"We cannot continue to have a region where the GDP is increasing and we have more than 15% of workers in a situation of poverty. There are more than 19,000 workers who, despite working every day, eight or more hours a day, the money they take home is not enough to meet the basic needs of their families," said the second candidate on the CDU (PCP/PEV) list for the regional elections, Ricardo Lume, in Funchal.

With a group of about three dozen people, holding party flags, the CDU was at the door of the Viveiros building of the Funchal Solid Waste Station, where they handed out pamphlets and pens to workers leaving their workplace, while communist Ricardo Lume projected, with a microphone in hand, the struggle of the Democratic Unitarian Coalition for the early elections of May 26.

The CDU's top candidate, Edgar Silva, was not present at this event because he was attending other electoral campaign initiatives.

"The big bosses, the big capital, cannot keep the biggest slice of the pie. There must be justice in the distribution of wealth," said the second CDU candidate, referring to the fact that Madeira is the region "with the most labor inequalities, the most precariousness, where the lowest wages in the entire country are found".

In this action of contact with workers, Ricardo Lume stressed that, "even in the face of these adversities, it has been possible, in specific cases, for workers, with their struggle and with the decisive intervention of the CDU, to advance their rights", with examples of this in the Funchal City Council and in the region's public companies.

"The message we want to leave is that it is necessary, in the next elections, to strengthen the voice of workers in the regional assembly. The CDU has not made promises in this campaign, but has committed itself, like no other, to the interests of workers and the people," he said, appealing that "when it comes time to vote, it must be for the CDU".

For all workers in the region, the CDU proposes a general increase in wages, with "a negotiation base of, at the very least, a 150 euro increase", the attribution of an island subsidy, the reduction of working hours to 35 hours per week and the end of the deregulation of working hours.

Asserting itself as a "necessary alternative", Ricardo Lume stressed that "it is possible to change" governance in Madeira: "in the year in which we mark the 50th anniversary of April 25, it is proof that in the past it was possible to change from a fascist regime, now we can create a just society and an advanced democracy".

The Madeira legislative elections are taking place with 14 candidacies competing for the 47 seats in the regional parliament, in a single electoral district: ADN, BE, PS, Livre, IL, RIR, CDU (PCP/PEV), Chega, CDS-PP, MPT, PSD, PAN, PTP and JPP.

The early elections are taking place eight months after the most recent regional legislative elections, after the President of the Republic dissolved the Madeiran parliament, following the political crisis triggered in January, when the leader of the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP), Miguel Albuquerque, was named an accused in a case involving suspicions of corruption.

In September 2023, the PSD/CDS coalition won without an absolute majority and elected 23 deputies. The PS won 11, the JPP five, Chega four, while the CDU, IL, PAN (which signed an agreement of parliamentary incidence with the social democrats) and the BE each obtained one mandate.

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