Comrades,
Dear guests and Festival participants,

We stand here at the threshold of the Avante Festival's 30th year, at a time battered by winds hostile to social progress, solidarity, collective action,
a time with abundant calls for conformism, when the values of individualism, selfishness and 'every man for himself' prevail. We feel moved and proud in witnessing and participating in this fascinating Festival, which is the result of communist militancy and of human effort, where everyone feels as though s/he has a leading role in this political, people's, arts and culture festival - which also has a dimension of freedom, democracy and future. This festival was a melting pot of generations, but its youthfulness was undeniable, so many were the young people that helped to build it, so many were the young people who participated in it.

To all the men, women, young people who - with their diverse skills and experiences, and so often with their creativity - built this Avante festival, we want to convey our tribute and admiration. We want to tell you that it was and is worthwhile, because this too is an expression of the Party that we have and are, its prospect of change, its values and ideals, its attitude toward life, its determination in building and fighting for a better future, with Portugal's workers and people.

This year, one of our permanent guests and participants has left us. From this stage at our Festival we express our heartfelt thanks to the man of
character, to the April General, to the people's companion that was General Vasco Gonçalves.

Comrades and friends: This year was also the one in which our dear comrade Álvaro Cunhal left us. He left us by virtue of the laws of human life, but he will always live in our hearts and our collective memory. We will carry the example of his character, his physical, political, ideological and moral courage, his revolutionary work and achievement, his patriotic and internationalist struggle, all are part and parcel of the heritage of his lifelong Party, the Portuguese Communist Party!

He lived intensely and joyfully through each Festival that was built and held, and he would surely like us to continue being successful in this admirable event, but always looking forward and toward the future, asserting and strengthening the PCP and its struggle, and stating - as the JCP [Communist Youth] says in its slogan for next May's Congress - that we will do all we can to turn dreams into reality.

Comrades,

Our Festival is being held in the year that marks 60 years since the Victory over nazi-fascism and the end of World War II.

It was an historic event, which our Party has been celebrating throughout this year, and to which the Avante Festival dedicated several events. It is no accident that in Portugal, the PCP is the only party to do so. No one better than the communists knows what sacrifices had to be made in resisting and defeating fascism. No one - in Portugal and throughout the world - fought harder than the communists. First to avoid the outbreak of war. Then, to defeat the nazi hordes and end the war. No one more than Portugal's communists holds the values and ideals of freedom and peace so dear and close to their hearts. These ideals are today again dangerously threatened by US imperialism's hegemonistic ambitions.

We celebrate the 60th anniversary of Victory:
- so that the war's horrors and its 50 million dead may not be forgotten;
- to honour all those who died as victims of nazi-fascist barbarity, above all the heroic people of the USSR;
- to uphold and restore historical truth and expose the fact that war is a by-product of capitalism;
- to, as concerns our country, once again denounce Salazar fascism's criminal policies siding with Hitler and Mussolini, and to assert, with legitimate pride, the Portuguese communists' principled position in the struggle against fascism and war.

We must not allow history to be rewritten so as to whitewash fascism and gloss over and even pour slander over the role of communists and the loftiness of their ideals, and to acquit big business of its crimes and thus justify imperialism's current offensive of exploitation and aggression.

We know well that history does not repeat itself. The truth however, is that today's international situation bears striking similarities to the one that led up to the horrors of World War II and the nuclear holocaust at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that heinous crime with which the USA decided to kick off its policy of "containing communism" and of global ambitions.

Capitalism's crisis shows up clearly in the economic sphere, with the continuing recessive trend, and above all with the heightened contradictions and imbalances - such as the USA's twofold deficit - that threaten the world with a major crisis. In the social sphere, there is injustice and inequality on an increasingly explosive scale, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer all the time.

But these negative trends in international developments are not unavoidable.

They face growing resistance from workers and peoples all over the world, who confront OECD, IMF and World Bank demands that strike at democracy and jeopardize peoples' independence and sovereignty.

In our country, as concerns foreign and national defence policies, the PS government is following in the footsteps of its predecessors. The sorry sight of [Foreign Minister] Freitas do Amaral before a haughty Condoleeza Rice and an insolent George Bush is unworthy of a democratic Portugal.

The PCP will continue to fight for a policy worthy of April [revolution] Portugal, for a patriotic policy of national independence, with wide-ranging relations of friendship and cooperation with all peoples of the world. We will continue to struggle against Portugal's involvement in imperialism's
expansionist and aggressive strategies, be it US imperialism, or NATO or the European Union. In particular the PCP opposes Portuguese troop involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the announced deployment of a force to Kosovo.

This is an extremely important issue at a time when - faced with the heavy casualties they are suffering in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, and facing growing opposition even within the USA to its terrorist policies - the US administration, instead of opening its eyes to the reality of the quagmire into which it has stepped, utters new threats and plans new adventures which may have very dire international consequences, in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as Latin America and Africa. But it is significant to note that the world's most powerful military force can in a few hours deploy thousands of troops to any place on the globe, and yet is incapable of tending to the suffering of its own people, as was obvious in the New Orleans tragedy.

We Portuguese communists have denounced these policies of interference, aggression and war, this policy of State violence and terror with which imperialism seeks to appropriate oil and other basic resources, to stifle workers' and peoples' growing resistance, and to impose its global domination and recolonization.

We strongly condemn terrorism in all its manifestations, but we denounce the so-called "war on terrorism" (significantly renamed by Bush as the
"global war against violent extremism") as a smokescreen for the ongoing offensive against peoples' sovereignty and against citizens' freedoms, rights and safeguards. We strongly reject and condemn torture, as in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the advocacy and use of "preventive" murder, and disturbing events such as the execution of a Brazilian citizen by London police, a barbaric act that must be fully investigated.

We drew attention to the security-excused direction of events, which is currently being orchestrated and relaunched by Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, currently in the EU Presidency, under the unacceptable pretext of "trading freedom for security".

With this backdrop, the upcoming UN summit is very important. It will culminate the ongoing debate on UN reform and the UN's role in the contemporary world.

On this issue too, we demand that the Portuguese government not play the power game by latching onto US stands and onslaughts that seek to portray Security Council expansion as the core issue of UN reform. The Portuguese government should speak out with its own voice, standing for
UN democratization, for enhancing the General Assembly's role, for the reactivation of its specialized Agencies such as FAO, UNESCO and many others.

Comrades!

While it true that the international situation remains unstable and dangerous and characterized by negative trends that hinder workers' and peoples' struggles, it is just as true that - confirming our 17th Congress analyses - workers' and peoples' struggles are developing strongly. We can see it in the resistance in Iraq, in the Palestinian people's heroic struggle, in Cuba's assertion of socialism, in Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution, in the significant realignments of forces underway which are objectively anti-imperialist, and in many other struggles and processes.

This reality has expressions even in monopoly-run Europe, such as France's and the Netherlands' "No" to the so-called "constitutional treaty",
opening up new prospects to defeat the neo-liberal, federalist and militaristic program it sought to enshrine.

The situation is complex, and in many aspects even somber, with the advance of worrying phenomena such as racism, xenophobia, obscurantism and the extreme-right.

But if one lesson is to be drawn from the tragedies of 60 years ago, it is that even in the darkest and most dramatic times, resistance leads to victory. When a sinister shadow was engulfing Europe and all seemed lost, the communists did not give up their beliefs, they kept their confidence high, they resisted, fought, and - together with the working class, the masses, and courageous allies - they defeated the nazi-fascist beast and emerged from the war with heightened prestige and popular support.

From here we extend our greetings to communists and all progressives and the workers and peoples the world over who stand always by the ideals of peace, freedom, social progress and socialism, who with courage and determination confront the forces of imperialism, reaction and war.

And, while not forgetting anyone, we convey special greetings to the PLO and the Palestinian people who are on these very days confronting one of the Ariel Sharon terrorist government's most sophisticated and dangerous operations. We confirm the Portuguese communists' support to their just struggle for an independent and sovereign State with Jerusalem as its capital. We convey greetings to the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban people, who have honoured our Festival with the presence of a relative of one of the five Cuban patriots imprisoned in US jails.

Being a patriotic and internationalist Party, the PCP is proud of its relations of great friendship, close cooperation and mutual solidarity with communist parties and left-wing and anti-imperialist forces on all continents. Many of our friends have given us the joy of coming to share our magnificent Festival: To all of them we wish to reassert that they can count on PCP solidarity, and that we will do all in our power to always enhance cooperation between communist parties and to strengthen the international communist movement, to enhance cooperation and unity in action among all left-wing, anti-imperialist and peace-loving forces.

Comrades,

In our country, after 6 months of PS government, those who believed and harboured the hope that with the right wing's defeat Portugal would embark on a new road - the promised new road to uproot the crisis and solve the nation's problems - now feel cheated, and rightly so.

Those who believed in change, have seen each government measure dissipate that hope. And they saw the fulfilment of election promises go up in smoke.

We said that raising taxes and fuel prices, cutting investment, restrictive budget policies and attacks on working people's rights were not merely unfair measures that once again targeted the same victims - the working people, pensioners, small and medium-scale businesspersons - they were also measures that would exacerbate the crisis and draw us closer to recession.

For the government - instead of allocating priority to economic growth and to strengthening our productive apparatus as a means to fight the deficit - fighting the deficit has become the guiding principle of all economic policies, hindering growth with a reductionistic, budget-centric and monetarist outlook. The outcome is there for all to see.

Growth forecasts are systematically being revised downward, and it is now certain that not even the 0.5% recently predicted by the Bank of Portugal will be attained, and the latest predictions are of zero growth.

The prospects are now that these deficit-obsessed policies will continue with [Finance Minister] Teixeira dos Santos's "Plan B", privatizing and
dismantling the State and attacking Public Administration workers' rights.

The government had long since been hiding this "Plan B" in its sleeve, and with the utter failure of its economic predictions it is pushing more restrictive and anti-social measures.

This is the Plan that the government wants to implement in its upcoming State Budget for 2006 and that will - if the recently-touted reduction of investment back to 1996 levels goes through - worsen the country's situation even further and worsen people's lives.

For our part, we want to announce now that we will oppose deficit-dicatorship and we will - for the upcoming Budget - propose in particular:

- rises in social welfare benefits, both for minimum pensions and for all other social benefits;
- salary rises for Civil Service workers;
- abolishing tax exemption for Madeira off-shore banking and abolishing tax cuts for privatizations, and for stock-market and real-estate speculation.

The PS majority and its government heralded themselves as the bearers of confidence, but what they foster day in and day out is pessimism, with their restrictive and recessive measures, entangling the country in a vicious circle of stagnation and recession, condemning it to muddle along for many years to come. There is the risk of reaching the end of this political cycle - as happened to [former prime-ministers] Durão and Santana who also asked for sacrifices to save the country - with an even weaker situation than the one we have today.

The government is now trying to show that it is changing course, and has announced packages of millions of euros in investment on pompous programs. These plans elicit great doubts as to their actual contribution to solve the serious problems - which are not being confronted - faced by our industry, agriculture and fisheries.

These disastrous policies don't just smother the economy, they exacerbate all social problems.

The PS government talked about creating 150,000 jobs, but what is actually happening is rising unemployment, affecting half a million workers, with government estimates indicating more unemployment in the next few years.

Contrary to what it had said before, the PS government adopted the [previous] CDS/PP government's Labour Code, and in the ongoing changes being introduced it is not correcting the evildoing - and in this respect it is in tune with big business's organizations and their satellites - but unleashing one of the most vicious offensives ever against workers' rights and remunerations. The government together with the bosses' organizations wants to allow many collective contracts to expire and then take away rights that were gained in the course of decades of struggle.

With the State accounts deficit as an excuse, the PS government is undertaking a vicious attack on public administration workers' rights and living conditions. At the same time, it is dismantling or privatizing services, so that people have to pay more for them and be worse served.

In the Health sphere, it was repeatedly announced that its intention was to change policy. Events have confirmed that that is precisely what it was: an intention. Because the previous governments' line has on the whole been maintained: its guiding principle was to move toward privatization, thus raising costs for users.

In terms of medications, it seems increasingly obvious that changes are being prepared in the reimbursement percentages, thus burdening families with greater costs. As confirmation of this line, there have already been reports according to which the government is preparing to abolish state participation in the purchase of birth-control pills.

In the education sector, not even the summer vacation has enabled the education community to feel comfortable at the imediate prospects for education in Portugal. There is a continuing string of piecemeal government decisions demagogically attempting to convince people that what lies at the core of our educational system's problems are the teachers and the students, and not the right-wing policies. Meanwhile, families are made to face increasingly unbearable costs for their children to be able to attend school, even in Secondary school. Before school even starts, students have already had to spend 400 euros on books and stationery alone. But while the PS government implements and fosters social retrogression policies, big business - in particular big finance and speculative capital - continue to rake in huge profits.

While the part of the country that works is getting poorer - with families earning less, paying more taxes and enjoying less social benefits - in the first half of 2005 the four largest private banks pocketed 83.6 million euros more in profits than in the same period last year. And that, is over and above the five largest banks' 1,7 thousand million euros of profits last year, which in turn were 45.7% higher than in 2003. What an outrage!
But it is not just banks that are raking in huge profits in spite of the crisis. The big companies, and now the oil companies too, are pocketing scandalously bloated profits.

The PS government, big business and its propagandists view each right as something to be struck down. There they are, supporting a rise in retirement age, supporting less vacation days [per year]. There they are - as in the case of one of the biggest banking groups' chairman - supporting a 10% salary cut for all workers across the board. It is all very revealing as to what capitalism's logic is, what exploitative mechanisms characterize it, and what it all means for our people.

That is why we say that we must stand up for our rights, and fight for better living conditions, and that is also why we convey from here our greetings to workers and communities in struggle.

We salute the textile, clothing and footwear workers, the metal workers, the electrical and electronic industry workers, the public administration workers as a whole: local administration workers, teachers and other education workers, nurses and all other health workers, public attorneyship workers, judges, bailiffs, security forces professionals, officers, NCOs and enlisted men from all three branches of the armed forces, the fisheries workers. We salute all working people who are struggling for their rights and interests against these policies which are so detrimental to the nation.

Protest and struggle are not an evil. They are good for democracy.

These struggles and their gains have always been present when civilization advances. They are part and parcel of a democratic regime. The problem lies in the policies and not in the struggles.

From here we salute CGTP-IN, the Portuguese workers' great trade union confederation, their democratic, unitary, class-based, independent, mass confederation.

From here we call for the struggles against right-wing policies to be continued and stepped up, to uphold workers' and the people's rights and interests.

This struggle counts on the contribution and participation of communists and their Party, in the very diverse arenas where it is waged.

It was so in the recent struggles to defend workers' and people's living conditions against right-wing policies.

It was so in the struggles of young people in schools and worplaces, with the valuable contribution of JCP [communist youth].

It was so, in the assertion of civilizational rights, for equal rights for women, in the struggle to decriminalize abortion and for an urgent solution to end the scourge of clandestine abortion.

It will be so in the struggle against the rise in retirement age, which we launched at our Festival by starting a PCP National Campaign, which includes collecting 100 thousand signatures by the end of November. We are sure that it will be a great success. We can announce that during the Festival itself, 20 thousand signatures have already been collected!

Comrades,

In other spheres of national life the situation is no better. In the touchy sphere of Justice, what we see are not far-reaching measures to improve Justice making it more egalitarian and accessible to working people and citizens generally, but rather a line of confrontation with judicial powers.

In these summer months Portugal has suffered the drama of forest fires.

It is a tragedy, with major human, material and environmental losses. It is a scourge that is repeated year after year, with many thousands of hectares of forest destroyed, human lives lost, people who paid very dearly for the carelessness, political inability and wrong agro-forestry policies followed by successive PSD and PS governments. Policies that led to more and more people leaving rural areas, to rural desertification, and to a lack of adequate forest and territorial planning and management. It was years of de-invesment and negligence in prevention and vigilance too,
as was the case again this year.

This week, making a provisional assessment, the government has admitted that there are huge shortcomings in terms of prevention and vigilance and in the nation's firefighting system, and they promised more investment in the upcoming budget.

It is too late. If the PS government had listened to the PCP's insistent proposals and appeals, we would probably not be facing such a calamitous situation. But at the very least Prime-Minister José Sócrates should apologize to the Portuguese people, because last May he answered a PCP [parliamentary] question saying that all the resources were in place to avoid a tragedy like the one that later took place.

While extending our deepest solidarity to all those that have been affected by the fires and saluting all those who gave their dedication and participation to fighting them, we want to assure them from here, the Avante Festival, that - in view of the serious consequences for communities affected, people whose homes and possessions, farms and commercial and industrial businesses were destroyed - we will continue to demand that a state of calamity be declared immediately, and that we will do all we can to make the State shoulder its responsibilities and implement a new forestry policy and an effective prevention policy.

This forest fire drama - which came on the heels of extreme drought in nearly the whole country - would have also required exceptional measures and more government attention and support, particularly for our farmers. But the situation, which also includes growing difficulty in ensuring water
supplies for the population, highlights the importance of water in our lives. Water is something that no one can do without and that no one should be deprived of due to insufficient income.

It is in against this sad backdrop of ashes and drought that we solemnly declare here at our Festival: We will vigorously denounce and determinedly fight the water privatization plans that are going ahead just to satisfy the gluttony of some for anything that smells of profits.

From this stage we vehemently appeal to the mass social organizations, to democrats, to the Portuguese people: Do not allow such a precious element of life to be alienated and turned into a business!

Comrades;

This country is not doomed to continuing with these national-disaster policies.

Portugal is facing an absolutely crucial challenge: to produce more and better, ensuring full employment to its active population. And don't come and say that this is a utopia, a mirage, or worse yet "demagoguery" from a party with no responsibility in government!

Let them just have the courage to break off from the interests of the lords of high finance. Let them have the courage to break with neo-liberal capitalism's dogmas that serve those lords' interests!

Let them have the courage to govern for the Portuguese people and to guarantee Portugal's future, and the utopia will come true.

Let them listen to the PCP, take its proposals into account, and the nation's problems may begin to find a solution.

Three lines will be essential and decisive to pull the country's economy out of the stagnation in which it is mired, while at the same time making a decisive contribution to overcome its structural deficits.

First, start a policy of defending national production and jobs, guaranteeing sustainable growth without resorting to cheap and casual labour and to environmental depredation.

- Modernizing the productive apparatus, making the value chain grow, fighting delocalizations. More and better agriculture and fisheries.

- A processing and extractive industry, developing promising prospects, introducing technology and innovation, making good use of Portuguese workers' know-how.

- Defending the national market and raising exports through feasible productivity and competitiveness leaps, by companies with adequate policies.

- A committed policy of support for micro, small and medium-scale companies. Significant public investment into the State's social functions, in implementing public infrastructure, in producing marketable goods, particularly agrifood, energy, technology and in transportation and logistics networks.

A second major line will be to decisively enhance the value of national labour, effectively redistributing the National Income through wage rises.
This will not only revitalize the domestic market, making a decisive contribution to reducing Portuguese people's level of indebtedness. It will also create conditions to foster job training and improve productivity.

- Raising the National Minimum Wage is, as the PCP has stated and proposed, a key component of that goal, a crucial issue in breaking various sectors' dependence on a model of cheap and unskilled labour. - A decisive boost to education, enhancing job skills, investment in research
and development and in cultural development.

And lastly a third line, it is necessary to promote growth in the State's financial income and fight against wastage of public funds. The PCP is not indifferent to unbalanced public accounts.

- But countering imbalance implies and requires decisive and priority action on the income side, but this does not mean giving up on persistent action to reduce spending.

- Central aspects are the need for economic growth, as a starting point for any sustainable growth in tax revenues, more encompassing taxation, a substantial reduction in tax breaks, especially those for speculative financial activities, a struggle against tax fraud and evasion.

- Strict discipline in public spending, and greater efficiency in public administration. But strict discipline and efficiency does not imply reducing overall spending. There can be more but better spending. An end should be put to laxity in non-essential, unnecessary and unjustifiable budget items.

Comrades,

The PS - in a significant convergence with the PSD - has once again announced that it is very keen on adopting changes to the local and national election laws, and that it is in a hurry to do so.

After already having adopted in general terms, together with the right, a law on local government elections, they want to (already in October) ram through a new law on Assembly of the Republic [Parliament] elections, with a setup that seeks above all to foster concentration of votes on PS and PSD, to the obvious detriment of all other forces.

That - and only that - is the real goal of the much-touted creation of first-past-the-post constituencies (that is, constituencies where only a single candidate is elected, the one who gets the most votes).

The goal is to lock voters into two "two-party contests", one at the top and another below, both of them fake and perverse. The top "two-party contest" would be to continue to repeat the same fraudulent slogan, saying that votes in parliamentary elections are "to elect the prime-minister".
And it would now be joined by a new "two-party contest" on a lower level, inducing the idea that only one candidate will be elected and that therefore all votes for other candidates would be garbage votes.

In effect, notice that in a given constituency a candidate with 35% of the vote can win; in which case, there will have been a 65% majority of voters who voted for candidates that did not win. The outcome is a majority of voters who are left unrepresented, and instead of feeling "closer" to the elected MP they will feel extremely distant.

This is clearly not the way to dignify politics. Instead, it is a way to impoverish and debase political life, and to distort the expression of the people's will in elections.

The main way to bring credibility into politics and its institutions is by respecting the pledges made before the people. If there is any need for a change and a break, it is not to break with the democratic regime, but to break with these right-wing policies that have dragged on for decades and that have brought irretrievable delays and losses for the country.

Comrades,

The upcoming local government elections on October 9th are an important political battle. In the next four weeks much of the availability and energies of thousands of PCP members and CDU [coalition] activists will be concentrated on this major political battle, so that we my wage it successfully and confirm the CDU as a major force in local governments nationwide.

Comrades,

Allow me, from the main stage of our Festival, to convey very special greetings to our allies - our companions from the Greens Ecological Party, the Democratic Participation, and the many thousands of independents - who are with us in this undertaking, for democratic and unitary participation.

We go toward these elections to move ahead and grow. We are aware of the difficulties and obstacles before us. But we are confident in what we can achieve, in the value of our proposals and prospects, and in the merits of our candidates.

Having put up candidates in 302 municipalities and 2915 parishes, is in itself a significant success, and is indicative of the fact that thousands of men and women are engaged in the CDU and support its vision for the future, that there is an atmosphere of confidence and participative involvement, and that the CDU is an arena for broad democratic participation.

We go toward these elections confident in the good work and past achievements of the candidates we are now putting forward. These candidates match precisely the CDU's guiding concepts of Work, Honesty, Competence. They are the candidates of a political force that is known to honour its pledges, to do as it says, to fulfil its promises.

We go toward these elections with the undisputed merit of having been able to assert the CDU as a place where thousands of independents can come together and participate in a clear, politically committed, and time-tested project.

We go toward these elections carrying a priceless heritage of work done in local governments. It is work that throughout the past nearly 30 years has made a difference in local governments, and provides the best assurance that future work will be good. It is very true to say that by voting CDU on October 9th, people know that they can count on democratic and participative management, with priority given to the public interest.

Strengthening CDU presence in local governments on October 9th, means ensuring a presence that is essential to make local governments function democratically, ensuring a constructive participation, providing checks on local government work, ensuring the presence of a voice essential in representing and upholding the people's interests.

Making the CDU stronger in the upcoming local government elections means confirming the CDU as the main left-wing force in local government, ensuring the continuation of time-tested work in dozens of municipalities changing communities' living conditions for the better, strengthening the presence of those who do not shy away from the struggle, who do not remain silent in the face of injustice, who give a voice to the voiceless.
Making the CDU stronger means contributing to defend and enhance local government, swelling the ranks of those who fight for decentralization and of those who want to maintain democratic plurality in local governments. Making the CDU stronger also obviously means contributing to help clear the road toward new policies in our country that can bring hope of a new life for workers and the people.

Let us now get on with the most demanding, but also the most fulfilling task: talking, contacting communities, and also being able to listen, learn of their problems and legitimate aspirations and suggest solutions.

Comrades,

While the local government battle is our current priority, and we must engage decisively in it, there is a Presidential election right behind it.

This election is very significant in the current political context.

- firstly, because the nation's problems are great as a result of the damage wrought by right-wing policies, and it is necessary to assert an alternative way forward;
- secondly, because the right has never really accepted the successive defeats it has suffered in all presidential elections;
- thirdly because there is a growing number of voices and indications from those who - fearing that the current alternance model may be exhausted and fearing that the Portuguese people may clearly identify the right-wing policies and demand a break and a change - are insinuating that it is all the democratic regime's fault, and putting forward autocratic solutions.

To gain a better political understanding of what is at stake, it is useful to look at the proposed changes to demolish the Constitution, supported by the PSD and CDS parties.

Skilfully playing on the contradictions and hesitation that exist in the democratic camp, Cavaco Silva's candidature has been gradually built up. It can now be said that this candidature is not so much a case of "throwing the stone and hiding the hand" as of "throwing the stone and showing
the hand". This is so both in terms of its supporters and its goals.

At a time when the political and economic situation is getting worse and the the PS government bears particular and major blame for it - and within the scope of our Congress decisions - we have decided to put forward our own candidature. It is significant that the candidate will be the General Secretary, by decision of the Central Committee.

It is a candidature that will assert our goals, causes and values. It is unique insofar as it asserts the need to break with these right-wing policies and proposes alternative policies, an issue to which the Mário Soares and Francisco Louçã candidatures provide no answer. It is determined in its defence of national sovereignty, irreplaceable in its contribution to defeat the right-wing candidate. It will voice the hopes of many Portuguese women and men, and is ready to fight all the way to the ballot box.

We are going ahead with this candidature with no "ifs" or "buts", we will move forward strongly and confidently in this process that has just begun.

The Party, and strengthening it

We held our 17th Congress, it was a great success for our party. We confirmed directives, analyzed events, elected a leadership, reasserted the
PCP as a major communist party, a necessary, indispensable and irreplaceable party for the workers, the people and the country.

It is by nature the Party of the working class and of all working people. Its theoretical foundation is marxism-leninism, understood fully in its materialist and dialectical outlook. It stands for a new society freed from the exploitation of man by man, of capitalism's social scourges and injustices. Its organizational structure and mode of operation are based on the creative development of democratic centralism - which are essential traits of great internal democracy - with a single central leadership and asserting itself as a patriotic and internationalist party.

It is a unique party, in terms of its history, its current action, its goals for the future, its features and identity - whose current importance is very
obvious in these times.

The 17th Congress was a major success. It resulted from the work of a Party collective, whose very strong intervention and capability for change had repercussions on the whole of our great collective, providing renewed energy and determination.

We emerged from the 17th Congress equipped with guidelines and tools for our work. We have faced attacks and difficulties, boycotts, prejudice and silencing. We faced and continue to face onslaughts from the laws on political parties and their financing, and we forged ahead in strengthening the Party, in the major political battle that was the general election - where which we achieved a good result, with a higher percentage of votes and more MPs - asserting alternative policies, fighting the PS government's right-wing policies, stepping up workers' and people's struggles, with street awareness-raising and mobilization work, working within very diverse mass movements and associations, in parliamentary work in the Assembly of the Republic and the European Parliament, in local governments and in the autonomous regions' institutions.

And here we are, at this 2005 Avante Festival, with determination, confidence in the party, the workers and the people, confident in the future, concerned about the situation in the nation and the world, but with great joy and the confidence based on our beliefs, on our goal of building a better society and a better world, confident in our strength and abilities.

We have a strong and dynamic communist youth, the JCP - PCP youth - that we salute from here. We can count on the generosity, fighting spirit and militancy of this great party collective, this collective that can make possible what many believe to impossible.

But if we want to overcome obstacles and difficulties, we need a stronger, more influential Party, even closer to the masses, with better and stronger Party work in workplaces and on the shopfloor, completing the work of contacting Party members, persisting in the task of integrating every member and with an ongoing effort to rejuvenate and renew organizations and leaderships, enhancing the participation of women, fostering better collective work. Basically this is to be done by applying and implementing an integrated set of measures that can give a boost toward strengthening Party organization. Yes, a stronger PCP is possible!

We inform from this stage that in the quest for a stronger PCP we also have more support: new members! From here we salute the 1400 new members who have joined the PCP since the beginning of this year, many of them young people, who bring their thoughts and their participation to our Party, who add their voice to ours and join our struggle, strengthening our party collective. This figure is already outdated, because during this Festival, dozens of friends have decided to join our Party!

The secret and the key to our party's success continues to be its ties with the workers and the people - learning from them, counting on them, with their problems and yearnings. The Party does not give in to acceptance or to conformism, it does not lose heart in the face of retreats and setbacks, it does not rest on its laurels, it persists and will continue to persist, it fights and will continue to fight to free Portugal's workers and people from all forms of exploitation and oppression - so that the State and politics can be fully in the service of human beings' welfare and happiness - it fights and will fight for a socialist society in our country.

We are concerned, yes. But we are confident that things won't be like this forever. While those who caused this situation and benefit from it, blame workers, young people, small and medium-scale businesspersons and the people generally, we trust that - like at other times in our history - the time will come when the Portuguese people will demand and effect change. The road toward a democratic, sovereign and peaceful Portugal, where social justice, progress and development prevail, will become the national priority.

They can count on the PCP, its struggle, its goals, its unrelenting confidence that Portugal has a future.

We are within hours of closing our Festival. Strengthened by its success, with the energy that we always find when the struggle is hardest and the tasks before us most demanding, let's go out and struggle, because it's worth it!

Long live internationalist solidarity!
Long live democratic Portugal!
Long live the Avante Festival!
Long live JCP!
Long live the Portuguese Communist Party!