Statement of the Political Committee of the Central
Committee of the Portuguese Communist Party on the political situation and its
developments
The violent offensive against the rights of the workers
and populations, of attack on the democratic regime and national sovereignty,
has met in the mass struggle, with particular emphasis on the workers’
struggle, a determining factor to resist it and help to raise the social and
political awareness of large strata of Portuguese people. It was this daily
struggle in the companies and streets, this larger struggle represented by the
General Strike, that irreparably shook this government, swelled contradictions,
undermined its credibility and isolated it socially.
The resignations of Vítor Gaspar [Finance Minister] and
Paulo Portas [Foreign Affairs Minister], inseparable from the degradation of
the economic and social situation imposed by the Pact of Aggression [the
socalled memorandum of understanding with the EU and IMF], confirm the
development of a deep political and institutional crisis and the debacle of an
illegitimate government and majority.
A government and a majority that are responsible for the
suffering and impoverishment caused to millions of Portuguese, and are today,
by the force of the workers’ and people’s struggle, politically defeated.
II
1. The country is witnessing a real assault on democratic
institutions by some of those who want to implement a programme of
centralisation and concentration of capital built on the exploitation and
impoverishment of the Portuguese people and plunder of national resources.
It is not the Constitution, or the Portuguese forced to
emigrate, who do not belong into the country. It is the government, the
parliamentary majority that supports it and the Pact of Aggression who do not
belong.
Whatever the manoeuvres or the developments underway to
save the rightwing policy, nothing conceals the two essential issues that are
placed before the country:
that this government, politically and irreparably
defeated and socially isolated by the struggle of the workers and populations,
despite clinging desperately to power, is already part of the past;
that in view of an outlaw government, majority and
policy, in confrontation with the Constitution of the Republic, are imposing,
in practice, a true state of exception, there is no other dignified and
democratic way out than the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and
calling early elections.
2. The worsening of the economic and social situation,
the imminence of early elections, and the fact that the present governing
solution no longer responds to the agenda of materialisation of exploitation
and regression associated with the Pact of Aggression in the near future, led
big national and transnational business to a gathering of efforts, in
articulation with the President of the Republic, to ensure the continuation of
the course of national disaster.
The position of the President of the Republic [Cavaco
Silva] to try to bring together those who two years ago signed the socalled
memorandum of understanding (PS/PSD/CDSPP) to thus ensure the implementation
of the Pact of Aggression and the perpetuation of the policy that accompanies
it shows a President committed to saving and perpetuating the rightwing
policy.
The Political Committee of the Central Committee of the
PCP denounces the blackmail, invoking bankruptcy and the risk of a second
bailout allegedly linked to the political instability, aims to conceal that for
a long time this same bailout, now christened precautionary programme, is being
negotiated by the government in Brussels, hidden from the Portuguese. It is not
the “political crisis” that will lead to a second bailout, but the implementation
of this policy.
The President of the Republic by not immediately
dismissing the government and not calling early elections assumes, under the
present circumstances, the responsibility of each and every consequence
resulting from the prolongation of this path to economic and social abyss.
3. It is unacceptable that, instead of his responsibility
regarding his constitutional duties, the President of the Republic ambitions to
promote and impose political promises contrary to the Constitution, on the margin
of the regular functioning of the democratic institutions and leaving out
political forces. An imposition which in itself reveals antidemocratic concepts
that would mean denying the Portuguese the right to choose a different course
and a policy able to free the country from the colonised condition they want to
place it in and ensure a better life in a Portugal with future.
The alleged “compromise” proposed by Cavaco Silva that
PS, PSD and CDS reveal they are available to implement, aims, not to save the
country, but rather to create the conditions to ensure that the next State
Budget will continue the theft of wages and pensions, more and devastating cuts
in the rights of the Portuguese to health and education, of new attacks on
social security and social benefits in unemployment and sick leave, of more
redundancies in public administration, more privatisation of strategic sectors
and companies.
A compromise that is not of national salvation but rather
of continuation of national destruction. A compromise between those responsible
for the state the country has come to, to thus ensure a wider base of support
to the Pact of Aggression and the programme of exploitation and liquidation of
rights which will only bring more economic decline, social regression and
national submission
The necessary compromise of national salvation is around
the interests and rights of the workers, the people and country, of the
Constitution of the Republic and the values it embodies.
III
The urgency of a rupture with the rightwing policy and a
change in national life that can open the way for the construction of an
alternative, patriotic and leftwing policy is a national imperative, a
condition to ensure Portugal with a future, of social justice and progress, a
sovereign and independent country. A policy that is able to free Portugal from
dependence and submission, to hand back to the country that which belongs to
the country, return to the workers and people their rights, wages and incomes.
A policy which is based on six fundamental options:
first, the rejection of the Pact of Aggression and
renegotiation of the debt in its amounts, interest, payment terms and
conditions, rejecting its illegitimate part, with an immediate acceptance of a
negotiated or unilateral moratorium and a cut in the debt service to a level
compatible with economic growth and improvement of the living conditions;
second, the defence and increase of national production,
recovery to the State of the financial sector and other strategic companies and
sectors, essential to support the economy, increase public investment and
encourage domestic demand;
third, real valorisation of wages and pensions and a
clear commitment to reinstate the stolen wages, incomes and rights, including
social benefits;
fourth, the option for a budgetary policy of combat
against overspending, sumptuary expenses, based on a fiscal component of
increased taxation on dividends and profits of big business and relief on
workers and small and mediumsized companies, ensuring the necessary funds for
an efficient functioning of the State and public investment;
fifth, a policy of defence and restoration of public
services, namely the social functions of the State (like health, education and
social security) strengthening human and material means, as an essential factor
for the materialisation of the rights of the people and development of the
country;
sixth, the assumption of a sovereign policy and the
affirmation of the primacy of national interests in the relations with the
European Union, diversifying economic and financial relations and adopting
measures to prepare the country in case of leaving the Euro, either by decision
of the Portuguese people, or the heightening of the crisis of the European
Union.
IV
1. While saluting all those who, during the past two
years, did not waver in the struggle against the course of national disaster
and demanded another course, the PCP reaffirms that it lies increasingly in the
hands of the workers and the people the possibility to ensure a different
course for the country. Stressing the decisive role of the struggle and its
intensification, the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the PCP
calls on the workers and populations, hit by the destruction of public services
and social functions, to join the important struggle actions already set,
namely by the Public Administration trade union structures and User Committees,
for this coming July 24 near the Assembly of the Republic.
The PCP will vote in favour of the motion of censure to
the government, its policy and the majority that supports it, presented by the
Ecologist Party “The Greens”. It is a parliamentary and political initiative
that voices the widespread popular opposition to the PSD/CDS government,
reflecting the unavoidable demand for its resignation and calling of early
elections.
In view of the demanding political situation and its
developments, the PCP addresses the social forces, the political parties and
forces and democrats who, guided by the respect for the constitutional
principles and values, have as aims the dismissal of the government, early elections
and rejection of the Pact of Aggression. Hence, the PCP addresses invitations
to shortly hold meetings with social organisations, like the PEV [Ecologist
Party “The Greens”], the Left Bloc and Democratic Intervention. The PCP will
also promote a series of contacts, meetings with personalities committed to the
affirmation of a developed and sovereign Portugal.
The PCP is not, nor will be, available to be an
instrument or accomplice of policies that maintain the structuring guidelines
of the rightwing policy. A force that embodies a clear project of change, the
PCP asserts in its actions and political initiatives, as a crucial factor for
the construction of a patriotic and leftwing policy and assumes to the workers
and people its willingness and capability to exercise the highest
responsibilities they assign to it.
V
The Political Committee of the Central Committee of the
PCP calls for the mobilisation and involvement of its militants and CDU
activists to carry out a broad campaign to explain the importance of
strengthening CDU to defend popular interests, to solve their problems and
affirm an alternative policy. Widely recognised for its work, honesty and
competence – themselves values of added importance when there is widespread
lack of political ethics, disregard for assumed pledges and promises and the
use of power for strictly personal benefit or economic interests – CDU asserts
itself as a broad space of united convergence, democratic intervention,
struggle and commitment and dedication to the interests and aspirations of the
workers and people.
There will be no shortage of manoeuvres to try to
perpetuate, with Passos Coelho [Prime Minister and PSD’s leader] and Portas
[Foreign Affairs Minister and CDSPP leader] or without them, with the present
or other promoters of rightwing policies, with or without elections, the same
policy of exploitation of workers. But, sooner or later, the Portuguese people
will speak louder, will take into their hands the construction of a policy that
will answer their interests and rights, inseparable from the widening and
strengthening of the mass struggle, with all the expression it may come to
assume in the rupture with the rightwing policy and the construction of a
patriotic and leftwing alternative.
July 15, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment