On the left, a cry against the nostalgic people — and “genetically modified carnations”

In the solemn session commemorating the 52nd anniversary of the 25th of April, the parties with parliamentary seats used the Assembly’s rostrum to do much more than pay homage to the past. And Rui Tavares raised the benches on the left wing of the hemicycle.

From PS to Livre, through PCP, BE, PAN and JPP, the speeches were marked by warnings about the dangers of populism, criticism of the Government’s labor package and calls for the uncompromising defense of democracy — in a hemicycle where even the color of the flowers became a source of controversy.

The speeches of this solemn session highlighted a country that still seeks to comply with April promises — in housing, health, wages, justice — but which simultaneously faces a new threat: the erosion of the very democratic spirit that the Revolution established.

The tone was set early. While the majority of deputies displayed the traditional red carnation, Chega opted for green flowers — a gesture that Livre did not let go unnoticed.

Spokesperson Rui Tavares spoke of “genetically modified carnations“, in one of the most striking phrases of the afternoon. But beyond the botanical metaphor, the speeches were permeated by a common concern: that democracy cannot be taken for granted.

From left to center, speakers shared the conviction that the values ​​of April — freedom, equality, fraternity — remain to be fully fulfilled. And that there are forces, inside and outside parliament, willing to rewrite them, says the PCP.

Freedom without a decent life is incomplete

On his first April 25 as general secretary of the Socialist Party, José Luís Carneiro He chose a phrase from Manuel Alegre to open his speech (“It was days, it was years waiting for just one day”), and ended with a warning that sounded like a political program: “Freedom is not offered, freedom is conquered“.

Between the two quotes, Carneiro drew a diagnosis of the country that is at the same time a balance and an accusation. For the socialist leader, economic progress “only makes sense when it serves people”, and freedom without dignified material conditions is an incomplete freedom.

A housing, health, educationaccess to culture and income were highlighted as the fields where Abril still has work to do.

“The cost of living in general and housing in particular. The instability and insecurity in health responses. Which shows that social justice is a everyday achievement and not a crystallized legacy“, these.

The PS took advantage of the platform to reiterate its opposition to the labor package under discussion. Carneiro was direct: “Only ongoing policies in this regard can only count on our opposition because we are the credible and trustworthy alternative to serve Portugal.” Economic growth is necessary, he acknowledged, “but that does not justify revising workers’ constitutional rights.”

Against the “revanchist narrative” of those nostalgic for the Estado Novo

The deputy Alfredo Maia The PCP’s speech began with a tribute to the “countless thousands and thousands of anti-fascist resisters” and to the fighters of the liberation movements in the colonies.

The communist appointed victims of PIDE/DGS torture and recalled that “millions were the targets of surveillance and investigations” by the regime’s political police.

For Alfredo Maia, the Portugal before the 25th of April “was not just pooreconomically, socially and culturally backward” — it was also a country subjected to a brutal repression that some, today, evoke with nostalgia. And it is precisely this longing that Alfredo Maia identified as the main threat to Abril’s legacy.

“There are no mystifications, nostalgia or falsifications that erase the exalting moments of the Revolution that turned the page and inscribed the political, economic, social, cultural and civilizational achievements in which the people are immensely and irrevocably proud.”

The PCP also denounced what it classified as an attempt by “monopoly groups and reactionary forces” to stop the advances of April — first by “economic boycott and capital flight”then by force, with six hundred violent attacks reported by far-right organizations against the headquarters of left-wing parties and unions.

Finally, the Government’s labor package was described by the communist deputy as an attempt to “crush workers’ rights and impose even more exploitation and injustice“.

Defend democracy from those who want to divide it

Three parties with only one deputy each — Bloco de Esquerda, PAN and JPP — converged on the same diagnosis: democracy is threatened not by a military coup, but by the degradation of public debate and the rise of populism.

Fabian Figueiredofrom BE, was repeatedly applauded by the PS bench when he stated that “constant shouting is not political courageis just the cowardly choreography of emptiness.”

Without naming recipients, the deputy called on parliament not to become “the mirror of our worst instincts” and argued that pluralism is built “on the elevation of the confrontation of ideas, not on their purposeful degradation.”

“The nostalgia for a country where supposedly ‘there was order and respect’ is a gross falsification. The order of dictatorship was the order of fear. And fear doesn’t cure the sick, pay salaries, or teach anyone to read.”

Inês de Souza Realfrom PAN, recalled the concrete problems that persist — housing, low wages, domestic violence — but focused his speech on another form of violence: that of speech.

The deputy recalled the times when Francisco Pinto Balsemão and Mário Soares had dinner togethernot despite differences, but because of them“, and lamented that current politics has become “an identity battlefield” where “there are no longer opponents, there are enemies.”

In its debut in the solemn sessions of the 25th of April, Filipe Sousafrom JPP, warned of “hate speech, disguised as opinion” that seeks to divide what Abril united.

“Hate slowly but relentlessly corrodes the excesses of democratic coexistence,” he warned, arguing that democracy “is not strengthened by shouting, nor by exclusion, nor by the dangerous simplification of complex problems.”

“Genetically modified carnations” and a warning from history

The leader of Livre, Rui Tavares was the speaker who made the room react the most. The reference to “genetically modified carnations“, a direct allusion to the green flowers that Chega took to the plenary, was the most talked about moment of the session.

But Livre’s spokesperson went beyond the provocation and made a kind of class of history that sounded the warning.

Going back to the period before the military dictatorship of 1926Tavares recalled that the parliament of the First Republic was “a month away from approving the new tobacco contract” when parties collapsed.

“No one understood each other and parliament was in chaos when came not one but two blows on May 28th“, he recalled. “On May 31, 1926, we no longer had a legitimately elected parliament for 49 years.”

“It was impossible at the time to imagine that this would happen like this. And there were all the politicians who had been at odds before, because afterwards they had the remorse of having let the Republic lose.”

O message to the deputies who listened to him was implicit but clear: democracy can lose oneself through carelessness, through division, through incapacity to find a lowest common denominator.

At the end of the session, there is the image of a parliament that uses the 25th of April as a mirror — each party sees in it the reflection of their battles of the present. But beneath the differences, a common thread: democracy is not a givenand defending it requires, today as in 1974, courage and vigilance.