The already tense atmosphere surrounding next month’s presidential elections received a new frisson of alarm yesterday when it became clear that ballot papers have been printed with the names of three candidates currently excluded from the process.
What this means is that voters could (conceivably) put their ‘crosses’ by these candidates’ names on January 18 – rendering their trip to the polling station a complete waste of time.
PS candidate António José Seguro has been among the first to criticise the fiasco (which arises from habitual confusion between the Ministry of Interior Administration, which prints the ballot papers, and the Constitutional Court, which decides whether or not candidates fulfill all the necessary requirements to run for President of the Republic).
The argument that ‘this has happened before’ cut no ice with Seguro who insists that state entities need to learn from mistakes of the past, not perpetuate them.
As he pointed out, “this decision is likely to mislead voters” – which is the last thing he as the PS candidate needs, as the PS party is already worried that the plethora of left-wing candidates could mean that voters ‘spread their votes’ around, with the end result that no left-winger will make it into the second round.
Leader of PS Socialists, José Luís Carneiro, has actually appealed to all the other candidates of the left – meaning Catarina Martins (Bloco de Esquerda), António Filipe (PCP communists), Jorge Pinto (LIVRE) and André Pestana (trade unionist) – to ‘desist’, so that the PS candidate has a fighting chance.
“The merit, respectability, and legitimacy of all the other candidacies to the left of the Socialist Party are not in question,” he said. “But it is evident to everyone that only one candidacy has the conditions to go to the second round and, once again, I appeal to the other candidates to consider supporting António José Seguro’s candidacy, as it is the only one that can go to the second round.”
Meantime, the question ‘how could ballot papers be so badly organised?’ has met with fairly curmudgeonly responses: the Constitutional Court says it was simply doing its job: ‘the task of printing ballot papers lies with the Ministry of Internal Administration’. The Ministry is keeping a low profile – but the National Elections Commission has stressed there is no way out of the mess: the ballot papers have been printed in time for ‘early voting/ voting of Portuguese overseas’ and that is essentially that.
Adding to the general confusion is the fact that the ‘excluded candidates’ are not pleased that they have been excluded – and are appealing: which means one, two or even three may ‘be successful’ and be reinstated; in which case, voters could end up being even more confused.
Bottom line: this is a very Portuguese story – and one that most voters appear to be taking in their strides.
There are now only 20 more days to go before the first round of voting (unlikely to see any candidate scoop the required 50% of the vote). The question hanging in the air is ‘what next?’
sources: LUSA/ SIC/ Correio da Manhã
