The Liberal Initiative chairman this Wednesday expressed his party’s availability to “be part” of a government solution and believed that “he has been very clear about who can be understood and who he will not” .
“IL has been very clear about who you can and cannot get along with, and I welcome that this clarification is now, after some time, coming from other parties as well,” he said, talking to journalists during a visit to a daycare center in the municipality of Oeiras (Lisbon district).
Rui Rocha indicated that his party will run “with its own lists and is very willing to be part of the solution” and “will always be part of the solution, in a responsible but demanding way”.
“As soon as everything is clearer, this is the moment when we can say that this solution and this alternative are capable of moving forward,” affirmed the liberal.
Considering that the President of the Republic wants clarification on possible future government solutions, Rui Rocha stressed that “the IL made this clarification very early”.
“We were very clear about who we got along with and who we didn’t get along with,” he insisted.
The IL leader believed that the country needs “a transformation” as “some variety is not enough”.
“It is not worth substituting one government for another if it is not to change policies, to change the country. That is what IL guarantees,” he insisted.
Rui Rocha pointed out that his party is “accelerating this solution and this alternative that is absolutely fundamental for the country”, but warned that “there are political forces that are part of the solution and others that sometimes make a lot of noise, are very shrill, but who are still contributing to the change of the country”.
On the day that the PS celebrates its 50th anniversary, the president of the Liberal Initiative said that “a good present for the Portuguese” would be “a political alternative” and “would soon make the PS leave power, because the political solution the PS has to present to Portuguese society is absolutely exhausted”.
“The PS was a very important party in the establishment of our democracy. I think this is an asset that no one can take away from it, but it is also very responsible for the political, social and economic stagnation that the country is experiencing,” he justified.
Asked about the government’s refusal to send the legal opinions supporting the dismissal of the former CEO to the TAP Commission of Inquiry, Rui Rocha pointed out that “parliament is not respected by the PS”.
“What is happening in TAP’s parliamentary committee of inquiry with these kinds of denials is unfortunately nothing new,” he said, criticizing “this attempt to hide documents, to try not to divulge the truth, in this lack of transparency is yet another example of the PS’s lack of respect for the parliamentary institution”.
Also questioned about the VAT exemption for a range of food products, the president of IL said he agreed with this measure, which came into effect on Tuesday, expecting “it will have an impact on prices in the short term, but especially in the medium term.” , but warned that it has “limited importance” and “cannot contribute beyond what it is worth in its own right”.
And he believed that “it is fundamental that taxes, namely the IRS, go down.”
On the issue of daycares, Rui Rocha believed that the measure of free daycares announced by the government “is a misconception, it is not happening on the ground”, being “another propaganda maneuver by the government”, and also criticized the existence of “a series of bureaucratic constraints of a very long licensing process”.
The Liberal leader called for more agility and less bureaucracy and urged the government to “lose its ideological vision”, arguing that parents should have the option of choosing whether to place their children in a public or private nursery .
A week ago, the President of the Republic once again ruled out the possibility of dissolution, citing the situation and the lack of “an obvious alternative in political terms”, and Luís Montenegro then responded to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who had ensured that it is not in the pocket of the government or the opposition.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, the PSD chairman rejected that the party could make government appointments or gain the support of “racist or xenophobic, opportunist or populist policies or politicians.”
Source: DN
