The national situation is marked by the resignation of the Prime Minister, triggered by judicial investigations involving the current Government. Investigations in which it is necessary to ensure a quick clarification and determination of all responsibilities with all the resulting consequences.
But still in relation to these events, there are those who now opportunistically speak of promiscuity between economic and political power.
But what is remarkable is that from their mouths you don't hear a single statement, a single word, about the foundations and causes of that same promiscuity, the centre of corruption - the economic system based on capitalist accumulation.
In fact, you don't hear a single word from those now indignant, a single word about the biggest focus of corruption, the centre of the negotiations that were and are the privatisations.
Regarding this, from PS, PSD, CDS, Chega and IL, not a squeak, an absolute silence, a complicit silence that reveals their full convergence, with these truly economic and financial crimes, and whose evaluation goes far beyond mere political assessment.
No matter how much they try to distract, no matter how many facts they can create, the truth is that the resignation of the Prime Minister and the fall of the Government are inseparable from its policy, a policy that does not provide answers to the problems that the majority of the population and the country face, at the same time that it opens all 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 struggle of the workers and people.
The workers and the people are faced with the political crisis, but above all they have been facing, and for long, a crisis in their lives, they have been facing, and for long, growing difficulties that did not begin two weeks ago.
Today it is clear to everyone, as the PCP warned, that the PS asked for political stability and many were deceived, but what the PS actually wanted was stability to implement what is its fundamental option, the right-wing policies.
Today it is clear to everyone, what really happened two years ago regarding the so-called most left-wing budget.
Blackmail and pressure from the PS, support from the President of the Republic, and the country went to elections.
The PS gained an absolute majority and the problems that needed to be faced, particularly in the National Health Service, not only remained unsolved and today we are in the situation we are.
Life has come to deny the illusion that led many to think that giving strength to the PS would function as an insurance policy, but the truth is that the PS was not only not an obstacle to right-wing policies but was, by its choice, its faithful executor.
The same PS that spent two years feeding and feeding on the most reactionary forces.
And it was by its hand, by its government and majority that the policy at the service of economic groups was intensified, a policy in convergence with the positions that PSD, CDS, Chega and Liberal Initiative defend.
This is the truth, no matter how much some cynically try to disguise it.
A convergence that resulted in a scandalous accumulation of profits by large companies and difficulties for the vast majority of the population.
And it is in this context that the country goes to elections and that an opportunity opens up to pave the way for another policy at the service of the workers and people.
And now is the time for a change in policy.
It’s time for politics to stand once and for all at the service of the workers, the people and the country and not, as has been the case up until now, work at the whim of the interests, profits and wealth of economic groups.
It's time to increase wages and pensions, a core issue of our days.
It’s time to save the National Health Service from the hands of the business of disease and respond to the fair demands of doctors, nurses, technicians, all professionals and users.
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 control and lower the prices of essential goods.
It's time to get the country producing, stop privatisations and guarantee sovereignty and development.
It's time to guarantee everyone's right to a better life.
It’s time, not to sit and wait, but to intensify the struggle of the workers and populations.
A struggle now to solve today's problems, a struggle now to influence tomorrow's decisions.
A salute to CGTP-IN and the unitary trade union movement, a salute to the action and struggle in companies and workplaces, a salute to the response it gave on November 11, with the national demonstration and which was expressed right here in the streets of Lisbon, a struggle that will continue and which will have another important day in front of the Assembly of the Republic on the coming 29th.
A salute that we extend to the populations that are demanding what is rightfully theirs, the rights that the Constitution of the Republic enshrines.
Let no one be left waiting, because if the housing loan and rent, the never-ending month, the cost of living, the lack of medical appointments and treatments, the medicines we need, if none of this is kept waiting, the struggle cannot also and will not wait.
Elections are scheduled, let's go for them.
There we have an opportunity to strengthen the PCP and the CDU.
They can forecast all possible and imaginary scenarios.
But what 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, that when the PCP and the CDU advance, everyone's life advances.
If this is so, and it is, then it is in the interests of the workers and people to strengthen the PCP and the CDU.
The PCP and the CDU will grow, we will increase in votes, we will elect more MPs, we will go as far as our people wishes.
And this will happen even against the wishes of those who would not want this to be the case.
Against the wishes of the opinion polls, an operation that seeks to condition and present beforehand winners and losers.
This operation that, to the pain of some, failed in Madeira.
By the wish of the people, the CDU grew, had more votes and a higher percentage.
We will grow even against the wishes 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 of the policy that the real confrontation takes place, which policies, and who these policies serve.
The confrontation between policies at the service of economic groups and the alternative for the workers, the people and the country.
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 is 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 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.
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 the Constitution of the Republic, in confrontation with right-wing politics that, regardless of its current players, fully serves the economic groups.
It is for this confrontation that all democrats and patriots, workers and people are called, all those who live and work here are called, so that with their action, their struggle and also with their vote for the CDU they demand the path of 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 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 who they serve.
Basic options that have the applause of PSD, CDS, Chega and IL.
The only useful vote is for the CDU, the vote that combats the right and its demagogic loud voice but that chirps at the owners of all this, the vote that actually combats reactionary forces and projects and those who cynically say they are against the system, but they are the worst part of the capitalist system.
The vote for the path that the country needs, the path that should be and must be at the service of the workers and people.
For this struggle, the PCP and the CDU will never fail as they have never failed at any time in our history.
It is for this confrontation that all democrats and patriots, workers and people, all who live and work here, are called.
They are called upon to make a choice, to keep control of all of this in the hands of economic groups or to open a path that responds to their problems and for the better life to which we are entitled.
We are very confident about this electoral battle.
The PCP and the CDU will grow, they will strengthen, they will embody the sign of hope for the workers, the populations, the democrats and for everyone who lives and works here.
Trust of those who are, every day, together with workers and populations, intervening in their problems.
A worker's vote is worth as much as that of the boss of his company, but it can be worth even more if his vote is not put in the same bag as that of the boss.
The vote of each one of us is worth as much as that of a bank 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 want, in practice, to dismantle the NHS.
It is necessary to break with the current policy, it is necessary to combat its causes, those responsible, and denounce each and every one of the ways that seek to maintain and worsen the state of things.
This fight has to be directed at the root cause of the problems and difficulties of thousands of people thrown into despair and false solutions.
A fight against injustice and inequalities whose centre is the exploitation and imposition of the interests of economic and financial groups and the policies that give them shape.
There are forces, there are means, there are resources and there are decent and honest people, with the will and capacity to build an alternative to improve the living conditions of the workers and the population and ensure the country's sovereignty and development.
We want and will push ahead the better life for which we fight, a better life for workers, a better life for the people of the world, especially the Palestinian people who are the target of a real massacre.
A crime that unfolds at the mercy of complicit silence, hypocrisy and cynicism.
Ceasefire, end of the war, compliance with United Nations resolutions, recognition and implementation of the Palestinian State, this is what is demanded and nothing less.
We are here, for this Palestine that will win, here we are with millions and millions throughout the world, including in Israel.
We are here every day and will be on the 29th. at the concentration in Martim Moniz.
We are here, here is the PCP, the Party that makes a difference; that is, at all times, on the side of the workers and the people; that defends and affirms national interests; that faces blackmail and pressure with courage; that defends the democratic regime and the values of April to which it made a unique contribution.
A Party where its elected representatives are a guarantee of work, honesty and competence; that does not confuse dispersion factors with the real problems of the workers and people; here is the PCP that coherently combats reactionary forces and conceptions and the right-wing policies that promote them; that refuses lies and demagoguery; that defends and fights for peace; the Party that holds the project and the ideal of a new society free from capitalist exploitation, socialism.
We are here, as always, building and affirming the PCP as an indispensable and irreplaceable force in the struggle for a Portugal with a future.
This is who we are, this is how we are, and we will continue to respond to the challenges that lie ahead.
And there are many tasks that lie ahead of us.
But as this wonderful Rally shows, here there is strength and determination, here there is commitment and militancy, there is a project, there is strength, there is a dream and there is right.
Let's take all of this and move ahead with confidence, let's carry out a great contact and mobilisation action.
A great contact action that will be worth more due to the conversations and explanations we make than the number of documents we will distribute, an action where each of us is a campaigner for the necessary explanation and mobilisation.
This remarkable collective, of men, women and young people, this collective work with this unique capacity.
Let's move ahead with confidence, with determination and with joy.
Whoever fights for Peace, whoever fights to improve the living conditions of the workers and people, can only be with confidence, can only be with their heads high up.
Let us face the electoral battle as an opportunity to strengthen the Party and the mass struggle, decisive factors for the change in policies that the country needs.
This change that in the 50 years of the 25th. of April is necessary, materialising its achievements every day and projecting its values into the future of Portugal.
Long live the CDU!
Long live the JCP!
Long live the PCP!