"For us, this is not a footnote. Workers' rights are a structural element of the political project that identifies the CDU and we say that the CDU is the only candidacy, the only vote, that ensures that workers' rights will be in the parliamentary initiative", said Edgar Silva.

The head of the list was speaking in the context of a meeting with union leaders and activists, in Funchal, an initiative that ended the sixth day of the campaign of the Democratic Unitarian Coalition (CDU), which brings together the PCP and PEV.

"It is our commitment to ensure that the problems of the working world and the rights of workers are at the center of the political agenda", said the candidate, emphasizing that, "throughout the last legislatures, only the CDU has brought concrete problems of workers to parliament and has brought concrete legislative proposals to conquer rights", despite having only one deputy.

Edgar Silva, also coordinator of the CDU and the Portuguese Communist Party in the region, identified exploitation, precariousness and low wages as the most serious problems at the labor level in the archipelago.

"In the country as a whole, we have this situation which is, in fact, a great injustice, which is that we have the lowest wages in the country", he said, and then reinforced: "This question of wages, of combating precariousness and combating forms of exploitation in the world of work, for us, are three fundamental questions".

The head of the list criticized, on the other hand, the attitude of other parties, saying that "some do not even pay attention to this concrete reality experienced by workers during the election campaign", while, on the part of the CDU, there has been "direct contact with workers in companies and workplaces", especially in those "where labor exploitation is most intensified".

"The key to the social question is inseparable from the labor question. There is no rigorous approach [...] to the great inequalities and the great injustices if the problem of work is not considered centrally, because the great social injustices in this region cannot be separated from a serious approach to those who are the structural causes of inequality and injustice", he said.

The Madeira legislative elections will take place on May 26 with 14 candidates 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 take 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 constituted accused in a process in which suspicions of corruption are investigated.

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

Read Also: Elections/Madeira. CDU appeals for a vote that will not be betrayed or trespassed (Portuguese version)