Greetings to everyone present, to the members of the Party, to those who are not from the Party and are here and well with us.

A special greeting to all the comrades and friends who guaranteed and ensure the success of all aspects of our lunch.

The calendar would have it that a year ago I was here for my first lunch as General Secretary of the Party, and what a great initiative we held at that time, but although big it fell short of this magnificent lunch that we are holding here today, great participation, great mobilisation, what a great atmosphere.

And it is with this strength, with this determination and confidence we have, that we will face all the battles and the situation that is to come.

Witness the serious social situation that workers and the people are faced with, the wages that are not enough, the pensions that are short, the cost of living that is increasing, the houses that we can barely afford, the doctors in short supply, this is the day-to-day life of our people throughout this country and it is also like that here, added to the reality and concrete needs of the district.

A year ago, we identified several problems that urgently needed to be addressed right here in the region, a year later they remain unsolved and even worse.

There is the lack of support for farmers, the lack of healthcare professionals, delays in the railway sector, among other problems that are yet to be solved.

Here we have the effects of the PS's absolute majority policy and its constant refusal to provide answers to concrete problems.

Construction of the IC3 road stretch, improvement of public railway transport, construction of student homes and the Interpretive Centre of Resistance in Couço, rehabilitation of the facilities of the Santarém district Police command were, among others, proposals that we presented for the State Budget.

The PS said no to each and every one.

Proposals defeated but necessary proposals and so here is a challenge and a commitment.

The challenge to the populations, workers, users to continue and intensify their fair struggle, assert their strength and continue to demand their fair rights, we have a caretaker Government, but which continues to be obliged to respond to problems.

And the commitment, the PCP's lifelong commitment to never forget, as it never did, the rights, the aspirations for a better life to which we all have the right.

This is the issue at this time, just a few months before new elections, which are in fact an opportunity to strengthen the PCP and the CDU and thus respond to existing problems.

The elections are here, let's face them.

The CDU will grow, we will have more votes, we will have more MPs, MPs from the PCP and CDU who are needed.

The workers and people here in the district of Santarém, with their struggle and their vote, will give more votes to the CDU and elect their MP, giving more strength to their strength.

We are going to elect a CDU MP and that is important, for the PCP and the CDU, but above all it is important for the workers, the populations, the users and the democrats here in the district, who know, regardless of their political option, what represents the connection to life, work and action that characterise a MP elected by the CDU.

A MP elected in Santarém who will join other elected members of the CDU.

MPs who will make, as they have always done, a difference, MPs at the service of the workers, the people and the country unlike others who are nothing more than couriers of the interests of the banks and economic groups.

And there are already too many of these in the Assembly of the Republic.

We will grow even against the will of those who don't want it.

We will grow against the will of those who want to convince us that what is at stake is the election of the Prime Minister when what each one will decide and vote for here in the district is for the election of MPs to represent them in the Assembly of the Republic, and this is where a new correlation of forces will come from.

We will grow against the wishes of the opinion polls.

This operation that always wants to push us down and that seeks to condition options but that, to the distress of some, once again failed in Madeira.

By the will of the people and against all opinion polls, the CDU grew, had more votes and a higher percentage.

We will grow even against the will of those who do not want to discuss the content, proposals and solutions and therefore want us to spend our lives commenting on form and hypothetical scenarios.

The PCP is not here to feed the illusions of those who now only make promises and claim that now is the time.

Do not count on the PCP to clean up the image, nor the responsibilities of those who are the record holders for wage and pension cuts.

The PCP was not and will not be the icing on the cake of the policy that squeezes the majority and opens the doors to economic groups and their 25 million euros of profits per day, no thanks for that, for that whoever wants to deposit their vote in the various options that exist, and there are many, and that elects those MPs who are couriers of the banks, of Galp, of EDP, of Jerónimo Martins or of the European Central Bank.

And to those who try to belittle us, we tell them, the CDU only depends on the people, the workers, the democrats and all those who want a better life.

The CDU counts, and a lot, and on itself, and it is in its strength, in our strength, that lies the guarantee to combat and defeat setbacks and pave the path that Portugal needs.

This is a central question that is now being asked even to the electorate and voters of other political forces.

The PCP is the guarantor of the fight against right-wing policies and against the right-wing, whatever form it takes, we have gathered more than 100 years of experience in this fight.

Do not count on the PCP to, as others do, feed and feed on the most reactionary forces, those forces coming from the womb of PSD and CDS, those forces where many of their current leaders were protagonists of the PSD and CDS government's options and of the troika, that government of cuts in workers' wages, pensions of retired people and of the Christmas bonus.

These forces that left the mother house, not to redeem themselves, but to go even further in their aggressive policy.

These forces, with different roles but under the same baton, some with an apparently cleaner form that assume the role of pointing out to the State and to everything that is public all the ills of the Country, and others more bluntly, with the role that was attributed to them, to try to make us believe that the person responsible for the situation we have reached is our neighbour, our co-worker or the person we meet in a cafe or on the street.

They want us to blame everyone and everything except those who are really responsible for the situation we are in, and we arrived at what we arrived at not because of this or that one, but rather through the imposition of the interests of economic and financial groups and the policies that give shape to it.

Forces subject to the same tight rein of the economic groups and which are presented as anti-system, but which are the worst that the capitalist system produces.

These are the forces that the PS, by choice, spent two years nurturing.

But contrary to what some may think, people do not have a short memory.

The workers, the youth, the retired, those who were deceived and led through blackmail and pressure by the PS, have already realised from their own experience three fundamental issues: when the PS gains strength, and these two years are an example of this, the problems of everyone not only remain unsolved but also worsen; when the PSD, CDS, Chega and IL gain strength, it is as witnessed and felt during the time of the troika; and the third question, central and decisive, when the PCP and the CDU gain strength, everyone's life improves and moves forward.

So, if that is the case, it is in everyone’s interest to strengthen the CDU.

It is this need that will be expressed in the votes of those who feel rightly wronged, angry and even betrayed, of those who have been deceived and realise that the absolute majority did not solve, but rather worsened the problems and was based on injustice and inequalities.

Voting for the right means going backwards, voting for the PS is an illusion and, as has been proven, from there will come no solution for our lives, the right, useful and necessary vote is to vote for the CDU, in coherence, strength and for MPs who always count, whatever the circumstances, to contribute to everything that is positive and to stop and face everything that is negative, wherever it comes from.

The anger and protest will be even more important with the vote for the CDU, the force of protest, which rejects and fights injustices, the force of solutions for a better life, a force that does not say one thing today and then do another.

A vote that always counts and doubly.

The worker's vote is worth as much as that of the owners of GALP, Pingo Doce, CTT, but it could be worth even more if it is not put in the same bag of those who think they are the owners of all this.

The vote of each one of us is worth as much as that of the bank's shareholder, but it will be worth much more if it is not to elect couriers of the bank's millions of profits.

The vote of each user is worth as much as that of the owner of any private group in the disease business, but it will be worth even more if it does not end up in the pockets of the parties that want to dismantle the NHS.

The vote of pensioners can be worth even more if it is placed at the service of their right to live with quality and decency.

The vote of micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs is worth as much as that of the owners of large economic groups, but it will be worth more if it does not end up in the hands of those real sharks always ready to swallow the little ones.

Let us then express our vote for the better life to which we have the right and not come up with the talk that it cannot be, that we need correct accounts.

But if they want the correct accounts, we also want the correct accounts and we know who to settle them with.

Let us then settle the accounts with the 25 million euros in profit per day of the economic groups and in this way, we can distribute the wealth that is created by the workers, those who make the economy and the country work.

Let’s settle the accounts with the 5% of the richest who concentrate 42% of the wealth created and in doing so we respond to the plight of the two million people in poverty, including thousands of children.

Let's settle the accounts once and for all with the banks and the 12 million euros in profits per day, and in this way, it will be possible to provide relief to the thousands and thousands of people desperate to support their housing or their business.

Let's settle the accounts with the 1600 million euros of tax benefits handed to economic groups, and with that we can increase pensions, respect those who have worked their entire lives and who have the right to age with dignity.

Let's settle the accounts, yes, with the scandal of eight billion euros from the National Health Service that will end up in the coffers of the private disease business and there will be money to hire, with conditions and respect, doctors, nurses, technicians and other professionals, and respond to the needs, treatments and care of users.

Let's settle accounts with the profits of groups in the large retail sector, with almost 600 million in profits from Jerónimo Martins in the first nine months of this year alone, and it will be possible to regulate and lower the prices of food products that have not stopped rising and increase workers' wages.

Let us solve the wrongs of political options and it will be possible to respond to the urgent strengthening of public services, the respect and valorisation of their workers, respond to their fair demands, of professionals from healthcare, education, justice, security forces, the military, of all workers.

Let’s settle accounts with the correct accounts of a few and the incorrect accounts of the majority.

Correct accounts to live on, these are the accounts that the workers, the people and the country need.

No more injustices, more CDU for a better life.

More CDU for a Portugal with a future.

The country is not poor but has been impoverished, the country has resources, the means, the country has reliable and honest people, with the will and strength to make this move forward.

To increase wages and pensions, guarantee the right to housing, to halt and reduce the value of rents, to put banking profits to support the increase in interest rates; to materialise the rights of parents and children, starting with the public daycare network.

Moving towards real fiscal justice, effectively fighting corruption, its causes and those responsible, stopping right away one of its biggest focuses, the privatisations.

Now this is settling accounts, these are the accounts that are worth it.

It is for these accounts, it is to settle the accounts with whom they must be settled, it is for this challenge that the democrats and patriots are summoned, all those who live and work here, all those who were deceived by the PS, all those who for this or that reason disbelieved and that are rightly angry and annoyed.

Everyone is called upon to, with their action, struggle and vote for the CDU, open the necessary path, our path, the path of April.

With confidence, audacity, determination and joy, let each and every one of us be a campaigner for the contact, conversation and explanation that is required.

Let's talk, let's go on a journey of explanation that will be worth more with the conversations we are having and will have than the number of documents we are going to distribute.

Let each person give a little more, assume even more responsibilities, let each person take the initiative, respond to new demands, be a protagonist in strengthening the Party.

Let's move forward with confidence and with our faces raised, with that raised face and the confidence of those who have never wavered, of those who have always been there, in workplaces, in companies, in healthcare centres, in hospitals, in schools and in the streets.

With the raised face, confidence and pride of someone who never gave up on principles and solidarity with workers and peoples around the world.

Of those who have always known and know that war is not in the interests of the people and that the solution is Peace.

With that face raised and the confidence of someone who knows that there are no first or second-class people, that the better life we fight for, we want for all the people of the world and at this particular moment we wish it for the Palestinian people who are being massacred.

A ceasefire, an end to war and death, compliance with United Nations resolutions and the creation of the Palestinian State, this is what is demanded and nothing less.

Here we are, for this Palestine that will win, here we are together with millions and millions throughout the world, including in Israel.

Here we are, fulfilling and enforcing April, 50 years after the Revolution that we celebrate, these doors that were opened by the People /Armed Forces Movement alliance, these doors that the counter-revolution tries to close, but that the strength of the people will not allow.

The values of April live deep in the collective consciousness of our people, the values of April are the future, April is more future.

Let’s get to work, comrades!

Long live CDU!

Long live the JCP!

Long live the PCP!