Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português or PCP) Secretary-General Paulo Raimundo condemned the government's recently approved rental legislation, claiming the rules are tailored to benefit real estate investment funds. In a televised interview, Raimundo argued that demonstrators are taking to the streets due to severe cost-of-living pressures and depressed salaries rather than by choice. He also noted that the vast majority of housing protesters seek peaceful demonstrations to highlight their economic struggles.
Communist Leader Denounces New Rent Law as Landlord-Friendly
Saturday, 17 October 2026AI summary
Context & Explainers
Paulo Raimundo is the Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português or PCP), a position he has held since November 2022. He is a career politician and former trade unionist who succeeded Jerónimo de Sousa as the leader of the party.
The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP or Partido Comunista Português) is a Marxist‑Leninist party founded in 1921 out of the revolutionary trade‑union and anarcho‑syndicalist movement, becoming the Portuguese section of the Comintern in 1923. Banned after the 1926 coup, it went underground and became a central force of resistance to the Estado Novo dictatorship, organizing clandestine unions, anti‑fascist struggle and supporting the colonial liberation movements. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, the PCP was pivotal in land reform, nationalisations and embedding social rights in the 1976 Constitution, especially in the Alentejo and Setúbal regions where it has long been very strong.
Today the PCP is a smaller but still influential party rooted in the CGTP trade‑union confederation and local government, holding a handful of Assembly seats and one MEP in the Left group. It advocates a “patriotic and left‑wing alternative”: defence of workers’ rights, public services and national sovereignty, strong criticism of EU and NATO constraints, and support for socialist countries and anti‑imperialist causes.
