Another mass police protest called for Terreiro do Paço in Lisbon on Monday evening morphed into a ‘spontaneous picketing’ of the final election debate, held at the nearby Capitólio theatre.
Hundreds of police who had taken part in the protest moved on to the picketing effort, which stayed in place throughout the hour and a half-plus that the leaders of PS Socialists and PSD Social Democrats faced off in front of the nation’s three main television channels.
This was an ‘impromptu’ demo that, as such, had ‘no authorisation’. The hundreds that took part could conceivably find themselves cited for a crime of disobedience, an official PSP source has been quoted as saying, but the likelihood of this happening in the circumstances seems remote.
The reality is that police fury at the form in which the government has dealt with their grievances is at a supremely delicate point. The European federation has stepped in (see story below) calling for guarantees the iniquities will be addressed, while the National Union of Police Officers (SNOP) has published an Open Letter warning of the collapse of the country’s public security police force due to chronic lack of investment and foresight on the part of authorities.
The way in which political power has handled the police force has led to “unattractiveness of the profession” and a “deplorable state” of vehicles, facilities and equipment.
“The collapse is right in front of our eyes,” says the text, entitled “Security is Portugal’s ‘oil’”. Thus, police “will not stop” in their demands which go beyond the current ‘hot potato’ (a risk subsidy approved for Polícia Judiciária counterparts, leaving other security forces ‘out in the cold’).
SNOP wants “an in-depth discussion about the level of investment and funding (necessary) to keep the country’s security forces working properly”.
Describing what it dubs the “miserly management of security forces”, the union adds that “investment in a security force like the PSP, with almost 5,000 vehicles, 400 facilities and an innumerable ‘stock’ of technical and operational equipment, amounts to no more than €13 million a year, or less than 2% of the (State) budget (…)
“Little more than a fifth of the amount approved by the Council of Ministers is actually dedicated to facilities, vehicles and equipment of the security forces, and this is where the truth lies. That’s why you can see the deplorable state everything is in. No institution can function with this financial structure,” says the letter, which also refers to the suicide rate among police being “almost double that of the general population”.
Add to this the aging of the force. SNOP’s letters warns: “In five years’ time, 34% of police officers will meet the requirements for pre-retirement. The scenario is all the more worrying when the results of the last four recruitment drives for entry into the career show that the Portuguese police will face a serious threat to its readiness and operational effectiveness by failing to replace, complete and rejuvenate police numbers, as had been planned.”
All in all, decision makers have a lot of decision making to do to placate these angry men and women charged with the security of the nation once the razzmatazz of electioneering is over and a new government is in place.
