“When I hear Chega talk about the country, it always reminds me of a Swiss army knife I bought in a ‘low cost’ knick-knack shop: it looked showy and cheap, but when it came to actually working with it, it fell apart! It seemed useful, but it wasn’t good for anything. The far-right appears good in opposition, but will be useless for anything that serves the people in government,” stated Carlos César during his speech at the opening of the PS Local Government Convention, which takes place today in Coimbra.
According to the PS president, with less than a month to the local elections, “a strong and enlightened local power is necessary” because Portugal currently faces “a weak and directionless central power and the dangerous antics and missteps coming from the far-right.”
For Carlos César, “a major vote for PS candidates” will contribute to ensuring that Portugal remains “exempt from the autocratic and dictatorial trends that undermine other spaces and continents.”
In the socialist president’s view, “never has the victory of PS” meant so much “for a new breath of life for Portuguese democracy.”
“The manifesto of commitment by socialist mayors, which is symbolically signed today, goes in this direction,” he noted.
According to César, what is asked of PS mayors is not “party faithful but rather fidelity to their electorate and attention to their territory” to stand out “as factors of citizen mobilization, as examples of honesty.”
“The Portuguese, in this year and a half, are seeing that the AD Government has not delivered any of the salvific and miraculous solutions it promised,” he noted.
César also warned of the “moments of uncertainty” Portugal is going through, considering that “the Government contributes little to what positive happens, or is intended to happen.”
“During the tragic period when fires destroyed resources and spread panic in communities and families, while the firefighters carried out Herculean tasks, we saw little more of the government officials and the Prime Minister than at the Pontal party. We saw the sellers of Chega in a Pharisaic campaign, which only deserved the whip lashes of another era in the temple in Jerusalem,” he condemned.
The PS president also warned about the economic situation because, despite the Government’s estimates regarding the public debt, “resources may become scarce, the slowdown of economic activity is foreseeable, and external causations will surely weigh on the economy as in the budgets.”
César opened his address with words for the PS candidate for Lisbon City Council, Alexandra Leitão, following the tragedy in the Glória elevator, highlighting the “sense of responsibility, decency, readiness, and sensitivity she demonstrated.”
“A salute to our secretary-general, with him, the PS is regaining the energy necessary to confirm itself as an alternative, focused on the country’s concrete problems, reliable in the present and for the future,” he emphasized.
Earlier, Ana Abrunhosa, the PS candidate for Coimbra City Council, whose election is one of the political objectives assumed by PS leader José Luís Carneiro, spoke.
“We cannot increase salaries, but we can have policies that allow people to have greater purchasing power with the same salaries,” defended Ana Abrunhosa, pointing to measures such as lowering housing prices, improving transportation, and adopting measures to attract and retain young people.
“We will work with all fundamental institutions so that Coimbra is the choice […] to stay, shine, and prosper,” added the former Minister of Territorial Cohesion.
