“Resignation. This word ultimately becomes the trigger of everything,” emphasizes Paula do Espírito Santo, professor of political science at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (ISCSP), at the University of Lisbon, justifying that “it is a new cycle, at the electoral level , but also a new phase in terms of electoral offer, as we now have a new coalition, somewhat renewed”.
Paula do Espírito Santos responded to the DN’s challenge to choose three words that summarize a whole year of cases, challenges, departures, replacements, parliamentary investigative committees, compensation and opacity.
‘Resignation’ therefore seems to be a direct reference to Prime Minister António Costa’s option to leave the government. At the time, on November 7, he claimed he had done this in a statement from the Public Prosecution Service in which he stated that his name appeared in a Public Prosecution Service indictment in which some people close to him were involved in cases related to lithium and hydrogen. But the prime minister himself was not accused. In any case, this was the stone in the pond that would move the water.
With the resignation of António Costa, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo, decided to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic and call new parliamentary elections for March 10, 2024. Now that the race to the polls is on the agenda, the same political actors are emerging, albeit with new alliances.
The ISCSP researcher recalled, when referring to the ‘retrofitted’ coalition, the Democratic Alliance, which already existed through the actions of Francisco Sá Carneiro, and which will now bring together PSD and CDS on the same side of the trench in the parliamentary elections. . However, a new fact also emerges: “it is not foreseeable that there will be an absolute majority, or at least conditions of governability that depend on arithmetic factors related to a single party”, emphasizes Paula do Espírito Santo. “In principle, negotiations will have to be conducted by one of the major parties,” he concludes.
The researcher warns “that we may now enter a phase of increased electoral supply and new challenges that could be posed to democracy, taking into account a hypothetical growth of Chega, which could make an important difference here, not only in the political game.” and parliamentary, but ultimately also at administrative level, if there is any opening on the part of the PSD.” With all this, Paula do Espírito Santo proposes to associate “resignation” with “the words instability and crisis.”
It is at this point that the researchers’ opinions overlap. “The instability hasn’t just started now with this problem with the Influencer operation [processo que levou à demissão do primeiro-ministro]’, argues André Freire, professor of political science at ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. “The instability started earlier, at the very beginning, in 2022, because with ministers suspected of corruption, cases of nepotism, clientelism, cronyism and the dismissal of state secretaries, there was instability that came from within” , he explains.
André Freira’s perspective comes together in this word and in all the consequences of the Prime Minister’s resignation with that of Paula do Espírito Santo. However, the ISCTE researcher’s highlight goes to an earlier phenomenon: “the absolute majority” achieved by António Costa. By choosing composite expressions, André Freire, in addition to the “absolute majority”, also emphasizes “influence trading” as one of the points that characterized the year.
“It is a suspicion expressed by the judiciary, but which had already been expressed in previous cases of instability,” he believes, adding that there is “a suspicion in the air of very easy relations with large companies, i.e. of facilitating, perhaps with good and justified reasons or noble intentions […] that the socialist government with an absolute majority is a friend of big business.’ ‘Of course a government must bring business and investment to the country, but if this is at the expense of the country being with low taxes for foreigners, but not for the Portuguese, and that we are willing to change our laws and our way of life, environmental protection and change other things that were created to attract these companies, we have a problem,” he warns.
As the last expression to appear as a result of a political year, André Freire proposes ‘salary devaluation’. “There were increases, sometimes above inflation, for the minimum wage and for the lowest wages, but the salaries of, for example, scientific and technical professions – which is the middle class – always rose below inflation. In my country this is This is called salary devaluation. Therefore, there is a sign here that you promise one thing and do another,” he concludes.
Source: DN
