Mortagua criticizes the long-term agreement between PS and PSD that led to the housing crisis

This Thursday, the BE coordinator accused the PS and PSD of agreeing for years on policies that led to the housing crisis, arguing that the bloc proposals are the only ones that respond to this problem.

Mariana Mortagua devoted the second half of her election campaign to housing issues and, accompanied by MEP and list leader from Porto Marisa Matias, began with a visit to the old Veiga Beirão school in Largo do Carmo, a public building that is closed in the heart of Lisbon and, according to BE, can be converted into university residence.

“This serves as a warning. The housing crisis did not happen spontaneously, it did not happen by accident. The housing crisis is a confluence of government policies that created the housing crisis,” he said.

The list of government policies that have given rise to this crisis includes, according to the leader of the bloc, “golden visas,” benefits for unaccustomed residents or “bet on tourism in large cities,” all measures that “deregulate rentals and deprotect people.”

“And for many years in Lisbon, as in the country, there has been an agreement between the PS and PSD to promote these measures that have worsened the housing crisis,” he accused.

Asked about Pedro Nuno Santos’s ownership of the housing portfolio in the PS government, Mariana Mortagua said that “the last two years have exacerbated a huge crisis in Portugal”, with the housing crisis being one of them, although not the only one, and “a legacy of absolute majority.”

“To be able to mobilize on March 10, we must be able to tell people that we have solutions to fix these crises, that we have solutions to fix the huge housing crisis that the absolute majority of the Socialist Party has failed to fix, and On the contrary, it worsened. The left bloc is the only party that has clear proposals to respond to all the causes of the housing crisis,” he said.

According to the bloc’s coordinator, the right to housing was at the center not only of the election campaign, but also of the party’s actions, as it felt that “this crisis is spreading and consuming people’s lives, their future, their income.”

“We take these proposals very seriously and say clearly: local accommodation, hotels and tourism in major cities must be controlled, public assets must be mobilized, rent ceilings must be established, the General Directorate of Deposits Caixa must be used to reduce interest rates on housing loans,” – he summarized.

Mariana Mortagua stressed that in the past the party “has always opposed the conversion of buildings into hotels,” especially in the Lisbon City Council, and deplored other “majorities that are always able to form with the right to unite with the Socialist Party to authorize the sale and conversion of buildings to hotels.”

“Our past has been to try to introduce these regulations, to try to ensure that public buildings are used and come into the public realm to be used as university residences, as housing. This has been our path, both in the Assembly of the Republic and in the Assembly of the Republic. and in the field of local self-government,” he assured.

However, according to the BE leader, “there are always alliances between parties that favor “speculation and sale of heritage for tourism purposes,” pointing to a common path between the PS, PSD and the right.

“There is a housing crisis that is plunging large parts of the population into poverty and driving out an entire generation of young people, and whoever does not acknowledge this on Thursday, whoever does not acknowledge that the Left Bloc’s proposals make sense, that they are necessary, that they are urgent, then you don’t understand what’s happening in the country,” he accused.

More than 10.8 million Portuguese are called to vote on March 10 to elect 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

18 political forces, 15 parties and three coalitions are participating in the elections.