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Socialist Party accuses ruling coalition of "threatening" Portugal's social model

Xinhua, September 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The leader of Portugal's Socialist Party, Antonio Costa, on Sunday accused the ruling coalition of "threatening" Portugal's social model and crushing the weak through the justice system.

He pointed out that it was essential to defend the national health service, access to public education and a public pension scheme, according to Portuguese Lusa News Agency.

"The right-wing coalition's hidden objective is to privatize revenue from social security, transfer fundamental resources to private education and divert resources from the national health service to finance private medicine and break up the public system" Costa said during a visit to a hospital in Covilha, around 270 km north from Lisbon.

Portugal has been implementing heavy cuts in areas like public health and education under a 78-billion-euro bailout program the country signed in 2011 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Socialist party, which is running almost neck-and-neck according to recent polls, has held a strong anti-austerity stance, while promising to stick with fiscal discipline and create jobs.

The Portuguese elections take place on October 4. Endit