Survey comes as PS Socialists vote for new leader to take party into legislative elections
By the end of this evening (see update below), the country will know which of the two main contenders for the next PS Socialist leader has ‘won’ in internal elections.
Opposition centre right parties are said to be keeping fingers crossed that party militants plump for the more ‘radical’ Pedro Nuno Santos, who has been likened in an opinion article today to Joe Biden (see below), as they believe he will be an easier adversary.
Fanning hopes could be reports coming in this afternoon suggesting that over 60% of Socialist party members who have voted so far have indeed favoured Mr Nuno Santos.
But step away from this hurly-burly of soundbites and one can see a definite ‘fatigue’ over the absolute majority government that ‘swept into power’ at the end of January last year.
SIC Notícias runs with the headline today, outlining the results of a street survey of people’s opinions, “Portuguese disgusted by the ‘little cases’ (meaning ‘scandals’) give politicians a message”.
The message is short and not in the least bit sweet: “This is rubbish (porcaria)”.
Says SIC, the majority of people questioned were not just heartily sick of their PS leaders, they were also disillusioned by “some of the positions taken by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa”.
The bottom line is that “the majority of people who agreed to answer questions consider that, in general, a political change is necessary”.
SIC continues, those questioned, in the main, pointed to various social areas that need improvements – top of the list being the management of the health sector, and the imbalance between the salaries that people earn and the rents they are expected to pay, in the face of inflation.
These opinions were collected on Wednesday evening in Algés.
One could argue that the people of Algés are not a convincing cross-section of society, but SIC stresses their opinions actually reinforce a recent poll undertaken by ICS/ISCTE for SIC and Expresso, that showed ‘everyday people’ rated the government of António Costa as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad.
“These negative perspectives have been increasing since 2019”, SIC recalls – with only 27% of Portuguese actually considering the performance of the government has been positive.
Of those, 26% rated the government’s performance as ‘good’, and 1% considered it was ‘very good’.
Thus, on that basis, whoever is voted in as Socialist party leader this evening, may have a very uphill struggle, even with the outgoing prime minister ‘fighting his corner’ during the campaign.
And this is where the ‘Joe Biden’ allusion comes in: acerbic leader writer João Pereira Coutinho in Nação Valente (Valiant Nation) has written in his column in Correio da Manhã today that António Costa is taking on Donald Trumpian characteristics while “Pedro Nuno Santos reminds us of Joe Biden”… Why? Well, according to Coutinho, Mr Costa has spent the last week declaring himself hard done by, and hurt, “blaming everyone for his misfortunes except himself”, while Pedro Nuno Santos is going into the elections for the leadership “with brief and disastrous appearances.
“I am not surprised that he refuse debates with his principal adversary”, says Coutinho. “This happened with Biden. There was the tacit understanding that the less he spoke, the better”.
The column explains perfectly why PSD social democrats – indeed all the right leaning parties – are hoping Mr Nuno Santos does indeed win tonight.
UPDATE 9.45pm: News bulletins are declaring Pedro Nuno Santos as the new leader of the PS Socialist party; the man to lead the PS into legislative elections on March 10.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
