Prime Minister Passos Coelho and Portugal’s President Cavaco Silva soon will be on holiday, not together but at the same time, as they both enjoy Algarve breaks.
Enter the redoubtable João Vasconcelos (pictured) from the Committee of Users of the Via do Infante (CUVI) who has sanctioned new protests outside the holiday homes of the perpetrators of the tolls system and will be demanding some answers on the whole question of the Algarve’s pernicious motorway tolls.
Subject to confirmation at a meeting that will take place in Loulé on Friday evening, there will be a vigil 20.00 on August 09 at Aldeia da Coelha near the vacation home of the President of the Republic, Cavaco Silva, and from 10.00 the next day in Manta Rota in front of the house where the Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, often has been known to spend a relaxing time in the region he has been inspirational in bringing to its financial knees.
João Vasconcelos said today that the goal is to talk to the President and the Prime Minister to "hold them accountable for the consequences of the introduction of tolls on the Via do Infante" which ranks as a "major disaster" for the Algarve, without the EN125 as a viable alternative.
Vasconcelos added that CUVI also will protest at the Festa do Pontal political gathering and dinner that Passos Coelho will address, as the guests are made up from his party faithful.
"As if it’s not enough to have frequent cuts in wages and pensions, we have the destruction of dignity and life through the policies of the PSD/CDS government which insists on harming lives in the Algarve with the extortion of money from tolls to enrich private concessionaires," reads CUVI’s statement.
The protest group's management added, "Those who torment the lives of all of us, do not deserve to spend a restful vacation. Unless they stop ruining the lives of Portuguese they are not entitled to a decent break."