During a lunch meeting of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) at the Mercado do Forno do Tijolo, in Lisbon, Catarina Martins referred several times to the interview with António Costa published this week in the magazine Visão, as the Prime Minister is “angry with the country” and “feels wronged”, also criticized the warning to the parties to get used to the absolute majority of the Socialist Party (PS).
“We are not getting used to it, nor are we accepting that someone says he is involved in left-wing politics when he attacks wages and pensions, when he trades wages for the outstretched hand of support from time to time that the government wants to give. instead of the right to a decent wage, dignified who works,” he said.
The BE coordinator also lamented that the “good news” about public accounts is not reflected in people’s real lives.
“There is nothing more humiliating for the country than to hear the government say the economy is growing more than expected, brag about it and at the same time that those who live on their salary and pension are living worse and worse. But what is growing and for whom?” he asked .
In her speech, the BE leader singled out housing as “one of the party’s main concerns” and pledged to speak on the subject “every day”, opposing “golden” visas and tax breaks for non-ordinary residents.
BE founders Luís Fazenda – who also spoke – Francisco Louçã and Fernando Rosas, took part in the lunchtime rally.
Ironically, Catarina Martins said she was concerned that in what should have been a month of meetings and reconciliation, António Costa had shown himself so angry that the left failed to see the merits of his administration.
“It is only out of malice that this left is not grateful to the absolute majority of the PS (…) António Costa is angry with the country, with whom he does not understand this extraordinary that, were it not for the absolute majority of the country , would be worse, according to PSD statements that come with every PS measure saying, “That was exactly what we were going to do,” he continued.
Now, in a serious tone, the BE leader said she was more concerned about “the agony of people’s lives”, pointing to the 20% increase in the food basket or the rise in house prices, recalling that the Prime Minister months ago said the ‘golden’ visas “had already fulfilled their role and were not necessary”.
“What was that role but welcoming those who hide money they stole elsewhere in the world into our country, if not Portugal’s way of welcoming the world’s oligarchs, including Russians?” he criticized, adding that ‘gold’ visas “also a way to make house prices unaffordable”.
But, Catarina Martins denounced, the ‘golden’ visas did not stop, not even in the center of Lisbon and Porto, as promised.
“They subsist through funds and cause the price of housing to skyrocket,” he charged, complaining that the majority of Portuguese cannot live near their work, leading them to spend “crazy hours on transport” and which also increase harmful emissions. the environment.
Catarina Martins accused the PS of only helping property speculators with housing.
“These will applaud the socialist majority, whoever wants a house to live in will be against this government and this is where the Bloc is,” he assured.
Housing issues were also at the center of speeches by deputy Joana Mortágua and Lisbon City Councilor Beatriz Gomes Dias, while Luís Fazenda made a more ideological intervention.
“Don’t ask us for moderation, no one has moderation these days (…). For our part, we can only oppose radicality, the radicality that half the paint of the political center does not want, which does not want” I want the center and that mainly wants to empty it,” he said, defending that the alternative for the left should be “clear, direct and clear”.
Source: DN
