Pundits unimpressed; PS denounces it as “hoax”/ “fantasy”
This weekend saw the initial response to the government’s electoral programme, presented on Friday at the Lisbon Congress Centre – and it was fairly lacklustre.
In the words of state news agency Lusa, the programme “sets itself the goal of continuing to increase general incomes, stipulating that by the end of the legislature (2029), the minimum wage, currently at €870, will rise to €1,100, with the average wage being around €2,000.
“In addition, Luís Montenegro’s party wants to ‘improve the lives of older people’, which means that all pensions will be set above €870, the equivalent of the current minimum wage. In 2029, therefore, AD wants the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly (CSI) to be set at this value, €50 higher than promised in the previous programme.
“AD also wants IRS (income tax) to be lowered up to the 8th income bracket. This measure, already advocated by Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, involves ‘reviewing the thresholds of IRS brackets in order to ensure that they are adapted to the reality of the Portuguese economy’. By 2029, the AD wants to reduce IRS by €2,000 million. In the first year, it already wants to cut €500 million”.
Lusa adds that “the Prime Minister also talks about the creation of a negative tax that can ‘benefit lower income families, enshrined in a so-called Solidarity Remuneration Supplement, in full articulation with the minimum existence of IRS, and financed by the consolidation in this instalment of the myriad of dispersed social supports.
“With regard to IRC, corporate income tax, there is a regression in relation to the previous programme, which promised a drop to 15% – now, it has moderated this figure to 17%, but maintains the 15% for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
“Another focus of the programme is education. One change is the ban on mobile phones in schools until the 6th grade. In this field, AD also foresees the availability of crèche and school for all children, as well as a ‘free study support service for students in need or at risk’.
The government also promises a rapid regularisation of immigration: “We can’t accept immigration taking place without rules or having thousands of people who don’t know where they are or what they’re doing.”
These ambitions were presented against a backdrop of parties (and the media) still chewing on the various theories that prime minister Luís Montenegro hasn’t been wholly truthful about his business dealings/ wealth, and with Mr Montenegro himself saying that it was time for “disinformation” and “manipulation of facts” to stop – and for journalists to actually do the proper job of fully investigating allegations.
During the presentation of the programme, the Prime Minister also took a few indirect shots at Socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, saying AD hasn’t come “promising worlds and funds. We cannot think of promising everything right now (…) it won’t be with us that Portugal will have a deficit again. It won’t be with us that we’ll have budget restrictions again because of the irresponsibility of those in power.”
AD’s programme foresees public debt falling to 75.1% of GDP in 2029 and (modest) budget surpluses every year (something the Council for Public Finances, and the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, definitely do not see).
PS Socialists have reacted to the programme saying it “clashes with reality” and is “neither serious nor credible”; PAN has suggested that it is simply “a recycling of measures” that “brings nothing new”; LIVRE and CHEGA are still focused on the ‘doubts over the prime minister’s integrity’, and PCP communists want the national minimum wage increased dramatically yesterday.
In other words, the caretaker government’s great lure to voters is lacking in perceived ‘oomph’, and that’s before one reads the opinions of leader writers.
Paulo João Santos of Correio da Manhã puts it succinctly: “the safety of citizens, health and housing have been the great flops of the Montenegro government (…) It is difficult to believe in the AD programme when everything has failed in these three fundamental areas”.
PS Socialists managed to present their programme a full week ahead of the government, but it too failed to get much in the way of enthusiasm.
Source material: LUSA/ Correio da Manhã
