Rui Rocha, morning of June 2, Parliament. Meeting with the communications team. “At some point,” says the leader of the Liberal Initiative, “we have to note the alternative.” When? “The discourse of degradation is valid until the end of the CPI [Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito à TAP]. Then we go to the concrete proposals, the alternative. Turning the speech of the Parliamentary Days [10 e 11 de julho]Everyone agreed.

28 days passed. The parliamentary days start tomorrow in Funchal. But already yesterday and today IL is in an election campaign [as Eleições Regionais são a 24 de setembro] “in various contact actions with the population” in Funchal, Machico, Santa Cruz and Camacha.

The “alternative” policies in “Health, Education, Housing, Justice and Taxation” among others will mark the agenda of liberals who will make public the final version of “a new health basic law, the universal system of access to health” (Your health)”.

The general outline outlines an architecture that integrates the SNS into a platform of subsystems and providers from the private, social and cooperative sectors, where for example (this was the original idea) the price of medical actions is the same in all subsystems of Health .

In practice, the IL intends to “corporate the SNS as a sub-sector independent of the state, guaranteeing its own revenue and independent of the control of the Ministry of Finance” and “establish sub-systems within the SNS, with the capacity to operate throughout the territory, through retrofitting and replacement of the current ARS [Administrações Regionais de Saúde]and with the function of financing the provision of health care to all citizens” both in public and private.

So, the liberals argue, is it possible that “all Portuguese can choose their doctor and their clinic or hospital where they want to be treated”, that everyone has access to the same health care and that there is “competition between public, private and social service to people”.

Details won’t be known until tomorrow, and one has raised doubts in the party’s National Council: how much will it cost? And if it costs more, how can that be justified by a party that advocates paying less tax?

And what is “the path the Liberal Initiative intends to take in the near future?”

Part of the answer lies in the assurance of Rodrigo Saraiva, parliamentary leader, that the IL has “fulfilled the mandate entrusted to it by the Portuguese: to investigate and put forward alternative proposals. A consistent opposition and not just a knockdown” – despite the aligned strategy of the “discourse of degradation”.

Examples? “Our push for a tax reform, with proposals aimed at the IRS, and health monitoring, with a first debate we called SOS SNS on June 30 last year, with the presence of Rui Rocha in hospitals and health centers, the presentation of various legislative initiatives and soon a basic health law”.

What is there left to understand? What is the path of the “alternative proposals” that Rui Rocha found necessary to relaunch.

Morna, the XXIL

The plan is set: go to the Regional Assembly of Madeira for the first time. In 2019, the party only received 766 votes, 0.53% of a total of 143,190 voters. Almost 45% of the 257 967 Madeirans did not vote. The result of the Regionals four years ago left behind IL PSD, PS, CDS, JPP, PCP, BE, PAN, PURP, RIR, PTP and Aliança. Now, months away from the September 24 elections, the IL almost always appears as the fifth party in polls – with values ​​between 2.3% and 3.6%.

The scenario of the polls opening an opportunity for the Liberals – along with the BE – apparently leaves the PCP out of the Regional Assembly, places Chega as the fourth political force (election between two to three deputies) which of course maintains the JPP, PS and PSD/CDS trio that, according to opinion polls, will win the elections without major problems. However, there are two factors that could become decisive and confuse the polls: what will the doubting people who fluctuate between 13% and 25% do? And how many abstainers will there be?

“We, here in Madeira, have defined as our goal the election of a parliamentary group. This implies at least two deputies. Minimum services: it will be to elect a deputy. And anything that is not will have a clear defeat,” Nuno Morna, coordinator of the Madeira core of the Liberal Initiative, which has already marketed its own physical weight, takes on a T-shirt with the inscription XXIL. The Liberals’ expectation is based on three assumptions: the “work” done in the past year and a half, the result the party achieved in Madeira in the 2022 legislature (4,241 votes) and the “indications” of the polls.

“The best survey is the one we had in the legislature. If this result were applied in the [Eleições] At the regional level, we were 200 votes away from electing the second deputy,” says Nuno Morna. And then, he emphasizes, it counts a lot “the fact that we have been walking on the street practically every weekend for over a year and a half”. for adequate, correct, adapted and, above all, liberal solutions”.

IL’s assessment of the governance of Miguel Albuquerque’s PSD and Rui Barreto’s CDS coincides with that of PS, JPP and PCP (with parliamentary representation) and by the other parties.

“This country should not only be a country for tourists. It should above all be a country for Madeirans. Almost a third of Madeirans are at risk of falling into poverty or the poverty line. Speaking of the unemployed. We are talking about people who work, but can’t with their salary (the vast majority of people in Madeira earn the minimum wage), make it to the end of the month,” emphasizes Nuno Morna.

And what will IL do to break the current PSD/CDS majority? Will it be like the CDS, which has allied itself with the party it has violently criticized for decades?

“There will be no agreement, neither before nor afterwards. Madeira is very badly used to it. There have always been governments with an absolute majority. It is also possible, and often even better, to govern without an absolute majority”, Nuno Morna assures, underlining the “dating, in recent times, between PSD, CDS and Chega”. In a sentence: “It is a red line, for me any kind of agreement with the PSD of Madeira”.

And a government or parliamentary agreement with the PS-M, which Nuno Morna admits has nothing to do with the national PS? “I have a good picture of the current leader of PS-M [Sérgio Gonçalves], but honestly it hadn’t even occurred to me until now. I’d have to think about it for a while. I like to let ideas mature, it’s a possible scenario. Maybe I should think about it again,” he says.

The coordinator of the Liberal Initiative’s Madeira core finds it “more natural” that the PS finds support in the JPP, BE and PCP. However, there is the scenario, shown by the polls, that the PCP cannot elect a delegate and that IL rejects BE’s intentions to return to the Regional Assembly. That is, the parliamentary chess set of Madeira consists of PSD/CDS, PS, JPP, Chega and IL.

“For the first time I was confronted with this scenario, which is possible. Maybe I should think about it,” admits Nuno Morna.

In the party, which is “neither left nor right”, there is a dilemma: that “support” for the PS, after the elections, which could remove the PSD/CDS from the regional government, could be “disregarded left”. by voters on the continent.

There are two scenarios that would be “acceptable”: the first, which Albuquerque wins by a majority – would avoid “all the trouble”; the second, that the PS, if it can form a government with parliamentary support, “excludes PCP and BE” – two red lines from IL, next to Chega.

Reinforcing this statement, the certainty of the national leader of the IL: “I don’t get along with parties that get along with the PCP. It’s the same vehemence as with Chega.”

And here too there is a lecture by Rodrigo Saraiva who considers that “if in the Azores the role of the IL was fundamental in the construction of an alternative to a practically absolute majority power, for 24 years, of the PS, in Madeira the IL is against a PSD regime of almost 50 years”.