“People are tired of the rhetoric on the need for a regime pact in health. Everyone knows that there has long been a pact to undermine the National Health Service, to deprive those in need of the security of having an open hospital, to replace the universality of the NHS with private business for those who can afford it”, stated José Manuel Pureza, at the 14th National Convention of BE, which concluded today in Lisbon.
The former deputy, recently appointed as the coordinator during one of BE’s most challenging phases, accused the State of failing in health, equating this to “a massive jackpot for liberals who wish to privatize it”.
“To this truly existing pact that has governed us, the Bloc proposes a program to refound the NHS, honoring the legacy left by António Arnaut and João Semedo, with qualified professionals, an end to precarious work, careers, long-term commitments, prevention and primary care, family nurses for everyone, nearby and decentralized health units,” he proposed.
The former vice-president of the Assembly of the Republic remarked that the State is also failing in housing, with “deliberate lack of public offerings, the expulsion of residents from city centers due to unregulated local lodging, and capitulation before speculative funds”.
“The proliferation of shantytowns is the shame of democracy. Parties cannot shy away from the courage to confront the greed of powerful interests denying the right to housing,” he criticized.
Pureza committed to working with “mayors, activists, independents” and expressed a desire for “a socialist left unashamed to declare its leftism”.
“We will not turn away from anyone; we will challenge youths into the far-right in every school, pursue every lie, and demonstrate how corruption is entrenched within interests financing pre-fascists, post-fascists, and complete fascists,” he assured.
He urged engagement, “without sectarianism,” in the general strike on December 11 as the beginning of a new path out of the “swamp” Portugal finds itself in with PS enabling the State Budget, and foreseeing Chega approving new labor laws, pledging support for all “workers who unionize and organize” and safeguarding pensioners from the “greed of private funds”.
On the remarks by BPI President João Pedro Oliveira e Costa, who commented on the new labor package that many people in companies “do not pull their weight”, the Bloc leader responded that it is the workers, from whom the banker wants to strip fundamental rights, who “carry on with their lives”, in their company, on the streets, and at home.
The Bloc leader concluded the speech by quoting the historic Bloc member Miguel Portas, who, “in the most unlikely moments,” used to say, “this is going”, a stance not born out of “groundless optimism,” but rather an “attentive reading of reality and the glimpses of light he saw emerging through the shadows”.
“At the end of this XIV National Convention of BE, I want to tell you ‘this is going’, with the same conviction that Miguel had in those moments. And with all my determination to transform those glimpses of light into wide windows for the Bloc and for our people. This is going, comrades,” he concluded.
