Lisbon, Oct. 31, 2024 (Lusa) - On Thursday, the leader of Portugal's far-right Chega accused the current government of being "just as thieving" as the previous one and considered the State Budget for 2025 to be a "betrayal of the right" and the beginning of a central bloc.
Speaking at the close of the general debate on next year's budget in parliament, André Ventura said that the government "gave with one hand and took away with the other", with "more taxes on consumption", including fuel.
"It's a government that, at the end of the day, is just as much a thief as the previous thief who took from one side to give to the other," he accused, prompting protests in the chamber.
The parliament speaker intervened to ask the deputies to exercise restraint and "refrain from inappropriate vocabulary and inappropriate gestures", not least because they were attending the plenary session, and repeated the warning at the end of André Ventura's statement.
In his speech, the Chega leader considered the budget to be "a betrayal of the right" because "it betrayed the police and security forces when they needed them most. After all, it betrayed young people when we needed them most, because it betrayed farmers and fishermen, achieving the unprecedented feat of reducing the agriculture budget after eight years of attack by the PS".
For the MP, the government "continues to distribute subsidies to everyone and everything", but forgets "those who leave home to work", and he argued that "we need a state that for the first time dares to say that it is important to benefit those who work".
André Ventura said that, with the budget being made viable by the PS abstention, a "historic phase" has begun that "was not expected in the 10 March elections".
"In a few minutes, a new central bloc will be born between the PS and PSD," he said, considering that they were “the most unlikely and unsuspected allies a few months ago, but more likely 50 years ago”.
Ventura said that Chega "will be the opposition" and the "only alternative" to this "centre bloc".
The Chega president argued that this budget should be "the break with eight years of socialists who have sunk the country" and refused in particular to support proposals that would increase fuel prices.
In his speech, the Chega president also called for a reform of the justice system. Giving as an example the case of a man who shot a young man who allegedly took part in an attempted robbery of his jewellery shop, he criticised the fact that the octogenarian had been arrested. He said that we need "more men and women to defend themselves against robberies by bandits".
FM/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
