since Tuesday in parliament, revealed “a government with an attitude of arrogance and disrespect for the difficult lives of people.”
“This won’t be resolved with their obsession with the degradation of public services, real estate speculation, privatizations, a minimal State for workers and people, and a maximal State for economic groups and multinationals,” he accused.
