As always, the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) has invited the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to the 50th edition of its annual Festa do Avante! cultural and political festival. The PFLP is officially designated as a terrorist organization by the Jewish State, European Union, and the United States, as it has a history of violent militancy, airplane hijackings, and rejected the Oslo peace process.
The PCP maintains relations with groups it views as "anti-colonial resistance movements". PFLP representatives have actually been invited to the Festa do Avante! for decades. This time, the political party Iniciativa Liberal (IL) took formal steps by demanding an investigation by Portuguese judicial authorities, including the National Counterterrorism Unit, to look into the financing, logistics, and legality of hosting the group.
The festival serves as a highly partisan communist political rally and cultural festival. It functions as the PCP’s primary political rentrée (the reopening of the political season). Guests frequently include organizations like Spain's Izquierda Unida, Cuba's Communist Party, and various Palestinian political factions.
Leaders of the PS, PSD, and other political parties usually attend the three-day event at Quinta da Atalaia. They visit for its massive cultural, gastronomic, and musical programming, which features prominent Portuguese and international artists across many genres.
While the political programming and institutional guest lists are strictly communist and left-wing, the festival itself is physically open to anyone who purchases an entry ticket.
The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) is ideologically opposed to "capitalism" and is fiercely critical of the Jewish state. As a traditional Marxist-Leninist party, the PCP frames both capitalism and the geopolitical actions of Israel through the lens of class struggle and anti-imperialism.
Portugal, a country founded by Jews and Christians has been in the wake of Marxist-Leninists for decades. Under longtime leader Álvaro Cunhal, the party strongly aligned with Moscow and backed the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Portuguese Communist Party refused to change its foundational Marxist-Leninist identity or rebrand itself as a modern social democratic party.
