The next Portuguese president will have to be capable of uniting the community and moving from being a secondary figure to “the most prestigious figure in institutions,” according to political scientists interviewed by Lusa.
With just over a month to go before the country’s presidential elections, José Adelino Maltez points out that – unlike most races for the presidency in the history of Portuguese democracy, the outcome of which was relatively predictable – this time candidates “are very divided” and, for now, according to polls coming in thick and fast, none of them scoop beyond roughly 20% of voting intentions.
“This is a sign that (the next country’s president) will face an enormous challenge: to gain more support and be more consensual after being elected – and this is the main challenge…” Indeed, the president has to move from a secondary position (behind the prime minister) to “the most prestigious figure in the (country’s) institutions” – something CHEGA candidate André Ventura has already said is his goal…
Asked whether he thinks that past membership of political parties could be a disadvantage in achieving this broader consensus, Adelino Maltez said that this “has never been a handicap for any other of the country’s presidents”, stating that even António Ramalho Eanes, at the end of his term of office, “almost announced that he would join a party or found a party”.
Political scientist António Costa Pinto believes that it makes no sense to outline the characteristics that would be necessary for the president over the next five years – pointing out that the presidency office is a “single-person body,” whose style depends exclusively on the personality chosen by the Portuguese people to fill the position.
Noting that if the next President follows the model of previous heads of state – such as Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa or Jorge Sampaio – his main challenge will be to be a “guarantor of the Constitution”, Costa Pinto says that attributing characteristics such as “consensus builder” to him only makes sense in a “discursive and electoral dynamic”.
“What consensus did President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa achieve between the left and the right, beyond his speeches?” he queried. The notion of being a “bridge builder” is purely “an election campaign argument”, says the analyst.
António Costa Pinto also believes that the president has “great latitude for action”: “Imagine the radical right-wing political leader being elected president. The president has broad informal power. To give an example, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that presidents must hand in their party membership cards; there is nothing written that obliges them to do so,” he said.
Remaining on the theme of a right wing CHEGA president, Costa Pinto warns: “if Portugal one day has a president who is also the leader of an electorally dominant party, he will have ample capacity to change the nature” of the Portuguese system.
“This is neither dramatisation nor a threat. It is simply to say that Portugal is far from having experienced all the dimensions of the semi-presidential system.”
And if André Ventura did not already know this, one can safely surmise that he does now.
Source: LUSA
