“These are our red lines,” he said, in an interview with the Lusa news agency, adding: “We go alone and after the elections we will continue alone, regardless of the result.”
The objective of React Include Reciclar (RIR) is to increase voting and elect a deputy to the regional parliament, where Liana Reis, who is 46 years old and a nurse by profession, wants to affirm the party as a “centrist alternative”, with the defense of left and right policies.
“The objective is to work for the common good, but we will always be alone,” he declared.
In the last regional elections, on September 24, 2023, the RIR was the third least voted force, in a total of 13 candidacies, obtaining 727 votes (0.55%), out of a total of 135,446 voters.
“One of our objectives in this campaign is to make people see that the RIR has a name, it is React, Include Recycle, and it has never made as much sense as it does now”, explained the candidate, also leader of the party in the region, highlighting that it is “time for change”, because “people are a little fed up with these policies” developed in the archipelago – “arrogance, ‘I want, I can and I command’, false promises”.
Liana Pestana dos Reis, who was born and lives in Funchal, believes that the political crisis generated by the process that investigates suspicions of corruption in Madeira could increase the vote in small parties, also benefiting the RIR, one of the 14 candidacies in advance on the 26th of May.
“We hope so and we want to believe so, we really want to believe that our voters want a change in political paradigm,” he said.
The RIR electoral program presents proposals in various sectors, from housing to employment, from tourism to social services, but Liana Reis highlights health, which she says is seriously affected by the departure of doctors from the public to the private sector and also outside the region.
“One of our proposals is an urgent review of the careers of healthcare personnel, including, perhaps, a tax-free productivity bonus. I think that would be a good bet, instead of paying regular doctors who come there at the end of week to carry out some surgeries that don’t always go well, because everything is done in a hurry”, he said, and then emphasized: “One of our proposals is exactly that, productivity bonuses for those who are there.”
On the other hand, the candidate classified the granting of public homes to the private sector as a “serious problem”. In her understanding, we are witnessing “the growth of the monopoly in the area of seniors”.
“It is inconceivable for us to be selling the healthcare of our elderly people to private companies”, he declared, warning that 37.6 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Plan will be channeled to four private institutions in this sector.
“One of our proposals is to prohibit the concession of the management of public homes to the private sector”, he said, stressing that “it is a shame not to invest in the public sector”.
Liana Reis defends, on the other hand, the creation of an anti-corruption office, as a way of ensuring greater transparency in the performance of public positions and the functioning of institutions.
“Policies of arrogance, of ‘I want, I can and I command’ only lead us to total misgovernment and suspicions of corruption […]. People have to make sure that when they go to vote, they don’t vote out of partisan fanaticism. Vote for the faces ahead [das candidaturas] and the face currently at the head of the PSD does not represent any credibility for the people of Madeira and Porto Santo”, he warned, referring to Miguel Albuquerque, resigning president of the regional executive and once again head of the list.
Liana Reis has been a member of the RIR since 2022, but in the 2021 local elections she joined the candidacy of the Funchal Semper à Frente (PSD/CDS-PP) coalition as an independent, which won with an absolute majority, and is a substitute deputy in the Funchal Municipal Assembly.
The advances of May 26th occur eight months after the most recent regional legislation, after the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, dissolved the Madeiran parliament, following the political crisis triggered in January, when the leader of the Regional Government ( PSD/CDS-PP) was named as a defendant in a process in which suspicions of corruption are investigated.
The PSD has always governed in the archipelago and won 11 elections with an absolute majority between 1976 and 2015.
*** Duarte Caires (text) and Homem de Gouveia (photo), from the Lusa agency ***
DC//ROC
Lusa/End
Tags: RIR criticizes arrogant policies rejects agreement Madeira
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