"We have to review the IRC for companies and other taxes, to give them the opportunity to hire more people and for people to have better salaries", said the leader of the MPT -- Partido da Terra na Madeira, Válter Rodrigues, after a campaign action in Funchal.

The MPT's candidacy for the early elections of 26 May today received the visit of the party's national leader, Pedro Soares Pimenta, who was accompanied by the head of the list for the European elections of 09 June, Manuel Oliveira Carreira.

Speaking to Lusa news agency, Válter Rodrigues said that today's action aimed to listen to people and convey the message that the MPT will "be the voice to defend them" in the regional parliament, with the commitment to solve the problems they face.

"We have also met today with people from the lowest [social] stratum, from the highest stratum, and also some entrepreneurs", he pointed out.

Regarding support for the next regional executive, the candidate stressed that his commitment is "to the population", expressing willingness to reach understandings with a leadership with left-wing or right-wing parties.

"Our essential commitment will always be, in this case, to the population and to a budget to defend companies and people", he stressed, mentioning that one of the problems identified is the lack of specialized labour in the region. In his view, there is a lack of professional courses linked to some areas - for example, "panel beaters and other types of work".

Válter Rodrigues today defended the need to reduce "the 30% that a company normally pays more in each employee's salary" by half, explaining that the cost of the measure must be borne by the Regional Government and the Government of the Republic.

This measure, according to the regional leader of the MPT, will allow employees to "be paid more" and ensure that companies "do not have to pay more taxes".

"We are an ultra-peripheral region", he stressed, recalling that statistics show that Madeira is the poorest region in the country and arguing that resolving the situation requires "doing something different" and acting with a sense of responsibility:

According to the report "Portugal, Balanço Social 2023", presented this week, the risk of poverty in the country rose to 17% last year, which meant that 60,000 more people were at risk of becoming poor, a reality that mainly affected women.

The poverty rate is almost 10 percentage points above the national average in Madeira, the region with the highest rate in Portugal, and nine percentage points above the national average in the Azores.

In the Madeira legislative elections, there are 14 candidacies competing for the 47 seats in the regional parliament: 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, following the political crisis triggered in January, when the leader of the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP), Miguel Albuquerque, was charged in a process in which suspicions of corruption are being investigated and resigned.

In 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 on parliamentary incidence with the Social Democrats) and the BE each obtained one mandate.

Read Also: Madeira Elections. MPT believes in the election of at least one deputy (Portuguese version)