The national situation is marked by the resignation of the Prime Minister, triggered by judicial investigations involving the current Government.
Much is being said about this matter, but what is necessary is a quick clarification and determination of responsibilities and facts, with all the consequences that arise from this.
But still regarding these events, today everyone comments, and some opportunistically, on the promiscuity between economic and political power, the direct connections, the favours, the help, the lunches, the phone calls, but what is remarkable is that there is not a single statement, a single word, about the foundations and root causes of this same promiscuity, a single word for the economic system based on capitalist accumulation, which is in itself the centre of corruption, nor about the biggest focus of this corruption and negotiations, which are privatisations.
About this, from PS, PSD, CDS, Chega and IL, not a squeak, an absolute silence.
All of them accomplices, all of them promoters of these truly economic and financial crimes, and whose evaluation goes far beyond mere political assessment.
But no matter how much they try to distract us, no matter how many facts can be created, the truth is that the resignation of the prime minister and the fall of the government is inseparable from its policy, a policy that does not provide answers to the problems that the majority of the population and the country face, but which opens all the doors to increased profits and the concentration of wealth in economic and financial groups.
And this is a central aspect in assessing the current situation.
A situation of growing injustice and inequalities that leads to the frustration of expectations and the fair response and struggle of the workers and people.
These same workers and the people who are now faced with the political crisis, it is true, but the great crisis, the real crisis, the true crisis, is the crisis in their lives that they have been facing for a long time, the growing difficulties that did not begin two weeks ago.
Today it is clear to everyone, and just as the PCP warned, that the absolute majority of the PS brought neither political nor social stability.
The PS asked for political stability, and many were deceived, but what the PS actually wanted was stability to be able to implement what is its fundamental option, right-wing policies.
Today it is clear to everyone what really happened two years ago around the so-called most left-wing budget ever.
Blackmail and pressure from the PS, support from the President of the Republic, and the country went to elections.
The PS had an absolute majority and the problems that needed to be faced, particularly in the National Health Service, not only remained unsolved but today we are in the situation we are in.
Life refuted the illusion that led many to think that giving strength to the PS would be an insurance policy, but reality as always prevails and the PS was not only not an obstacle to right-wing policies but was, as its only option, its faithful executor.
It was through its hand, that of its government and the majority that the policy at the service of economic groups was intensified, a policy in convergence with the positions of PSD, CDS, Chega and Liberal Initiative.
This evident convergence resulted in the scandalous accumulation of profits for a few and difficulties for the vast majority of the population.
This is the truth, no matter how much some cynically try to disguise it.
And it is in this context that the country goes to elections.
And they can forecast all possible and imaginary scenarios.
But what determines and will determine the day after the elections is the strength and MPs that the PCP and the CDU have.
Today, more and more people have realized, through their own experience and through their lives, that when the PCP and the CDU advance, every person's life improves.
If this is so, and it is, then it is in everyone's interest to strengthen the PCP and the CDU.
The PCP and the CDU will grow, we will strengthen, we will increase our vote, we will elect more MPs and we will go as far as our people wishes.
And this will happen even against the wishes of those who would like it not to be the case.
Against the wishes of those who return to the mystification of the election for prime minister, when what is at stake is the election of 230 MPs.
Against the wishes of the opinion polls, an operation that is there every day trying to condition and present winners and losers beforehand.
An operation that, to the pain of some, failed and failed once again in Madeira.
By the will of the people, the CDU grew, had more votes and a higher percentage.
We will grow even against the will of those who encourage the supposed bipolarisation.
How it suits them to present the electoral dispute between left and right by reducing everything to the saying “all for form, nothing for content”.
But it is around the content in concrete policies, in concrete proposals that the real confrontation takes place.
Which policies, and who these policies serve.
This is what is at stake
The confrontation is between the open door to 25 million per day in profits for economic groups and the alternative of a general increase in wages for all workers and in particular for the 3 million who earn up to a thousand euros per month.
The confrontation between the banks and their 12 million euros in profits per day and the millions of people who are increasingly squeezed every day, making every sacrifice to sustain their roof, their house and their small business or company.
What is and will be in confrontation is the option of handing over 8 billion public euros to private disease business groups and the alternative of saving the National Health Service, fixing professionals and responding to users' needs.
The confrontation is between policies at the service of the richest 5% who concentrate 42% of the wealth created and the difficult day-to-day lives of the 2 million who are in poverty, hundreds of thousands of children and the 72% of retirees with pensions below 500 euros.
The confrontation is and will be between the correct accounts of a few and the uncertainty in the everyday lives of many.
This is the true bipolarisation that is at stake.
The confrontation between the patriotic alternative, at the service of the country and its development, the left-wing alternative, with the workers and the people at the centre of its action, the alternative of April and of the Constitution of the Republic, in confrontation with right-wing policies regardless of their current players.
It is for this confrontation that all democrats and patriots, workers and people are called, all those who live and work here, are called upon, with their action, their struggle and also with their vote for the CDU, to demand the path of the alternative, our path, the path of April.
On the other side are the others who, despite their differences, and the different saviours and prophets they put forward, are, as their options show, at the service of the interests of economic and financial groups.
And that's why they want us to spend our lives commenting on everything except the content of politics.
Don't count on the PCP for this manoeuvre.
Don't count on the PCP to feed illusions, illusions don't pay the bills and only serve to keep everything as it is.
Do not expect anything coming from the PS to truly combat inequalities.
And if there were any doubts, these last two years have revealed their options and those whom these same fundamental options served, and as expected, received the applause of PSD, CDS, Chega and IL.
It is necessary to face those responsible, combat the causes and denounce each and every one of the ways they seek to maintain and worsen the state of things.
This combat must be directed at the root causes that often throw thousands of people into despair and false solutions.
But this combat is not measured by who speaks the loudest.
Those who make a lot of noise and fill their chests with supposed truths, those who cynically say they are against the system but who are the worst in the capitalist system, in reality what they want is for us to look at our neighbours, our co-workers, those we meet in transport, and point them as responsible for the situation, they want us to blame everything and everyone except those really responsible, and we are here not through the fault 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.
This is what needs to change.
And in fact, it’s time to change policy.
It’s time for policies to once and for all be placed at the service of the workers, the people and the country.
It's time to increase wages and pensions, the central issue of our day.
And don't come with the talk that there is no money, wealth is created, profits are there, wages weigh 14% of companies' costs, there is money, there is wealth created, what remains is to distribute this wealth better.
It’s time to save the National Health Service from the hands of the disease business, and to respond to the fair demands of doctors, nurses, technicians, all professionals and users.
It’s really necessary to save the National Health Service from this ongoing process of dismantling.
What happened yesterday is unspeakable. On the same day the same government that once again halted negotiations with doctors was the same government that in the council of ministers decided to open yet another business area for private groups.
There's another deal, the deal that allows private emergency services to issue sick leave certificates.
The NHS must have the conditions to respond to users' problems, what the Government does is not create these conditions to justify more disease business.
It’s time to once and for all guarantee the constitutional right to housing, guarantee public investment and regulate the most liberalised economic sector of the economy.
It’s time to respond, looking at the present and the future, to the rights of parents and children.
It's time to regulate and lower the prices of essential goods.
It's time to get the country producing, stop privatisations and guarantee the country's sovereignty and development.
It’s time for a true public policy that puts an end to forms of violence against women, a fight to prevent and combat this scourge.
A fight that for the PCP is an everyday fight and that tomorrow marks its international day.
It’s time to guarantee the right of each and every one, the right to a better life.
It’s time, not to wait, but to intensify the struggle of the workers and populations.
A fight today to solve today's problems, a fight today to influence tomorrow's decisions.
A salute to CGTP-IN and the unitary trade union movement, a salute for its action in companies and workplaces, a special salute for the response it gave on November 11, with the national demonstration, a struggle that will continue and that on the 29th., there will be another important day in front of the Assembly of the Republic.
A salute that we extend to the populations that are demanding, and rightly, what is rightfully theirs, the rights that the Constitution of the Republic enshrines.
Let no one stand and wait, because if the monthly loans and rents, the never-ending month, the cost of living, the lack of medical appointments and treatments, the medicines we need, if none of that is kept waiting, neither can the fight wait and it will not wait.
Elections are scheduled, let's go to them, it's an opportunity to strengthen the PCP and the CDU.
The worker's vote is worth as much as that of the owners of GALP, Pingo Doce, CTT, or others, but it can be worth even more if their vote is not placed in the same bag of those who consider themselves 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 given to parties that guarantee the banks’ millions at the expense of the workers and the people.
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 in practice want to dismantle the NHS.
The vote of retirees and pensioners can be worth even more if it is placed at the service of their right to age with quality and dignity, if it is placed at the service of fair pensions, the indispensable access to healthcare and decent equipment.
The vote of micro-small and medium-sized entrepreneurs is worth as much as that of large economic groups, but it will be worth more if it is not placed in the hands of those real sharks always ready to swallow the little ones.
The vote can be worth and be worthy, if all those who feel rightly wronged, all those who face difficulties, all those who disbelieved, all those who for this or that reason stopped voting, the vote of each and every one, can be worth even more if the vote is given to the CDU, the vote of labour that combines protest with construction, the vote for solutions and hope.