We present ourselves in these legislative elections with the valuable heritage of those who know the problems of the workers, the people and the Country and make them, and the solutions to overcome them, the fundamental content of our political activity on all fronts.

We present ourselves as a force of our word, one that speaks the truth and doesn't turn its back to the fight.

And that's what we've done from day one with the present PSD/CDS government and its policy of submission to the big interests.

We don't say one thing before the elections and then say the opposite, we have the advantage of not promising now what we rejected before.

It is this clarity and coherence that, beyond words, guarantees an intervention that is neither lacking nor misleading.

The CDU is the unitary and popular force linked to life, to the concrete problems of people's lives and to structural issues for the Country's development in its political intervention.

The Electoral Commitment that we are now presenting is the continuation of constant, rigorous and well-founded work.

That's how it was with the Electoral Programme presented a year ago, and that's how it is with this Commitment.

It is well known that in the last year, not only have the Country's and the population's main problems not been resolved, but they have actually got worse.

This is also why, with the necessary updates, we confirm the topicality of the programme presented a year ago, which deals in detail and depth with the various areas of national life, and which is part of this Electoral Commitment.

It is a programme and a set of proposals that include many concrete and even immediate measures, as part of the break with the policy that has been followed, and which opts for the alternative path that the Country so desperately needs.

It is a programme that breaks with the policy of the present and previous governments.

A Programme that presents the prospect and possibility of an alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy, which is all the more possible with the strengthening of the CDU.

The country needs a wage shock, a decisive measure for our future, a need felt by most workers and, in particular, by the youth and women.

Raising wages is a necessary national emergency, a fundamental measure for a fairer distribution of the wealth that is created.

It is a measure that is necessary to meet the cost of living and to make a decent life possible for the workers and their families, and it is decisive for reducing poverty.

It is decisive to ensure a boost to domestic consumption, an essential element for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, 98% of the business fabric, which fundamentally depend on this consumption.

Today's wages are tomorrow's pensions, hence better wages will also boost Social Security revenues and ensure better pensions.

Raising wages means all of this: a better life, a fair life for those who work, more economic growth, better pensions.

The majority, those who work, those who get the country and the economy up and running and who face the difficulties of day-to-day life, know, feel and demand that all wages be increased significantly now, because it is now that they are needed.

And what we need to do now in terms of wages is to do what counts to meet the demands of life today and not just a promise of sums a few years from now.

It is in response to this demand that we propose raising the Minimum Wage to 1,000 euros by July 2025 and a general wage increase of 15%, with a minimum of 150 euros for all workers.

This proposal is urgent, necessary and possible by government decision, both on the National Minimum Wage and on civil servants' pay, but also with the repeal of the expiry of collective bargaining and the reinstatement of the principle of more favourable treatment.

Workers need respect, wages and the valorisation of their careers and professions.

They need to stop the deregulation of working hours, the trivialisation of shift work and continuous labour, even in sectors and companies where there is no justification for this other than maximising profits at the expense of workers' health, personal and family lives.

This need, and technological and scientific development itself, make it possible to impose a reduction in normal working hours to 35 hours a week and 7 hours a day.

Life can't just be work, life is about living, being with your family, seeing your children grow up and having the right to leisure.

Just as those who have worked all their lives have the right to a decent life, this requires an extraordinary increase in pensions for all pensioners.

And as with everything, choices have to be made: either 1800 million euros in tax benefits are handed out, or that money is put into the hands of more than 2 million pensioners.

Our choice is clear and that's why we propose that in 2025, with effect from the beginning of the year, a 5 per cent increase with a minimum of 70 euros be guaranteed for all pensions, with the aim of annual increases that increase purchasing power.

Raising wages and pensions for a better life and taking measures to deal with the ever-increasing cost of living, which, given international developments, could take on new forms.

Now is the time to take measures.

Move towards price control by setting the price of a gas cylinder at 20 euros, guaranteeing control of essential foodstuffs and lowering the VAT rate for electricity, gas and communications to 6%.

A substantial improvement in people's quality of life also depends a great deal on access to quality public services.

Starting with the functioning of the National Health Service.

The NHS needs more healthcare professionals, and this is possible with a significant increase in their pay and the valorisation of their careers.

The NHS is the only guarantee of access to healthcare for all.

What is needed is investment in the NHS to respond to the shortage of family doctors, to guarantee access for all to appointments, surgeries and medical tests.

Handing over more public resources to private groups will serve those who make a business out of illness, but it is an option that denies this guarantee.

We do not accept the increasing privatisation of healthcare provision, whether in PPPs, USF-Cs (Family Healthcare Unit) or any other form.

This is the path to the destruction of the NHS and the denial of everyone's universal right to healthcare.

The NHS doesn't choose who it treats according to their wallet or the nature of their illness.

We need to take decisive action to prevent and reduce the cost of medicines, and that means ensuring that medicines for the chronically ill over the age of 65 are free of charge.

We also need to guarantee Public Schools that meet the needs of children and youth, and a public network of nurseries integrated into the education system that guarantees 100,000 places.

Between public nurseries for our children and the lowering of corporate income tax that PSD, CDS, PS, Chega and IL are handing out to big companies in four years, the PCP and CDU have no doubts about which option should be taken.

Improving Public Schools can only be achieved by increasing investment, and above all by valorising all education workers, and requires significantly increasing the number of teachers

It is necessary to ensure access to Higher Education by eliminating tuition fees, not increasing them as the government wants to do, and by reinforcing school social action, guaranteeing 30,000 new public beds over the next few years.

It's unacceptable for hundreds of students drop out of Higher Education because they cannot find accommodation when they're displaced.

This is a concrete expression of the wider drama of access to housing.

For those who think that the so-called market solves everything, witness the situation regarding access to housing.

In the so-called market, speculation wins, real estate funds and big landlords win, the people lose, and the Country loses.

Only public intervention can solve the housing situation, not the liberalised market.

The situation calls for an integrated housing policy, a National Public Housing Programme.

A plan to promote the construction, maintenance and refurbishment of public housing, based on annual funding corresponding to 1% of GDP, that significantly increases the public housing stock, both for social renting and for the creation of an affordable rental programme.

The situation is dramatic, and measures must be taken urgently.

The housing shortage, particularly in metropolitan areas, is pushing thousands of people into precarious housing, without conditions, causing new clandestine neighbourhoods, housing in tents and creating more homeless people, even among people who have jobs.

The situation requires urgent and immediate intervention with resources from the central government.

A home is a life, and this means guaranteeing rents and mortgage payments that people can afford.

Stabilising rental contracts by guaranteeing a 10-year term, regulating rent rises and repealing the ‘Evictions Law’ are all necessary measures.

And the banks must be forced to give up part of their profits in order to bring down the loans of the hundreds of thousands of families who have bought a house with a bank loan.

Banks, which while interest rates were low invoked this fact to impose and charge high commissions on contracts, now maintain each and every one of these unfair rates and commissions that must be ended.

There are many expressions of injustice that mark life in this Country.

One that is measured by the shocking contrast between those few who profit billions and the overwhelming majority of those who make ends meet.

This injustice bares the fact that other responses would be possible in favour of what is necessary if these were the choices.

A scale of injustice that can be measured if we consider that the size of the banking sector's profits in the year just ended could have been used to build and provide more than 40,000 public housing homes, homes that are so desperately needed by those who don't have access to them.

There are those who, in order to avoid solving the problems or to justify the policy that has been followed, invoke the sustainability of public finances, but this sustainability cannot be achieved by means of budgetary restriction, low public investment, a reduction in rights or the strangulation of public services.

On the contrary.

This policy has led to feeble economic growth, with the resulting containment of available resources.

It's a downward spiral that is sinking us deeper and deeper.

The sustainability of public finances is achieved through job creation and economic growth, but this doesn't mean that the available resources don't have to be properly managed.

Fiscal policy is very important in the management of State resources.

We need to eliminate the regressive measures imposed by the government on the personal income tax (IRS), increasing its progressivity and forcing all income over 80,000 euros to be included, and reducing indirect taxes, particularly in relation to essential goods, as we have already mentioned in relation to VAT.

It is necessary to end the tax benefits for economic groups and repeal the reduction in the corporate income tax rate, approved by the PSD and CDS, by the other right-wing parties and made possible by the PS.

At a time of great uncertainty about the evolution of the world economy, the repeated threats by Donald Trump's administration to increase tariffs and the shameless pressure to channel into war the resources that are denied to wages, pensions, education, healthcare or housing, we reaffirm the need for an economic policy that serves the Country's development.

It is necessary to increase public investment, sacrificed by this government and the previous one in order to achieve a budget surplus, to an annual figure of no less than 5% of GDP.

It is necessary to diversify our economic relations in order to better protect our economy.

Increase national production by re-industrialising the country and valorising agriculture and fisheries with a view to food sovereignty and increasing exports.

Incorporate scientific and technological knowledge into economic activities.

Guarantee control of the economy's strategic sectors and stop privatisations, and to put public companies like TAP at the service of development and national sovereignty.

Economic development cannot be achieved at the expense of natural resources, nor can environmental policy be commodified.

Guaranteeing a public and sustainable management of water, protecting the soil and its quality and combating the planned obsolescence of equipment are some of the measures we will not stop defending.

The Country cannot develop if it is subordinated to the interests of those who think they own everything and who seek to determine the country's course in its various aspects and the lives of the majority according to their own interests.

We must put an end to the circulation between senior positions in large private companies and the government, ban the use of arbitration in administrative and tax disputes or limit and control transfers to tax havens.

We must relentlessly fight corruption and what is at its root - the promiscuity between political and economic power, privatisations and concessions.

We want a Country that strives for Peace in its international action, and we reject the escalation of arms underway in the European Union and in the world.

The Portuguese can and must trust those with the courage to fight the right.

Your life matters, your vote counts.

This is exactly where we are going, to and for what matters, the lives of those who work, those who have worked all their lives, the young people we need here to study, live and work, it is the lives of the majority that matter.

The workers and the people can count on this firm commitment from those who have only one word, who speak the truth and who have the courage to confront the big interests.