The Central Committee of the PCP, meeting on November 18, 2023, analysed the recent developments in the national and international situation, defined lines of intervention of the Party in the political and institutional framework resulting from the resignation of the Prime Minister and the announcement of the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and the calling of early legislative elections for March 10, 2024, and outlined priorities for the development of the struggle for a break with right-wing policies and for a patriotic and left-wing alternative, and for the strengthening of the Party.
 

I - The current social and political situation

1. The resignation of the Prime Minister, triggered by recent judicial inquiries involving the current government, is not separable from right-wing options and policies, the worsening of problems and inequalities and injustices and the growing discontent expressed in the scale of the workers' and people's struggle.

The decision to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic and call early elections - even though the date for its holding is conditioned by the adoption of a State Budget that does not serve the country or respond to the main problems - corresponds to a moment of clarification of the situation and represents an opportunity to pave the way for another policy to serve the workers and the people.

The submission to the interests of monopoly capital – which in fact determines the orientation and content of right-wing policies –, in which the action of the PS government, with an absolute majority in the Assembly of the Republic, and the intervention of PSD, CDS, Chega and IL, is the cause of growing social inequalities, obvious in the increase of difficulties in the lives of most people, in contrast to the scandalous level of profits of economic and financial groups.

The PS's absolute majority in the 2022 legislative elections meant, as the PCP then warned, a lack of response to problems and an increase in social instability for millions of Portuguese. This was a period that refuted illusions about the nature of the PS's political options and confirmed its objective convergence with PSD, CDS, Chega and IL on essential issues that serve the interests of big business.

Decades of right-wing policies – pursued by PS and PSD, with or without CDS, and which Chega and IL strive to intensify – have dragged the country into a situation of domination by the economic power over all spheres of national life, with a highly weakened productive apparatus , stripped of instruments and levers essential to its sovereign development, subjected to the dictates and criteria of the Euro and the European Union, to the detriment of national independence and the living conditions of the workers and people.

The main issue posed in the next legislative elections is, with the reinforcement of the PCP and the CDU, to break with the right-wing policy and pave the way for an alternative policy capable of ensuring the solutions that the country needs.

2. The continuing increase in the cost of living, the brutal increase in the value of rents and housing loan instalments, low wages and pensions, the insistence by the government and large employers in refusing wage increases to replace and increase the purchasing power, the deterioration of public services, in particular of the National Health Service (NHS), but also of Public Schools, insufficient public investment, are problems that affect the lives of millions of Portuguese and that contrast with the propaganda of alleged economic successes that the government insists on, trying to conceal its own responsibilities in the deterioration of the lives of the workers and people resulting from its options.

Options that shape a policy that worsens exploitation, heightens the concentration of wealth, inequalities and injustices, denies rights, weakens the productive apparatus, promotes privatisations, speculation, the profits of economic groups and multinationals, environmental degradation, giving in to the interests of imperialism. Right-wing policies that no populist propaganda, nor any false bipolarisation operation between “left” and “right”, can deceive.

The PS, with its absolute majority obtained on the basis of blackmail and in articulation with the President of the Republic, was not an obstacle to right-wing policies, it was rather its key player. Worse, not only did the PS not stand up to the reactionary forces and their projects, but the policies it carries out and their consequences encourage the objectives of these forces.

3. The seriousness, nature and consequences of recent events at the political-institutional level do not conceal or offset the real problems that affect the lives of the workers and people, nor do they reduce the urgency of providing a response and solution to them.

The scale of the problems is not answered in the proposed State Budget (SB) for 2024. On the contrary, besides one or another specific measure, this SB constitutes an instrument at the service of big capital, granting more benefits and tax privileges to economic groups, and subjecting the country to the dictates and guidelines of the Euro and the European Union (EU). Objectives that PSD, CDS, Chega and IL also defend.

As a result of the escalation of the process of capitalist restoration and reconfiguration of the State to serve the interests of monopoly capital, reactionary conceptions and projects are bolstered and propagated which, by instrumentalising aspects of degradation of political life and eluding their true origin, aim to target democratic rule.

It is necessary to combat corruption without hesitation, highlighting that at its root is the nature and functioning of capitalism and a promiscuous relationship and subordination of political power to economic power.

The PCP emphasizes that the essential role and autonomy of the Public Prosecutor's Office must be guided by an action that is limited to the scope and limits of justice.

Convinced that there are solutions to national problems, the PCP will continue to intervene in defence of the interests and aspirations of the workers and people, for solutions for the country and its development, for a Portugal with a future.

II - It's time to change policy

1. Holding early elections for the Assembly of the Republic opens up the possibility for the workers and people, in view of their interests and aspirations, to decide on their own future and the future of the country.

The country is not doomed to the path of decline and impoverishment to which the PS, PSD and CDS have led it. Life shows that strengthening the PCP and CDU is an indispensable condition for breaking with decades of right-wing policies and those responsible for them.

Today it is once again clear that the greater the strength of the PCP and the CDU, the closer and more possible is the improvement of the living conditions, the achievement of rights and the containment and defeat of reactionary projects. The greater the strength of the PCP and the CDU, the stronger is the mass struggle and the expression of its development, the closer and more possible will be the implementation of political, economic, social and cultural rights that decades of right-wing policies not only have denied but aim to abolish, the closer and more possible will be the construction of the political alternative that the country needs.

At a time when we mark the 50th. anniversary of the liberating Revolution of the 25th. of April, what is necessary is to resume what April represents in terms of democratisation of national life, of conquest of rights, of raising the living conditions of the workers and people, of a policy that ensures the country's development, justice and social progress, national sovereignty and independence. What is necessary in the 50th. anniversary of the April Revolution is that, with the strengthening of the PCP and the CDU, the rights, principles and project enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic are abided and fulfilled as a reference to pave the way and path for the alternative that the country needs.

2. This coming March 10, the path of resuming April values is inseparable from the strengthening of the PCP and the CDU, the most solid guarantee of defence of the workers and people; to combat the dominance of big capital and what results from it as a basis for corruption; of affirmation of national interests against submission to imperialism and the EU; to combat reactionary and fascist forces and conceptions and denounce their role in consolidating and worsening right-wing policies and attacking the democratic regime; of affirming a policy capable of providing a solution to the country's problems, a patriotic and left-wing policy.

A policy that resolves burning issues and attacks structural problems that have been going on without solution for a long time and are deepening, that corrects injustices, ensures a fair distribution of wealth and fully harnesses the country's potential.

A policy that promotes a general increase in wages; an increase in all pensions, aiming to increase purchasing power; the repeal of grievous norms of labour legislation, notably the expiry of collective bargaining and the reinstatement of the principle of more favourable treatment for workers; the attraction and retention of thousands of workers lacking in public services; strengthening the NHS and Public Schools with more professionals and better equipment and infrastructure; improving access to justice; the regulation and reduction of the cost of rents, the determination that banking profits support the increase in interest rates on housing loans and the promotion of public housing; the creation of a public network of daycare centres; the regulation of prices of essential goods and services, in particular food, fuel and telecommunications; more fiscal justice, reducing taxation on labour (Income Tax) and consumption (VAT), as well as the relative weight of all indirect taxes, and ensuring the effective taxation of big capital (Corporate Tax); the expansion of free services and an increase in public transport offer; the promotion of cultural creation and enjoyment and the guarantee of 1% of the State Budget for culture; the valorisation of professionals in civil protection, security forces and services, armed forces and justice; combating all types of discrimination; measures to safeguard and protect the environment and mitigate and adapt to climate change; public control of strategic companies and sectors and the refusal of privatisations, namely TAP, SATA Internacional and EFACEC, and favouring of big capital; the fight against corruption; the defence of national production; support for small and medium-sized farmers and micro, small and medium-sized companies; the primacy of national sovereignty and independence over external constraints and impositions and a foreign policy of peace and cooperation between peoples.

Setting aside the left-wing proclamations by the PS, contradicted by its government action, it is in fact the strengthening and own affirmation of the PCP and the CDU that guarantee the fight against injustice and inequalities, the defence of national interests and the construction of a better life to which workers, the people and the country are entitled.

3. The Central Committee of the PCP stresses the confidence with which it faces the electoral battle in which the PCP will intervene within the framework of the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU), which includes the Ecologist Party “The Greens” (PEV) and the Democratic Intervention Association (ID). Confidence based on the real possibilities of strengthening its electoral expression, with more votes and more MPs, and thus having more strength to act, fight and intervene to defend the interests of the workers and people, and to build a policy at their service.

The electoral campaign that is now beginning, which is interconnected with the affirmation of the CDU project in the context of the elections for the European Parliament, involving activists from the PCP and JCP, PEV and Ecolojovem (Young ecologists), ID activists and many other democrats that constitute the CDU, will assume an expression of permanent and intense contact with workers and populations, affirming the unparalleled heritage of struggle and work in the Assembly of the Republic in defence of their interests and reaffirming the commitment to the demand for a response to their problems, thus demonstrating that each person's vote counts for a change in policy.

A great, determined and confident electoral campaign, with a strong mass dimension and street presence, aimed at the involvement of workers, retirees and pensioners, young people, women, micro-small and medium-sized entrepreneurs and farmers, aimed at all those who feel the harmful effects of right-wing policies; that affirms the CDU, taking its message and its alternative proposal further; that ensures the expansion of the CDU, fostering the support of democrats and patriots.

When the election of MPs and the future composition of the Assembly of the Republic are at stake, when the most decisive issue in the outcome of these elections is the election of more MPs by the CDU, this is the time for democrats and patriots, for the workers, for the people, for all those who live and work here, to give a strong signal, assuming with their action, their struggle and their vote, the demand for a different path, the path of the necessary alternative.

The alternative that the country needs requires that the recognition of the role of the PCP in Portuguese society translates, also through votes, into more social, political and electoral support.

Multiple scenarios can be conjectured, but it will be in the strengthening of the PCP and the CDU that the conditions and strength will be found to materialise the aspirations for change for a better life that covers Portuguese society.

4. The PCP makes a difference in the life of the country: it is, at all times, alongside the workers and the people; defends and asserts national interests; courageously faces blackmail and pressure; defends the democratic regime and the values of April to which it made an unparalleled contribution; its elected representatives are a guarantee of work, honesty and competence; does not confuse diversion factors with the real problems of the workers and people; coherently combats reactionary forces and conceptions and the right-wing policies that promote them; refuses lies and demagoguery; defends and fights for peace; it articulates intervention on concrete problems with the alternative, the project and the ideal of a new society free from capitalist exploitation, socialism.

The PCP is an indispensable and irreplaceable force in the fight for a Portugal with a future.

III - Continue the struggle for peace and people’s rights

1. The evolution of the international situation is marked by events that constitute serious expressions of imperialism's strategy of confrontation and war in a context marked by the deepening of the structural crisis of capitalism and the development of a vast process of rearrangement of forces at the international level. Such developments underline the correctness of the PCP's positions in defence of peace, against militarism, war and fascism, for the rights of workers and peoples, in defence of democracy and national sovereignty.

2. The Central Committee of the PCP firmly condemns Israel's escalation of war against the Palestinian people, as well as the announced decision by the Israeli government to militarily occupy Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip, thus confirming the central objective of this war: taking further the strategy of occupation and expulsion of populations with which Israel tries to make any political solution to the Palestinian issue unviable.

3. Reiterating its stand of condemnation of actions that target populations, the Central Committee denounces and condemns the hypocrisy of those who, in the name of “Israel's right to defence” seek to justify the atrocities and barbarism that Israel is carrying out and which, in several countries, try to criminalise and repress the broad and growing movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Valuing the adoption by a large majority in the UN General Assembly of a resolution that, among other aspects, calls for an immediate, lasting and sustained humanitarian truce leading to the cessation of hostilities, the Central Committee of the PCP denounces the positions of the US, the European Union and several European countries of objective connivance and support for Israel's crimes.

The Central Committee of the PCP demands from the sovereignty bodies actions aimed at an immediate ceasefire and urgent aid to the Palestinian population, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the end of the blockade of this Palestinian territory and of the expulsion of its population.

4. Valuing and saluting the broad movement that in Portugal and worldwide is demonstrating and broadening in defence of Peace in the Middle East and for the rights of the Palestinian people, the Central Committee of the PCP expresses its profound solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for their national rights, and for the construction of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem and the right of return for refugees, in compliance with UN resolutions.

IV - The struggle of the workers and people. Demand solutions, build the alternative

1. The Central Committee of the PCP salutes and values the many thousands of workers who have mobilised in an intense and varied wave of mass struggles that have marked national life and are an expression of the demand for an alternative policy.

Stands out among these the day of struggle of the central and local Public Administration with a significant support for the October 27 strike, the actions in the healthcare sectors, namely doctors, large retail, transport or agriculture, particularly in the dairy sector.

The Central Committee of the PCP values the action "General struggle for wage increases" promoted by CGTP-IN between October 25 and November 11, with very different expressions in companies and sectors, particularly in the context of collective bargaining and with the presentation and adoption of hundreds of claims, which culminated in the great National Demonstration on November 11 in Lisbon and Porto “For the Increase in Wages, Against the Increase in the Cost of Living”, in a demonstration of strength and determination.

2. The Central Committee of the PCP also values the decentralised national day promoted by MURPI on October 27 for better pensions and which constituted an important moment to demand a policy that responds to the problems faced by retirees and pensioners.

It also highlights the many struggles of the populations that took place for the right to housing, healthcare, against the increase in the cost of living.

The Central Committee of the PCP values the various initiatives for peace and solidarity that have been taking place across the country, particularly against the escalation of Israel's war in the Middle East and for the rights of the Palestinian people.

3. The recent developments in the political situation have not changed the problems that the workers and the majority of the population face. The fight for the rights and aspirations of workers and populations and for immediate responses to the problems of the people and the country is and will be a determining factor for defining the political and social framework and for building the necessary alternative.

The Central Committee of the PCP calls on the workers and people to commit themselves to continuing the struggle in companies and workplaces, in towns, on the streets, for increased wages and pensions, for rights, for decent working hours and conditions, against the increase in the cost of living, in defence of public services, namely the NHS and Public Schools, for the right to housing, for a better life. In this sense, it highlights the importance and calls for participation in the gathering decided by CGTP-IN on the coming November 29, in front of the Assembly of the Republic, on the occasion of the final vote on the State Budget.

It calls on all democrats and patriots to mobilise with confidence and determination in the struggle for an alternative patriotic and left-wing policy, for a path of progress and development for Portugal.

V - Strengthen the Party’s intervention and organisation

1. The economic and social situation, the developments in the political situation with the resignation of the Prime Minister and the announcement of the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and the call for early legislative elections for March 10, 2024, to be followed by elections for the European Parliament on June 9, place new demands on the Party.

In view of the current situation, the Central Committee of the PCP points out the need to intensify the action to strengthen the Party and its initiative in responding to the country's specific problems; in the struggle against right-wing policies at the service of big capital; in the development of the struggle of the workers and people; in the strengthening of mass organisations and in the celebrations of the 50th. anniversary of the April Revolution, priorities whose development is a decisive contribution to the electoral work, at the outset to the important battle of the elections for the Assembly of the Republic; in the demand for a break with right-wing policies and the implementation of a patriotic and left-wing policy with the values of April in the future of Portugal.

2. The Central Committee of the PCP stresses the importance of the lines of work adopted at the National Conference “Taking the initiative, strengthening the Party, responding to new demands”, highlights the experiences and positive results of the initiative and the work linking workers and populations , the potential it reveals, and points with confidence and audacity to this attitude as a decisive element of the Party's action, calling on Party members and organisations to mobilise and commit themselves to its implementation.

The Central Committee of the PCP at the outset highlights the following lines of initiative:

• holding a national action under the motto “It's time to change policy. More strength to the CDU”, mobilising the entire Party in contact and involvement with workers and populations, regarding wages, pensions, children's and parental rights, public services, sovereignty and development, for a better future;
• intensification of action on local problems under the motto “Living better in our land”, which involves the national roadmap of proposals and struggle for the right to housing, the line of action for the defence and strengthening of the NHS, for access to public services, schools, daycare centres and schools, for the rights of the youth, for facilities to support the elderly, for environmental protection, among other themes and initiatives;
• institutional action and initiative focused on the problems of workers and populations, in the Assembly of the Republic, in the Regional Legislative Assembly of Madeira, in local government, in the European Parliament, in which stands out the intervention in the Assembly of the Republic until its dissolution in mid-January, from the outset regarding the State Budget;
• the celebrations of the 50th. anniversary of the April Revolution, under the motto “April is more future”, helping to the affirmation of the values of April, the importance of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and the implementation of the rights and project that it enshrines.

3. The Central Committee highlights the priority of work relating to the elections for the Assembly of the Republic, the European Parliament and the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.

The preparation of the elections for the Assembly of the Republic places the demand on the entire Party for increased mobilisation for concrete tasks, among which stands out the work of individual contact with the workers and population to clarify and mobilise them to vote for the CDU.

The Central Committee of the PCP has decided to hold a National Meeting on the elections and Party action, on January 13, 2024.

4. The Central Committee of the PCP stresses the importance of the work to strengthen the Party, namely by assigning responsibilities to new cadres, intervention and organisation in companies and workplaces and the stimulation and creation of cells, the campaign to disseminate the Avante!, the discussion and adoption of measures at all levels regarding communication, information and propaganda work, as well as the recruitment, integration and harnessing the availability of new Party members, the action of local organisations and with specific social strata and sectors and the Party's financial independence. A work to strengthen the Party that must be articulated with political intervention, mass struggle, electoral battles and the preparation of the Avante! Festival.

★★★

At a time when capitalism’s profound contradictions and the consequences of decades of counter-revolution and right-wing policies are displayed in the country, the PCP, with its path of intervention and struggle in favour of the workers, the people and the country, faces with determination and confidence the challenges of the struggle for a patriotic and left-wing alternative, which responds to the major questions that the people and the country are faced with and which contributes to the advancement of the journey and fight for an advanced democracy, with the values of April in the future of Portugal, for socialism and communism.