After a week in which he came out in defense of Luís Montenegro in the budget soap opera with André Ventura, the leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL) went on the attack against the Prime Minister and the Government, with harsh criticism of the State Budget for next year , whose party vote will only be announced on Thursday. At the opening of the 43rd meeting of the National Council of IL, Rui Rocha spoke of a “grapefruit” OE, which shows the PSD increasingly aligned with the PS and denotes a “lack of ambition” and the “reformist impetus” that the country needs.
“André Ventura does not present proof of what he says, Luís Montenegro does not present proof of wanting to change the country”, said the president of the liberals at a hotel in Coimbra, where he will hear from national advisors about OE2025.
At the same time that the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Pedro Duarte, spoke to journalists upon entering the last day of the PSD Congress, in Braga – admitting that the 2025 local elections will have an “added motivation” for the party in power and will be “committed” to the Executive – Rui Rocha thus attacked the social democrats in Coimbra. Despite not closing the door on coalitions with the PDS next year. This, in fact, will be one of the discussion points at this Sunday’s meeting, in addition to OE2025.
Rocha considered that the PSDB Congress has not yet brought anything new to the country. And he once again joined the PSD to the PS, which together will make the State Budget viable, stating that the difference is “between some doing little” and “others doing a little more” in the “wrong” sense.
“It’s a pink Congress, celebrating a pink Budget and talking about a pink country that, in fact, doesn’t exist. It’s a Congress that hasn’t presented, until now, a single idea for the country. What has been the concern of this PSD Congress so far?
The first difference, stated by Luís Montenegro, is that this Government, which is now around six months old, has not had the succession of “cases and cases” that happened under António Costa’s Government. “Well then we have the example of the PSD’s ambition is to compare itself with the Government that had the greatest political instability in the last decades”, he criticized.
Stating that there is no “political divergence” or vision between the two parties, the liberal leader acknowledged, however, that the “PSD, in fact, did more”. “The PSDB increased the number of servers even further. The PSD further increased the number of committees, bodies, task forces, observatories, and mission teams. And truth. And the PSD also increased current expenditure”, he insisted..
For Rocha, his party contrasts with the PSD given the “lack of coherence” of the Executive, since this budget “does not cover or fulfill the change project that the country needs” and that the AD promised in the campaign: “IL was on the right side, coherently, and permanently, saying that this Government does not have the reformist impetus that the country needs. We are the only alternative based on trust, seriousness and rigor of the proposal for Portugal”, he advocated, highlighting that it was the party that warned, at the beginning of the legislature, that the promised “big decrease” in IRS did not correspond to the truth.
“We were the ones who unmasked this attempt to deceive the Portuguese because a substantial part of this reduction in IRS was already implemented in the State budget that came from the previous government”, he stressed.
Showing himself available to listen to national advisors on the Budget, Rocha announced that he will only announce IL’s vote after a final meeting of the parliamentary group on Thursday. And he argued that this is a moment in which the parido has a “huge opportunity” to affirm its policies and vision: “We want a State that provides and fulfills its essential functions, a State that has police officers, that has teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters necessary to carry out their essential functions, we want a country where it is possible to grow through work, where it is possible to have opportunities, where the State does not take more from the pockets of the Portuguese than it is necessary to provide essential services and do so efficiently,” he added.
In addition to OE2025 and municipal elections, the issue of reto 2023, which did not pass through the National Council or the Fiscal Council, contrary to what the statutes provide, promises to heat up the National Council meeting.
Source: expresso.pt
