On the eve of the end of the campaign for local councils, Pedro Nuno (PNS), for whom I have personal esteem, dedicated a post on social media to Alexandra Leitão, expressing his support for Sunday’s dispute. A text with the expected reproaches to the Mephistophelian Carlos Moedas and the predictable homages to his former parliamentary leader, one of the main responsible, remember, for the strategic seppuku that relegated the PS to third force in the Assembly of the Republic.
At the outset, like most typical harangues before going to the polls, when so-and-so remembers to notice City and the World how remarkable Beltrano is, the publication would have everything to be a yawn. However, and to be fair, PNS suffers from other ailments that disable (and disable) him from being leader of a party in power, but the annoyance is something that the former socialist general secretary is unlikely to offer us.
In its eagerness to ask for a concentration of votes in Leitão, to prevent Lisbon from having a president who governs “only for a few”, PNS said it had “a lot of respect for the PCP”, noted that Paulo Raimundo’s party was proposed to “work together in defining the electoral program for the city” – all that was left to repeat was that João Ferreira was invited to be number two in the coalition – and pulled from the bogeyman of the “social recomposition underway” in the city to predict that this could perhaps be “the last opportunity” to stop the departure of young people from Lisbon. Until 2021, we know well, the capital not only retained its greatest talents but also managed to seduce the best under-35s on the planet. All thanks to the vision, bold policies and even the charm of António Costa and Fernando Medina, but forward.
To stop Moedas, he said, and even if communists don’t like the concept and effect of useful voting, PNS considers there is only one hypothesis: voting massively for that frankenstein frankenstein in which democratic socialists amalgamate, for pleasure or subjection, with apostles of Mr. Tavares, shipwrecked revolutionaries and endangered animalists. Things are what they are and pragmatism is beautiful, PNS likes it and, always carrying it in its pocket, it even considers itself to be a spokesperson for good lefties: “The worst thing that could happen to the PCP was for the Viver Lisboa coalition to lose, to Moedas, by fewer votes than those that the PCP and João Ferreira will have. The left-wing electorate in Lisbon would not forgive the PCP.”
More surprising than the argument – parroted, in fact, by commentators close to PNS – is the uncontained alternative somewhere in the middle of the prose: contrary to what happens in legislative elections, highlighted the emeritus leader of bourgeois frontism, in local elections it is the mayor who is “the one who has the most votes”. Something that will only change by changing the electoral system for local power and this, condemns the former PS leader, the PCP does not want.
The subtext is all too evident: the country has moved drastically to the right and for a handful of votes AD or Chega could govern several local authorities. Therefore, PNS wants to be able to imitate the move, as legitimate as it was opportunistic, by António Costa in 2015 on a municipal scale. The suggestion, I am sure, implicitly implies the imposition of limits on the PSD, CDS and Liberal Initiative in the name, of course, of the health of our democracy. Such limits, by divine right and with media blessing, will not apply to the PS, which will be able to collude with whoever it wants – from the moral heirs of the bloodiest regimes to fervent supporters of terrorist groups, as well as professionals promoting social upheavals (some with regular seats in television studios).
In the current context, while it is clear that local authorities need profound reforms, if the democratic right gives in to a similar delusion and falls into this trap, there is one of two paths. Hypothesis a): Accepts being removed from power by skilled workers and local contraptions. Hypothesis b): Rejects the duality of criteria and puts white paint over the red lines. For political suicides, the ones we have seen recently are enough. Like PNS and your PS.
Communication consultant