The presidential race is well and truly on with the 10 candidates in the running to fill Cavaco’s “shoes” throwing mud at each other in shovel-loads.
Last night, on SIC television, Henrique Neto – the former Socialist minister and businessman to become the first official candidate (Independent) in March last year – blamed rival Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the man many believe will swan into Belém with barely a contest, for being “one of the people responsible for the destruction of Portugal”.
The long-term friend of former BES boss Ricardo Salgado and former PSD firebrand “should have had the courage” to denounce all manner of atrocities and business scandals via his weekly television appearances, claimed Neto, saying Marcelo’s qualities and intelligence “could have changed the country’s destiny”.
Stressing that the reason he (Neto) had decided to run for president was “to avoid that once again someone who is not equipped to be a good President of the Republic comes to political power in Portugal”, it was not an edifying moment for Marcelo, who nonetheless managed to insist that he had “exhausted himself” fighting “the vices of the system” over the years.
Elsewhere, candidates have been compared by age and experience: Left Bloc Euro MP Marisa Matias is many years younger and fresher faced than the only other female front-runner, former Socialist health minister Maria de Belém – and by how much they want to leave the Euro (that’s Edgard Silva, supported by the PCP communists), and he wants to leave it vehemently, as well as seeing Portugal quit NATO.
Presidential “election fever” continues today on national radio, with news services reminding us all that the last presidential elections “saw the highest level of abstention” ever.
None of the brouhaha however is expected to change perspectives, guarantees political commentator Luís Marques Mendes.
The only stumbling block to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s election as Portugal’s next president on January 24, he told SIC television news, will be abstention.
“If it is high, his position will be weaker”, if it is low, his chances are higher, and polls, affirms Marques Mendes, all point to the latter.
If the elections on January 24 are not conclusive, a second round of voting will take place in February.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
Photo: LUÍS FORRA/LUSA
