Presidential candidate Catarina Martins warned this Saturday, November 1, that the State is failing in areas such as health, education or housing, criticizing “contradictory, inefficient” policies and “at the mercy of greedy appetites”.
“The State is failing us. It fails in housing, in health, in education. It fails in care, despite the monumental effort of those who take care of health and education. Policies are contradictory, inefficient, and too often at the whim of greedy appetites. The State fails and cannot fail”, warned Catarina Martins.
The former coordinator of the Bloco de Esquerda was speaking during the presentation of her candidacy in Lisbon – after the first one took place in Porto, where she is from – in an event that included the participation of the founders Francisco Louçã, Luís Fazenda and Fernando Rosas, as well as leaders such as Fabian Figueiredo or Jorge Costa, but not the bloc coordinator, Mariana Mortágua.
In the MEP’s view, “consistent policies are a guarantee that the most important conditions of life are shared, are democratic” and respond to needs.
“I don’t want to continue to see closed emergency rooms, long waiting lists, students without classes. Our country has people and wisdom to resolve all these issues and that is the democratic regime that will make us proud”, defended.
At the beginning of her intervention, Catarina Martinswarned that the presidential elections, scheduled for January 18, are taking place “at a time of degradation of democracy”, which has “several expressions”.
“Some are more obvious, such as the generalization of hatred that has motivated one of the candidates for these elections who no longer hesitates in the explicit support of hatred in his mission to make insult, defamation, intimidation and incitement to violence normal. The degradation of democracy is the trivialization of evil”, he criticized, in reference to Chega’s leader, André Ventura, who has generated controversy with the messages on his campaign posters.
For Catarina Martins, the degradation of democracy “is also the constitution of political subjects sold as products”, with candidates who “change their speech, their proposal, their values, depending on the fluctuations of any ‘focus group’ and the rhythm of any communication agency”.
“The degradation of democracy is opportunism”, he criticized.
Finally, the MEP highlighted as a factor in the degradation of the regime “the option for a policy devoid of substance” in which consensual words “are themselves emptied of content”.
“They hope to mobilize the country with a policy that bores it and puts it to sleep. The degradation of democracy is emptiness”, he added.
The presidential candidate said she understands that the “destruction of labor rights”, the disinvestment in public services, the “liberalization of housing markets and the persistence of inequalities and poverty” have created “increasing anger and social resentment” in Portuguese society.
Catarina Martins highlighted that in these elections the Portuguese will decide whether the answer to this despair “will be to find some scapegoats and unload on them the consequences of those who have always been in charge” or, on the other hand, “a refoundation of our community”.
“Solidarity against selfishness, empathy against hatred, hope against despair. An active and transformative hope that invites and mobilizes us. This is my idea for the Presidency. I want to propose to the Portuguese a manifesto of hope, which is a map for a possible country within the reach of our determination”, he appealed