The presidential elections assume great importance in the current situation of the country and its evolution in the coming years.

Portugal is today faced with a very difficult situation, which has been worsening for nearly four decades with right-wing policies and which besieges the workers and the vast majority of the people. A situation which is characterized by increased exploitation and impoverishment, deepening inequalities and injustice, inseparable from the course of economic decline, social regression and national dependency that has led to an increasing deterioration of national sovereignty and independence.

Old and new threats weigh on the democratic regime aiming its impoverishment and mischaracterization, new attacks loom on the rights and interests of the workers and people and the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic- not just its more substantial values, in the field of rights, freedoms and guarantees, in the political, economic, social and cultural framework and in the affirmation of national sovereignty, but even, as is now happening, in the assault on basic norms of institutional functioning which the organs of sovereignty have to obey, as should have been the case of the present President of the Republic.

The presidential election, due to the process of its realization and dynamics of dispute - particularly in a context where PSD and CDS suffered a major election defeat, imposing their urgent removal from government - and due to the decisions to be taken on the options and guidelines of the sovereignty body President of the Republic, will exercise a significant influence on the creation, consolidation and deepening of the conditions for the defence of the values of April and of the Constitution and for the affirmation of a Portugal with a future.

In the context of the current situation of the Country, faced with the dangers and constraints that exist and their possible aggravation, in case of continuation of right-wing policies, and the need to defend the interests of workers, the people and the Country, in all circumstances, the PCP assumes that which is its duty, undeniable and unavoidable, to intervene in this electoral battle for the Presidency.

The XIX Congress of the Party inscribed in its political resolution that, in the presidential elections of January 2016, "it is the aim of the communists to ensure its own intervention on how the PCP sees and defends the exercise of presidential duties and contribute to ensure in the Presidency of the Republic the effective respect for the oath to comply and enforce the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic."

Corresponding to this congressional decision, the Central Committee decided, at its meeting of October 6, to put forward a candidacy for the 2016 presidential elections, which will give expression to its own ideas and of the model of the functions and role of the President of the Republic and the exercise of his office and will intervene to contribute to ensure in the Presidency of the Republic a committed intervention to respect, comply and defend the Constitution, free from the interests and positions of big business, the impositions of economic power and dictates and constraints alien to the national interest.

In order to answer the needs and goals that are set, the Central Committee decided, unanimously, that the PCP's candidate for President of the Republic is comrade Edgar Silva, Central Committee member and PCP’s MP in the Regional Legislative Assembly of Madeira.

This candidacy is addressed to all democrats and patriots, to the Portuguese people, that assumes the aim to give voice to the concerns and expectations of the workers and the Portuguese people, identify the structural problems of the country and point the way to ensure the materialisation of the project of a more developed, fairer and sovereign Portugal. A candidacy, truly coherent and combative, linked to the values of April, and social justice, identified with the interests of the workers and people, inspired by a strong conviction and confidence in a Portugal with future. A candidacy that does not abdicate from a developed and sovereign Portugal, that does not renounce that the resources, wealth and potential are placed at the service of the country and the welfare of the workers and people, which affirms national independence as an inalienable value.

We embark on the presidential elections in January with a huge and valuable heritage of struggle and proposal, of intervention and affirmation, embodied in an alternative policy. The election for the President of the Republic, having its own characteristics and giving expression to a project of exercise of functions of a single-person sovereign body, is not detached from this vast and prestigious collective action, of communists, democrats and patriots, workers and the people, for the rupture with the right-wing policy, for a patriotic and left-wing policy.

The candidacy of Edgar Silva for President of the Republic, following his Declaration of Candidacy, on October 15, in Lisbon, will inscribe in his objectives and materialise the construction of a broad campaign of explanation and mobilization to vote. This is a task that is assigned to all Party organisations and members, to all democrats and patriots, and which will focus the will, the determination, the energies and efforts indispensable for its affirmation and to broaden support for the candidacy and its aims.

A few months away from the 40th anniversary the Constitution of the Republic, in a context where the exercise of democratic rights increasingly emerges as essential to defend the constitutional democratic regime, this candidacy will affirm that the solution to the national problems implies a commitment engaged to the project of April, inscribed in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

To defend the democratic regime enshrined in the Constitution and strengthen its roots in Portuguese society is to project in our near future the values of April and their horizon of freedom, equality and social justice, fraternity, political participation, independence and national sovereignty.

The PCP by stressing the importance of the upcoming presidential elections for the future of the country, calls on the party collective, each and every one of its militants, all democrats and patriots, to commit themselves to this electoral battle, materialising the objectives of PCP’s candidacy and affirming its commitment to the workers, the people and the Country.