On the election results, the political framework and the national situation -- PCP

Communists rally at the Avante! Festival in September, 2024 -- image via the PCP

The Central Committee of the Portuguese Communist Party has released their analysis of the election results in Portugal as part of a broader statement:

The composition of the Assembly of the Republic resulting from the elections of May 18, saw a negative evolution, marked by the growth of AD (Democratic Alliance / PSD and CDS), Chega and IL (Liberal Initiative).

The CDU's (Unitary Democratic Coalition which includes the Portuguese Communist Party) result, with 180,943 votes, 3.03 per cent and three MPs, marks resistance in a particularly demanding context and portrays neither the expression of support and recognition that the campaign showed, nor what the country's situation demanded: a strengthened CDU to respond to the problems and to confront reactionary forces and projects.

A result that has had to contend with factors, both objective and subjective, that weigh negatively on the social and political awareness of large sections of the population, subject to the promotion of retrograde and reactionary conceptions, the imposition by the dominant means of ideological dissemination of the exacerbation of individualism and social egoism, the systematic and insidious promotion of prejudices, especially anti-communist prejudices, the trivialisation of demagoguery and the uncritical acceptance of behaviour that affronts ethics and democracy. A result that is also inseparable from the recurrent falsification and belittling of the CDU and the systematic concealment of the alternative policy, seeking to curtail a way out from right-wing policy.

In this election campaign, in this fight for everything that matters in the lives of the workers, the people, the youth and the Country, the CDU asserted itself as a force of courage, seriousness and trust. The Central Committee of the PCP salutes the Ecologist Party “The Greens” and the Intervenção Democrática Association, the members of the Party and the JCP (Youth), the ecologists and other democrats and patriots who make up the CDU.

The result obtained by the AD was achieved by instrumentalising the idea of “government stability”, despite a policy that every day promotes instability in the lives of the workers and people, the use and abuse of illegitimate acts given the situation of a caretaker government, the use of the State apparatus or the fostering of victimisation.

The result of Chega is inseparable from the actions of capital at the service of promoting a reactionary and anti-democratic framework of values, favouring forces that feed demagoguery, lies, manipulation and hate, with the mobilisation of financial, media and other means, which was vastly clear in this campaign.

The result of PS (Socialist Party), with a significant electoral drop, is inseparable from the absence of a path and solutions that are distinctive from those of the AD, the adherence to the actions of the PSD/CDS (Social Democratic Party/People's Party) government and the admission of making viable a future AD government.

The results of these elections, particularly the growth of reactionary forces and the social and political risks they entail, are inseparable from the right-wing policy of successive PS, PSD and CDS governments.

The institutional framework resulting from these elections, with a PSD, CDS, Chega and IL majority representing more than two thirds of the MPs in the Assembly of the Republic, regardless of the arrangements between these forces, holds the danger of intensifying the retrograde, neoliberal and anti-social agenda and the attack on rights, democratic freedoms and the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

In view of these election results, it is not the time to conform or agree with the right-wing and its reactionary, retrograde and anti-democratic conceptions, or to support its anti-popular policies.

This is the time to fight the policy of low wages and pensions, attacks on workers' rights and public services, denial of the right to housing, privatisations and horse trading, more injustice and favours for capital, national submission and the arms race.

This is the time to affirm the rupture and the alternative that the PCP and the CDU represent, not the time to water them down, which would open up even more space for anti-democratic forces.

The situation highlights even more the decisive role of the workers' and people's struggle, the need for joint action by democrats and patriots, the importance of the CDU and its MPs in confronting the right-wing policy and the government that implements it, in confronting reactionary projects.

2. Neither the legislative elections nor their outcome erases the problems of national reality. Life hasn't stopped in these months, and the election campaign itself has been spanned by multiple aspects that confirm this. There was the decision by the PSD/CDS government and the PS to bind the Country to the escalation of arms, using the safeguard clause of the Stability Pact with the European Union to promote war, the Country's indebtedness and the diversion of the resources it needs in the name of arms manufacturers' profits. It was the ‘blackout’, which exposed a wrong path, national vulnerabilities, a lack of planning and the submission of a sector so strategic like energy to the interests of economic groups. It was the government's choice to prevent the implementation of the agreement between the railway unions and CP, which the government helped to draw up, denying the right to collective bargaining and threatening the Strike Legislation. It was the favouring of mafias and trafficking in human beings, with the instrumentalization made by the government and reactionary forces of immigration data.

The truth is that the Country is facing a brutal concentration of wealth, in contrast to low wages and pensions. The domination of strategic sectors by economic groups and multinationals and the Country's dependence are deepening, structural deficits in production, energy, technology and demographics are rising. They want to impose an economic model based on low wages and low value-added sectors. The attack on workers' individual and collective rights continues. We are witnessing an erosion of public services, particularly the attack on the National Health Service and Public Schools. Housing prices continue to rise fuelling speculation and the profits of banks and real estate funds. Injustice, social inequalities, poverty and the emigration of thousands of workers, especially young people, are hallmarks of Portuguese society. Lies, hate, racism and war are being promoted. Ideological manipulation and the degradation of democratic life are rising in confrontation with the values of April and the Constitution.

In addition to these and other problems, there are new threats to respond to, such as privatisations, the onslaught on Social Security resources, attacks on labour legislation and the arms race.

3. In view of national and international developments, the struggle for a break with right-wing policy, the affirmation of a patriotic, left-wing political alternative and the defence of the democratic regime are increasingly necessary.

An alternative policy that holds the answers to the problems of the workers, the people and the country. A policy that confronts the interests and growing dominance of big capital over national life; that refuses to submit to the EU, NATO and US imperialism; that affirms national sovereignty and independence; that fulfils the Constitution of the Republic, and the April values it enshrines.

The seriousness of the problems facing the Country, the projects of the right-wing and reactionary forces, will require courage, determination, struggle and political initiative.