The chairman of the CDS-PP, Nuno Melo, asked the Prime Minister, António Costa, on Saturday to “reduce taxes a little”, arguing that this will lead to an increase in salaries.
At the end of a CDS-PP political ‘return’ rally in front of the party’s national headquarters in Lisbon, Nuno Melo accused the PS of governing by attacking the private sector and increasing the number of people dependent on the state. increase with the aim of getting votes.
“This government is wasting every expression of effort and merit with taxes and the result is there: we have economic stagnation, we have poverty, we are more dependent on subsidies and we have more and more young people leaving the country,” he insisted.
Nuno Melo stated that the CDS-PP is “fighting this socialism with a different model of society and a different economic model”, with “fewer Portuguese dependent on the state” and “a reduction in the tax burden that returns income to families and companies”.
According to the chairman of the CDS-PP, salaries are low, not because “employers want it that way”, but because “the state withholds so much that there is little left to increase these salaries”.
“Doctor António Costa, reduce a little what you keep from companies and you will see that salaries will go up, and they will not go up by decree, they will go up by justice and they will go up by consent,” he called.
Nuno Melo – who at this meeting brought together three former presidents of the CDS-PP, Manuel Monteiro, Assunção Cristas and Paulo Portas – expressed his hope for a victory for the PSD/CDS-PP coalition in the regional elections in Madeira and convinced that the Democrats and Christians will once again have parliamentary representation in the next parliamentary elections.
“The CDS must return to the Assembly of the Republic because it is about justice and Portugal needs and benefits from the return of the CDS to the Assembly of the Republic. No other party today represents in the Assembly of the Republic what the CDS is. . The CDS is not there, but it has not been replaced by anyone else,” he stated.
Nuno Melo recalled the party’s past and the mandates it held and emphasized that currently “the CDS alone governs six municipalities” and “more than 40 in coalition with the PSD” and that “the CDS is part of the regional governments of the Azores and Madeira” .
The MEP also noted this representation in the European Parliament, integrated into the European People’s Party (EPP), to conclude that “the attention that the CDS has, to this extent, is not a favour”.
In this intervention, the chairman of the CDS-PP spoke out against “coercive tenancies” and criticized the state of health, defending the “complementarity” between the National Health Service (SNS) and the private and social sectors.
In the field of education, he condemned the abolition of association contracts, arguing that this “deprives the poor of the opportunity to study in quality educational institutions” and “puts an end to the democratization of education”.
In terms of social solidarity, Nuno Melo believed that it is necessary to review support, “to really help those who need it, unfortunately many, but only those, because income is scarce”.
“We do not want to distribute scarce state revenues to buy votes, as is happening now,” he claimed.
The President of the CDS-PP spoke for about half an hour during this “return”, which was called a programmatic convention, and thanked Paulo Portas, Assunção Cristas and Manuel Monteiro for their presence, noting that “the absence of other former presidents more than right” and that “they were all invited”.
Nuno Melo also thanked António Lobo Xavier for the “remarkable work” in coordinating the proposed new CDS-PP Declaration of Principles, which he said he hoped would be approved by the National Commission and ratified in Congress, and which he described as ‘an exercise’. in modernity,” which prepares the party “for all the challenges of the 21st century.”
Portas argues that Portugal needs the CDS-PP to stop extremism and hatred
Former CDS-PP president Paulo Portas today defended that the Portuguese political system needs this party to stop the growth of extremists, tensions and hatred and promote rationality and unity.
“Without the CDS, Portugal and its political system are worse off. Without the CDS there will be fewer ideas and more shouting. Without the CDS there will be fewer moderates and more extremists. Without the CDS there will be less rationality and more demagoguery,” Paulo Portas declared at a political ‘return’ meeting of the CDS-PP in Lisbon, in front of the party’s national headquarters.
The former deputy prime minister – speaking before CDS-PP chairman Nuno Melo – added: “Without the CDS there will be less rationality and more demagoguery. Without the CDS, there will be fewer quality personnel and more mediocre equipment in politics. Without the CDS there will be less unity and respect for others, and more tension, more division, more insults and even hatred.”
“Without the CDS there will be less feasibility for an alternative, because without the CDS it will be easy for some to carry out campaigns based on fear and more difficult to build a project of hope,” continued Paulo Portas , who advised: “Look at what happened in Spain and learn your lessons.”
Before Paulo Portas, the former presidents of the CDS-PP Manuel Monteiro and Assunção Cristas also spoke during this ‘return’ of the party, which was no longer represented in the Assembly of the Republic at the last parliamentary elections in January 2022, and saw Chega and Liberal Initiative will become the third and fourth largest parliamentary forces respectively.
In his speech, Assunção Cristas defined the CDS-PP as “a moderate right”, which “respects institutions” and “a responsible right”, noting that “moderation is a value that sometimes seems to have fallen into disuse” and which implies “the ability to listen, the ability to integrate, the ability to find solutions without going to extremes, without becoming radical.”
“It is through moderation, common sense, rationality and sensitivity that we can find effective solutions to problems,” the former minister said.
In turn, Manuel Monteiro declared that the CDS-PP – a party he returned to join in 2020, some twenty years after he left to found New Democracy – “is a free right, a humanist right, a democratic right” and not “a segregationist right” or “an isolationist right.”
Manuel Monteiro pointed out that the CDS-PP is fundamental to building “an alternative government for Portugal” on the right, but believed that it could happen “for purely cyclical, practical, egocentric reasons and with little vision , that the current PSD does not have the perspective that it has never been necessary to build a joint alternative future like now.
Source: DN
