The PCP candidate says he will not go on strike because “being a candidate for President of the Republic is not exactly a job”, but instead of campaign actions he will follow a picket line.
Presidential candidate António Filipe announced this Saturday that he will not have campaign initiatives on the day of the general strike, scheduled for Friday, and that he will “provide solidarity” with the workers by accompanying a picket line.
On the sidelines of a public session in Maia, in the Porto district, under the theme “Comply with the Constitution, Build the Future”, the candidate supported by the PCP also reaffirmed that he will not fail to use “each and every one of the possibilities” that the Constitution of the Republic provides to combat the labor package proposed by the Government, if he is elected President of the Republic.
“I will certainly be at a strike picket on the 11th, which I will still check, to express my solidarity with the workers and I will not have campaign initiatives during that day because carrying out campaign initiatives also implies that there are people working to make them possible”, he said.
He explained that candidates do not go on strike because “being a candidate for President of the Republic is not exactly a job”.
And he continued: “There is a whole logistics [nas ações de campanha] which would imply that there were people working that day and, therefore, I will not do them, I will only be in places where it is possible to express my solidarity with the striking workers”, he continued.
Still on the general strike called as a way of fighting against the “infamous labor package” that the Government of Luís Montenegro wants to approve, António Filipe promised that he will fight against it “under the terms that the Constitution allows”, if he is elected and that package is approved in the Assembly of the Republic.
“I emphasize that my expectation is that Portuguese workers will be able to defeat this labor package, that it will be defeated and rejected in the Assembly of the Republic” (AR), he began by highlighting.
And he said: “I have already stated and reaffirm that, as President of the Republic, if it came into my hands for promulgation (…), I would carry out an analysis of its constitutionality in order to be able to submit to the Constitutional Court the assessment of the constitutionality of the norms that I considered to violate the Constitution”.
Afterwards, he said, he would assess the diploma: “And I would not fail to send a message to the AR with my objections, whatever I considered would be detrimental to the situation of workers and consequently negative for the country, asking the Assembly of the Republic to rethink this matter”, he explained.
“These are the possibilities that the President of the Republic has to intervene within the constitutional powers and I would not fail to use each and every one of these possibilities”, he guaranteed.
Faced with news from Jornal de Notícias that it will not be possible to cast a mobility vote in the presidential elections, António Filipe said he regretted it: “I can only regret it”, he replied.
“We have already had elections in which mobility voting was possible, particularly for the European Parliament because these are elections in which, with a single national constituency, this is possible and, therefore, for the presidential elections this would also be possible”, he pointed out.
The presidential elections are scheduled for January 18, 2026.
In addition to António Filipe, in the presidential elections, among others, André Ventura (with the support of Chega), Cotrim Figueiredo (with the support of IL), António José Seguro (supported by the PS), Catarina Martins (supported by BE), Jorge Pinto (supported by Livre), Luís Marques Mendes (with the support of the PSD) and Henrique Gouveia e Melo announced their candidacies.
