Montenegro assured this Thursday that it will accept the premiership only if the PSD wins parliamentary elections, rejecting any form of “construction” on the right.
“My name is not António Costa. I will not be Prime Minister if the Portuguese people do not trust me in the majority. I am here looking for the confidence of the Portuguese people. I am not here looking for Prime Minister with parliamentary arrangements. This is the path of doctor António Costa,” said Luís Montenegro.
Speaking in Mêda, Guarda, where he traveled as part of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, the PSD leader was again faced with the possibility of an agreement with the Chega party.
“I can’t be more clear. People kind of feel that to be clear is to say yes or no. Not putting this on the priority agenda is a voluntary, conscious and convinced decision. I’m not sending the shipment to Dr. António Costa and Dr. [André] Ventura to go around discussing the details of the politics of the flower games of politics,” he replied.
After stating that their policies are “about the people”, Montenegro commented: “I wish they talked about the people instead of talking about them. So the answer is clear. Of course I’m not going to sit down and discuss these things with no one… It’s not with Dr. Ventura. I’m not going to discuss this with anyone (…), except (…) with ‘my people’. And ‘my people’ are the Portuguese who live on the street, the are the Portuguese who have difficulties every day”.
Faced with the journalists’ insistence on a possible dialogue with the Chega party, he replied that “the issue is not a political priority”.
“My priority is the Portuguese. Say I’m ambiguous and keep talking about what people don’t care about. Why do you know what’s going to happen? cares about us. The other leaders are worried about the games of parliament,” he insisted .
He even launched the challenge to journalists: “Are you going to ask Dr. António Costa if he, or his successor, is considering ruling hand in hand with the BE again, as they do now in the Decent Work Agenda?”.
“I am very convinced, very resolute. Pressure and opinions can come from anywhere. And I say this to the room [de televisão], for the Portuguese to know. I will not deviate from my course,” he said.
Luís Montenegro was elected this week in Guarda, the sixth district, under the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, carried out following the commitment he made at the 40th Congress, to spend one week a month in the different districts of the country.
The “Sentir Portugal” initiative of the President of the PSD was launched on Monday in the city of Guarda and will run through the different municipalities of the district until Friday, aiming to connect with local reality and initiate dialogue with citizens, families, municipalities and institutions. .
National Protest Day is “a sign of the country’s impoverishment”
Luís Montenegro believed that the workers’ demonstrations in the context of the National Day of Protests “are a sign of the impoverishment of the country”.
“I think [o protesto] it is a sign of the impoverishment of the country. What has happened in Portugal in recent years is that people have lost purchasing power”said the PSD leader.
According to Montenegro, “people are increasingly thrown into a salary situation that is very, very difficult”.
“More and more Portuguese earn the minimum wage, the average wage is closer to the minimum wage and the cost of living is becoming more and more expensive, as happened in recent months and especially last year with the inflationary movement. On the other hand, families are also having a harder time, because many, in order to access healthcare (…) have to spend money on health insurance and resort to private institutions in the social sector,” he said.
In the education offer, he stressed that all private schools in the country are “completely sold out”, meaning that many people are “fleeing” the public system for “an education they believe is of a higher quality”.
‘I understand the Portuguese who take to the streets to protest’concluded the chairman of the PSD.
The CGTP is holding a national day of protest this Thursday, with strikes and demonstrations in different parts of the country, for the increase of wages and pensions, against the rise in the cost of living and to demand work with rights.
Demonstrations are planned in several cities across the country, including Lisbon, Porto, Aveiro, Beja, Braga, Castelo Branco, Coimbra, Évora, Guarda, Leiria, Setúbal, Santarém, Portalegre, Viseu, Vila Real and Funchal.
This day of struggle includes public and private sectors, with strikes being planned in different public services and in different sectors of the economy, such as the service sector or industry, the union leader stressed.
“It will be a crime” if Portugal does not benefit from the investment volume
The PSD president stressed that there was an inability to implement the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and a lack of transparency, admitting that it will be “a crime” if the program is a “missed opportunity” for the country.
“I think there have been two dominant comments in the PRR, namely: inability to implement, delay and postponement of implementation and lack of transparency. Two circumstances,” Luís Montenegro said.
“Sincerely, it will be a crime for us to get this missed opportunity if we ultimately come to the conclusion that we will not benefit from the investment volume that the PRR brings us,” he stressed.
Montenegro recalled that it has warned about the situation and that Portugal initially had EUR 16.6 billion in the PRR and currently has EUR 18.2 billion, meaning that “there was an increase of EUR 1,600 million”.
“I can only accompany the President of the Republic and all entities who have warned about this situation,” he added.
The PSD chairman also referred that the PRR is “very focused on public investment” and even in this part “the truth is that everything is very late”.
He told journalists that he was accompanied by three mayors from the Guarda district (Mêda, Pinhel and Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo) and that he is in daily contact with mayors “and they know better than anyone that both municipal councils and private social solidarity institutions are confronted every day with projects some of which have even started and which are now unassigned”.
And he continued, “Others are obligated to have the project at such an advanced stage of implementation that they basically have to advance the money to get the returns the program envisions”.
The situation, he said, “actually leads to a complete lack of execution that is visible”.
“And that’s bad. It’s bad because even for public investment, the program is not delivering,” he concluded.
Luís Montenegro was elected this week in Guarda, the sixth district, under the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, carried out following the commitment he made at the 40th Congress, to spend one week a month in the different districts of the country.
The “Sentir Portugal” initiative of the President of the PSD was launched on Monday in the city of Guarda and will run through the different municipalities of the district until Friday, aiming to connect with local reality and initiate dialogue with citizens, families, municipalities and institutions. .
Source: DN
