PCP is open to left convergence

PCP general secretary Paulo Raimundo says his party wants to be a “convergence pole” of the left, but refuses to “give carte blanche” to the PS, pledging to evaluate possible agreements on the proposal. – the basis of the proposal.

“Can any left-wing government be considered without the PCP? Can any left-wing politics be considered in Portugal without the PCP? Not without PKP and especially against PKP. (…) We believe that we are the center of convergence, and without our participation convergence is impossible,” says Paulo Raimundo in an interview with Lusa.

The communist leader emphasizes that rapprochement to the left without the PCP is “not achievable and impossible,” but emphasizes that this “convergence is not worth rapprochement, it is worth the content of rapprochement.”

“We do not write blank checks and do not depend solely on the will of others. When we are undergoing a process of convergence, it is necessary to build this convergence; we are not talking about subscribing in the name of this or that to everything and a pair of shoes,” he emphasizes.

Paulo Raimundo states that if the PS forms a government, the PCP will support “everything positive and vote against everything negative” and, when asked, whether this means it will evaluate possible agreements on a proposal-by-proposal basis. He replied: “Of course, don’t doubt it.”

The PKP secretary-general rejects the idea that evaluating every proposal could jeopardize the government’s stability, countering that the “contrivance” of 2015 was unstable not because it was based on a written agreement, but because of the “correlation of existing forces and response to specific problems.”

“It is believed that the written agreement signed in 2015 had some influence on our position. This is wrong. In fact, my comrade Jeronimo de Souza has said this several times: we do not need written agreements, we need the word given,” he states.

Asked whether this position is not an attempt to evade responsibility, Paulo Raimundo believes that, on the contrary, it represents an assumption of even greater responsibility, since the PCP will have to “face up to the specific proposal” that it decides to approve or make impossible.

The leader of the PKP believes that “the scenario of 2015 will not be repeated now, it is impossible to repeat itself,” in particular, for reasons that are directly related to that time.

“We, in 2015, thanks to the responsibility for the struggle of our people and the strength that the workers and people gave to the CDU, was to create a sufficient majority to remove the SDP and the CDU from the government. was the first goal, which is currently unresolved,” he states.

On the other hand, Paulo Raimundo emphasizes that there is currently a “new element” that did not exist in 2015, referring to “the last two years of the absolute majority of the PS, which have shown where it comes from.”

“The only way to lead the PS to positive positions, to positive proposals, to concrete answers to problems is not to give strength to the PS, but to give strength to the PKP and the CDU, because this is what determines, as it determined in the past, solutions for the country and the alternative that we needed for a country whose carrier is not PS,” he says.

Asked whether the PCP would accept a written agreement if the Democratic Alliance wins the election but there is a left-wing majority, Paulo Raimundo said he does not think this scenario “will arise” but wonders if any party exists in Portugal . who “has more experience fighting the right than the PKP?”

Paulo Raimundo argues that this struggle takes place “at the political, ideological level, but it is also a concrete struggle,” emphasizing that when you see that “the PS is inferior, in what is fundamental and structuring, to all theory, rhetoric and right-wing sense, we are not fighting the right by giving more strength to the PS.”