🇵🇹 Portugal's politics and elections 3.0

[Velasco]

Claiming that "We Are Madeira" resembles a bit the Canary Coalition slogans. The posters of the parties left of the centre look incredibly boring, saving the PAN (claiming that you make a difference sounds like a good slogan to me)

[Velasco]

Claiming that "We Are Madeira" resembles a bit the Canary Coalition slogans. The posters of the parties left of the centre look incredibly boring, saving the PAN (claiming that you make a difference sounds like a good slogan to me)

Maybe it resembles the CC slogans, but, in my opinion, it resembles a lot the 2002 PSD slogan "We are all Portugal" (Somos Todos Portugal). The PAN slogan is quite ironic because the slogan may say "The vote that makes the difference", and in fact the party had many "differences" as the former main candidate was "fired" by the national party leadership and then he even threatened to go to the Courts and block PAN from running. It ended in nothing, from what I'm aware, and the only one still in danger is CHEGA.

Lol. The irony is not intentional, of course. It's not like they're saying: "we make the difference and we don't care to say that we have differences as well"

[Velasco]

I tend to disbelieve conspiracy theories,  but this "embarrasing error" in conjunction with the far-right rise don't promise well for Portugal and its political system. In order to form government after elections, what do you think is the likeliest outcome among the avalaible alternatives?

[Velasco]

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The outcome of the election is wide open, although the two candidates for the PS leadership have different approaches. like I wrote in my reply to VPH: If Pedro Nuno Santos (PNS) wins the leadership, we will have a clear dispute between the right and left blocks, with the PS probably not supporting any kind of PSD minority, or the PSD not supporting a PS minority. Carneiro is rejecting deals with PCP and BE and is open to deals with the PSD. A PS win with a rightwing majority, could force Montenegro to leave the leadership, and, who knows, bring the return of Passos Coelho, this, of course, if Montenegro doesn't eat his "own words" and accepts forming a government anyway. A PSD win with a leftwing majority seems very unlikely, while if the PS wins and has a majority with the leftwing parties, a remake of the "Geringonça" will be an almost certainty.

From all the possible scenarios you outlined, a PS plurality with a right-wing majority seems very plausible. As for the return of Passos Coelho, I'm trying to imagine a Rajoy or Aznar comeback to lead a PP-VOX coalition government. Certainly it'd be a legitimate government, but also a dystopia for me. Regarding Passos Coelho, is the father of austerity in Portugal popular nowadays?

[Velasco]

With the political crisis of two weeks ago, the NHS crisis continues. This week, more hospitals will have constrains in emergency services. Hospitals are warning people to avoid going to an emergency room unless the medical condition is very critical, advising, instead, to contact the SNS24 medical line or call 112 (the Portuguese 911).

In case your condition is not very critical but you need primary care, is there a network of health centres in Portugal?

[Velasco]

Why didn’t Salazar develop a cult of personality like Franco anyway? Is it just that he didn’t represent the winning side of a brutal civil war, or was it something about his rule? Tbh I get the impression that Salazar was a fundamentally boring man with zero interest in ideology who would’ve been equally happy to spend his life as a paper-pushing civil servant, but I’m not sure how accurate that is.

Salazar was deeply Catholic and, from what I've read about it, he viewed cults of personality as a "pagan" thing and ran way from that kind of stuff. But, of course, his image was used abundantly by the regime as propaganda and fear. The story of the "Salazar Bridge" is actually funny: Salazar didn't liked the idea of building a bridge, as it would cost a lot of money, but, because it was overwhelmingly financed by foreign banks, he conceded. When the bridge opened, it was named after him, something he didn't liked at all, and until the revolution, the bridge was mostly known as the "Bridge over the Tagus", despite the official name being Salazar.

Also, his own party, the National Union, was much more a section of the government rather than a political movement, as it didn't had any power at all. I wouldn't say he didn't had any interest in ideology, as he was strongly anti-Communist and anti-Liberalism, but he was mostly a tecnocrat, deeply humble to an unhealthy degree, but with tough political positions.

Franco once advised someone; "act like me; don't get involved in politics". I don't know if the quote is apocryphal or
it's literal, but anyway it's often mentioned to illustrate Franco's political persona. Anti-communism, illiberalism, fanatic catholicism and alleged apolitical stance are common characteristics of Franco and Salazar that basically define right-wing reactionaries. Leaving aside that Franco won a civil war (Spain's democratic and left-wing factions fought for nearly 3 years against fascist and reactionary forces), Franco was also extremely boring and uncharismatic, more akin to Salazar than to Hitler or Mussolini. Anyway Franco won some aura during the Moroccan wars in the 1920s (his enemies said he had 'baraka', that is to say, he was said to be a lucky and almost undestructible man)

[Velasco]

Last night I watched Antonio Costa in TV (Spain's news channel 24h made a coverage of Portuguese elections). He said the PS would analyze whether the Chega vote is structiral or circumstancial. Regardless of whether he and his government have made mistakes, Costa is a good politician. In my opinion he is a victim of intolerable lawfare. Fighting corruption is moral and neccessary ; using the judiciary for political purposes leads to disaffection and the rise of demagogic far-right populists.

It's amazing the fragmentation of the left in Portugal, even though this isn't anything new. Right now there are four tiny and ineffective forces (BE, CDU, Livre, PAN) getting ar12% of the vote together. Seemingly the Spanish left is following the same path and we are already anticipating a disastrous performance in the upcoming EP elections