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,

Comrade Álvaro Cunhal has died. His physical death brings us a great feeling of grief and loss. The Communists, the workers, the Portuguese people, the Communist and revolutionary movement have lost a great man, a builder of their liberating cause. The lifetime of a man is always a brief time in the historic process of human society. This was the case with comrade Álvaro.

CDU(1) stresses the importance and meaning of the defeat of the right wing parties in these elections. Defined as our central goal since the first moment, its achievement confirms the justness of the struggle against the policy of the last governments and of our demand for earlier elections, as a first step to put an end to the work of destruction of the PSD(2) and CDS/PP(3) governments.