During a rally dinner in Santa Maria da Feira, in the Aveiro district, Rui Rocha addressed criticisms from left-wing parties, emphasizing that the liberals have been targeted by all.
“We are the main target of the left-wing parties in this campaign: we have been attacked by the PCP, the BE, the Livre, Pedro Nuno Santos, and another left-wing party was missing… It has arrived. The attack from Chega and André Ventura has also arrived,” he remarked with irony.
For the IL leader, with recent criticisms from Chega—whose president, André Ventura, anticipated on Thursday that Rui Rocha would not be re-elected in Braga—now “all the socialists, communists, dirigists, statists, and spendthrifts” have directed attacks at his party.
“All those who do not trust people and want to impose their visions on them, all of them have already attacked us. We have this flag to raise, and we are here to celebrate it,” he said with irony.
After the PS secretary-general claimed that a government involving the IL with the AD would endanger the welfare state, Rui Rocha stated that Pedro Nuno Santos is the “paradigmatic case” of left-wing criticisms toward his party, warning that he knows “what the PS did in past legislatures.”
“And rest assured that what the PS and the left have done in past legislatures, we are here to fight for the reversal of those bad decisions,” he said, reiterating that, under IL, TAP will “indeed be privatized.”
Rui Rocha then addressed Pedro Nuno Santos directly to list various IL promises for the next legislature, starting with the rail sector, which he said has “reached the limit of what is possible” to “make the Portuguese suffer,” referencing the recent CP strike.
“Pedro Nuno, with the IL, the rail market is indeed to be liberalized, is indeed to have competition, is indeed to offer more service to the Portuguese,” he promised.
Another promise made to Pedro Nuno Santos was that, with the IL, it will indeed be possible for the Portuguese to “choose their health service provider,” so they “do not have to wait years on waiting lists” or “at the doors of closed emergency rooms waiting for treatment.”
“With us, there will indeed be freedom of choice for the Portuguese,” he said, before addressing the housing sector, assuring that construction VAT will “indeed decrease,” as well as taxes on rental income or bureaucracy.
After outlining these promises, Rui Rocha asked the roughly one hundred party members listening to him to question why IL became the target of the Left in this campaign, “even more than AD and the current government still in office.”
Immediately after, he provided the answer: “It is because the Left knows—and by Left, I include Chega—that, with the AD, everything will remain the same.”
“And they also know that, with the IL, things will indeed change. And they know they will change in such a way that the country will move forward, will accelerate, and the Left will spend many years out of power if IL starts implementing its policies. That is why AD does not make much difference to them, because it’s more of the same, and the change is here in this room,” he said, to applause.
