The prince charming of the presidential elections begins to lose its shine. The dream of walking on a red carpet to the throne of Bethlehem fades away, becoming more distant every day. Gouveia e Melo lost its aura. He didn’t miss the speech because, in truth, he never had it. In this painful awakening from the dream, what has always been latent is being revealed: a disturbing incoherence and an authoritarian nature, now exposed in inelegant attacks against opponents and against the political system itself — the same thing that the Constitution enshrines and protects.
With the municipal cycle over, attention turns to the January presidential elections. The wide avenue along which Gouveia e Melo imagined walking begins to narrow dangerously. The political positioning he tries to construct adds so many contradictions that it leaves the electorate astonished. The question is repeated, from north to south: after all, who is Gouveia e Melo?
Let’s start with the inconsistencies. The admiral presented himself as “the only independent candidate”, accusing the parties of wanting to transform the presidential elections into a second round of the legislative elections. However, in his own pre-campaign, he confessed to having voted for PS and PSD, calling these same parties and their voters to his battlefield. He also suggested that figures like Luís Marques Mendes or António José Seguro, having led parties, could never be independent or impartial. By their own logic, they would be ineligible. And yet, its model president is Mário Soares – precisely the greatest symbol of a party and an era.
The contradiction also extends to its sudden anti-system vocation. Gouveia e Melo wanted to play the role of the outsider, the new man who comes from outside, a pure product of merit and independence. But the truth is that his recent career belies the narrative: he became Chief of Staff of the Navy through the current system, benefiting from it across the board. In an attempt to appropriate the banner of “the people against the system”, he clashed with André Ventura, the commander-in-chief of this armada of discontented people. In desperation, he had lunch with the far-right leader to try to get closer, but the meeting ended in failure. Since then, he has oscillated between anti-system and pro-immigration, in an erratic speech that convinces neither the angry nor the moderate.
Meanwhile, even the small electoral niches from which I hoped to collect crumbs are beginning to disappear. Catarina Martins, António Filipe and Cotrim de Figueiredo suck up what little is left, taking away its possibilities.
Faced with the loss of ground, the admiral now seems to slip back into his authoritarian streak — the same one he revealed when he publicly reprimanded the sailors, in a scene carefully prepared for the cameras. The personal attack directed at Luís Marques Mendes, whom he called “the president of a dangerous oligarchy”, reflects a worrying lack of democratic culture and respect for the elementary rules of political debate. And, in the end, this will be what will sink him even further in the polls. Mendes, for his part, maintained the serenity that characterizes him and responded as someone who knows he doesn’t need to descend to the same level: “I’m not going to mischaracterize myself, I’m not going to say bad things about anyone, I’m not going to campaign for the negative”. A lesson in restraint and dignity – virtues that, it seems, the admiral has not yet learned to navigate.
Professor