Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has asked the people to help him out with “good ideas for the country”.
The call to come up with ideas to improve Portugal’s social and political life and counteract the crisis has appeared on the Government’s new Facebook page O Meu Movimento (My Movement) which was launched at the beginning of the year.
“We are undertaking important changes in Portugal and it is important that, during this period, we can open up and widen democratic debate and this can’t be done without the participation of all citizens,” says the Prime Minister in a short video clip published on Monday on the Facebook page.
Pedro Passos Coelho explains that the initiative means that anyone with good ideas for the country can disseminate them on the Government’s site where they can be discussed, even with the Prime Minister, since the authors of the idea with the most votes will have the right to an audience with the head of government.
On the government’s website Governo de Portugal, any citizen can defend a cause and, since its launch, 285 causes have been submitted, with ‘Sérgio’s Cause for the Abolition of Bull Fighting’ so far garnering the most votes with 3,500.
The ‘In Defence of Visual and Technological Education’ cause is the second on the list with 2,196 votes.
Other popular causes include ‘School is to Teach; Family is to Educate’ and ‘In Favour of Bullfighting. I want to be a Bullfighter.’
“I’m really proud to see the growing enthusiasm for the new site,” says the Prime Minister on the video, stressing that the “idea is to make the most of new information technology to launch movements nationwide.”
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