“I have mainly observed that the Government is trying to use immigration to campaign and especially to ensure that there is no talk of the poor results left to us by Luís Montenegro’s governance, namely economic contraction, and it is very important that we do not forget this,” stated the Socialist leader during a pre-campaign event in Barcelos, responding to journalists’ questions about the notification of immigrants to leave the country.
He continued: “Luís Montenegro based his ‘good results’ for the country, to present to Portugal, on the economy. What we do not have is a growing economy; we have an economy in contraction, and this is the main negative result, unfortunately for all of us, that Luís Montenegro leaves us.”
The Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, confirmed today that the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) will begin notifying 4,574 foreign citizens next week to voluntarily leave the country within 20 days.
In response to persistent questions from journalists on the immigration issue, the leader of the Socialist Party said that what the Government is presenting “are the results of AIMA’s work” and that they are “trying to bring the topic to the agenda so as not to discuss the governance failures in the health sector.”
“We currently have a much bigger problem than we had a year ago: a Government that has a strategy of health privatization, diverting public resources to finance the private health business. That’s what they have to present: emergency rooms closed, waiting lists increasing, chaos in healthcare, and poor economic results,” he emphasized.
He assured that the Socialist Party will not allow the campaign to deviate from what is essential, which are the problems of the Portuguese people, stressing the health issues, the declining economy, and the instability that the Prime Minister brings with “his personal cases.”
“What we cannot allow is for the AD Government to try to fill the political agenda with an immigration topic that is merely the result of AIMA’s work, which already existed under the Socialist Government. In doing so, they attempt to overshadow what is truly important for the lives of the Portuguese, which is the fact that we have many emergency rooms closed again this weekend, the absence of any word or strategy to solve the health problem, and an economy that is falling with the impact it will unfortunately have on all of our lives, along with the cases that continue to haunt Luís Montenegro and, consequently, the entire country,” he stressed.
Pedro Nuno Santos asserted that this is a major effort to “try to ensure that in this campaign, the problems they couldn’t solve and, on the contrary, worsened, are not discussed.”
In his view, it is “indeed very serious” to be ending this year of Luís Montenegro’s governance with the economy falling by 0.5%.
“That worries me a lot because it means our companies are selling less, producing less, and our workers are at risk of facing serious problems with the economy shrinking,” he highlighted.
