“The response to the problems facing workers and the public cannot be achieved through the calculations of some or the reactionary drift of others. As for the PS, following what happened last year, we will now have the so-called ‘demanding abstention’. In other words, it’s the same as saying a deeply compromised endorsement. The translation of the demanding abstention is a deeply compromised endorsement of this policy,” Paulo Raimundo asserted.
This statement was made by PCP leader Paulo Raimundo during a public session at the party headquarters in Lisbon, under the theme “The State Budget, Government Policy and the Situation of the Country”.
Raimundo argued that the proposed budget for the next year threatens the continuation of an “unjust policy,” increasing precariousness and “dismantling of the National Health Service (SNS),” adding that “endorsing this budget means endorsing a piece of this policy” and supporting the Government’s choices.
“There are no illusions. No one is deceived. Endorsing this budget is giving space to that policy, a policy that does not serve the country’s interests, does not serve the interests of workers. It does not serve the interests of those who have worked all their lives,” he criticized.
The PCP leader also claimed that the upcoming budget will serve Chega’s financiers, stating that one can only expect demagoguery, lies, and “snake oil sales” from André Ventura’s party in the budgetary discussion.
For Raimundo, Chega and the Liberal Initiative have an “evident” commitment to this budget because “it could not be otherwise,” predicting only an “extraordinary theater” for the budget debate, where the two political forces “will seek to deceive” with “maneuvers” to “feign an opposition that doesn’t exist.”
The communist secretary-general declared that “in a country hanging by a thread,” with rising poverty levels, closed emergencies, lack of teachers, and a housing crisis, the “slogan of those who endorse this policy is ‘the hell with the country’,” while protecting the interests of those who “consider themselves the owners of everything.”
“The country cannot be damned, our lives cannot be damned, and therefore, faced with this slogan of ‘the hell with the country’, we say: no, this country is to resist, this country is to live here with a better life, which we all have the right to,” he emphasized.
The PCP leader also lamented what he described as the transformation of the “budget surplus into a kind of new dogma of national politics,” claiming that what is at stake is a “big scam” worsening current and future problems.
For Raimundo, balancing public accounts, like debt, “can only be constructed and expanded through increased wealth” fostered by a greater focus on national production and tax justice.
“There is no other way. We have been on this path of tightening, of destruction of the productive apparatus, and the consequences are visible. It is more than clear, it is more than certain, this is the wrong path, there has to be another way,” he stated.
