Yesterday Catarina Martins gave the farewell speech to the leadership of the Left Bloc and what is expected today at the party’s XIII National Convention, which is taking place in the Casal Vistoso pavilion, in Lisbon, is that she will be succeeded in office by the deputy Mariana Mortágua, delfim politically (and even academically) of the founder and historical leader of the party, Francisco Louçã.
In the interventions the two made yesterday, the tone was a one-note samba – that is, a strong concentration of criticism in the PS.
Catarina Martins accused the socialists of using “the state apparatus” while losing themselves “in internal wars”, viewing the country “in disbelief” for “a government paralyzed and entangled in its own mistakes”.
As he added, António Costa’s PS may even “victimize itself”, but “it was not the covid and the war that caused the current difficulties” nor “any opposition that caused any of the problems that ministers are concocting” . What is happening is that the socialists “amuse themselves with a degradation of public life”, with the PS now being the “stepfather of all populism”: “Even in the face of the far right, in defense of values of dignity and respect, equality and freedoms, by denying the concrete conditions of salary, public service, housing, by making the secret services a mysterious pawn, by proposing dangerous constitutional restrictions, the PS infects the whole democratic debate and extends the treadmill to the return of the worst ghosts of the past.”
However, Catarina Martins also said it “needs to note that this sad soap opera about the government crisis is the least of the country’s misfortunes”. The main difficulty, he continued, is “an economic model and social injustice that is destroying Portugal”, with “low wages and high speculation”, while he complained about an economic model “devoured by tourism, even if those who serve it no longer have a place to live” and “where there is never too much intensive irrigation, even if the drought gets worse every year”.
The outgoing leader took the opportunity to reaffirm that she believed the BE was right in letting the OE2022 fail – a fact which, combined with the PCP’s vote against, sparked the political crisis that sparked the parliamentary elections of 2020. January 2022 the PS its current absolute majority.
“We did what we had to do and we would do the same again with the government on health and labor rights budgets,” defended Catarina Martins. Adding: “We do not regret being consistent. Let no one be mistaken about who we are and how we are: we respect those who voted for the bloc and who, fearing the right or because they favored to an absolute majority, the PS supported a year ago; but we will always say the same thing as telling us that we must choose between party convenience and the care that democracy owes to the SNS or the right of those who work.
Catarina took her leave, asking members of Congress not to hear this speech as “a farewell.” “I’m ending a mandate, I keep walking here. As always. And when I look at this path, much more than the balance of the past, I want to take stock of the future,” he recalled that during a decade came he offers his team “a trip around the world every year by car and train, maybe two in an election year.” In the lists that will be voted on today, Catarina Martins ranked 7th in the list headed by National Table (the party’s “parliament”) Mariana Mortágua.
The latter defended speaking that “taking the country seriously” tells the Portuguese that they are not condemned “to the humiliation” that “the absolute majority inflicts”, since “the quagmire can be overcome with democracy”. “To take the country seriously is to tell people that we are not condemned to the degradation and humiliation imposed on Portugal by the absolute majority,” he said.
For the blogger “there are no shortcuts” and “hate is fought with hope” just as resentment is healed “with respect”. “The quagmire can be overcome with democracy and not with ridiculous blackmail accusing any critical voice of the PS or the government as populist,” he calls, also saying that “the duty of the left is to regain strength, to unite the social will that does not give up the fight for a good life”. “The duty of the left is to be united and combative, to speak clearly and to mobilize the people,” he stressed.
Pedro Soares, the leader of the internal opposition (tops a list at the National Bureau), criticized the leadership, stating that the BE lost “political and social influence” with the device, making its program secondary: “We are here because we want to fight for dialogue and plurality. For a bloc with a left-wing, polarizing policy, with clear commitments. Yes, with clear red lines that do not cover a kind of social democracy of the time, increasingly liberal.”
Source: DN
