A “browser” with “a faulty engine” that has become “commonplace” and blamed for “instability”

January 24, 2016. Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vows to do everything “to unite what the economic cycle divides” and warns that the country “coming out of a deep economic and social crisis cannot afford to waste energy and feed unnecessary and counterproductive tensions “.

Second promise: “I will have the relationship between all Portuguese, build bridges, heal wounds, bring positions closer”.

And then a call: “The closer we are, the stronger we will be in fighting injustice and promoting credibility and hope for the future.”

2,411,925 Portuguese had just voted for Marcelo. The remaining nine candidates received a total of 2,328,633 votes. Five million Portuguese did not vote this Sunday.

Marcelo left that night a warning that there was only one way out, a “clear option” for the country: “either we grow economically in a sustainable way, create social justice, fight exclusion, poverty and inequality, while moralizing public life and curb corruption, or we will only contribute to exacerbating social tensions and political radicalism.”

2558 days later – and after living with a single prime minister amidst crises, warnings, early elections, “business and affairs” and resignations of ministers and secretaries of state – what has changed in these seven years? What became clear from the first to the second term?

“It is very ambitious. It wants to have a place in the history of the country and in the collective memory of the Portuguese.” Thus, Viriato Soromenho-Marques fits in the first and second term of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in Belém. To whom he recognizes “a personality of great independence towards parties and external forces”.

The university professor understands that the support of the “fragile” government, the thing according to the parliamentary agreement with the PCP and BE, was done in the first term in this “vision of national interest, far beyond its partisan origins and contributed to the Executive with a positive performance”.

Already in this second term, marked by the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and the resulting absolute majority of the PS and successive affairs and affairs in government, Viriato Soromenho-Marques believes that the criticism that can be leveled at the Belém’s tenant is that of “verbal incontinence”. “At this critical stage, it is proving difficult to distinguish the normal remark from the serious warning. It would be important to use the word sparingly,” he emphasises.

Viriato Soromenho-Marques recalls that the 1982 constitutional revision eliminated the possibility of presidential initiative governments, which “was very useful at the time”. “The president of the republic has a huge responsibility, more than power: right now, the president of the republic is not the problem the country has, but he also doesn’t have the ability to be the solution,” he says.

And he establishes an analogy: “Marcelo is a navigator in a storm, who has the rudder in his hands, but the engine is broken. He sails but needs someone in the engine room to fix the engine”. For what he sees as unpredictable what will happen over the next three years and the final years of his mandate.

José Adelino Maltez reinforces the idea of ​​the “President of affection”, who “chose instead of remaining silent to provoke the people and integrate them into the system with a good heart”. Marcelo’s attitude changes between the first and second terms, he says, stem from “this very high temperature” that he has to maintain and in which opinion polls influence his behavior”.

The political scientist admits that despite the absolute socialist majority, Marcelo could achieve the dissolution of parliament for the second time. “It is impossible to predict why all confidence in the government, in the parties and in the opposition began to burn.”

This second mandate in Belém is rocked by great instability, he says, and “we are in a moment of structural uncertainty”.

Adelino Maltez also draws a parallel with navigation, this time with the naval battle game. “A government is seen as a game of naval battle. When the aircraft carriers explode [leia-se, por exemplo ministro das Finanças] there is a practical condemnation,” he says, could lead Marcelo to harden his position.

And the politicians?

João Torres, Joint Secretary General of the Socialists, says the seven-year “evaluation” is “positive”, underlining that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as president, “has contributed to a positive context of dialogue and institutional cooperation”.

“The PS believes that the presidential mandates of Professor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa have at all times accompanied the essential concerns of the Portuguese and have made a decisive contribution to bringing citizens closer to politics, as we have emphasized in recent years” , he adds. .

Margarida Balseiro Lopes, Vice-President of the PSD, emphasizing the “proximity” that Marcelo has established with the Portuguese, an “important” fact to “humanize the political”, says that there is “institutional cooperation” but that “the government cannot complain about the president, but the president, especially lately, has many reasons to complain about the government”.

Marcelo’s biggest “intervention”, “this vigilante role”, is justified because “there are so many cases” and “the chaos in the government”. And even more, he says, because “that guarantee from Costa that an absolute majority would not be absolute power has disappeared”. What “appears to exist is a certain sense of impunity” and an “open war in the government for succession in the PS, ministers against ministers, contradictions, they say one thing today and another tomorrow”.

And, he adds, a “parliamentary steamroller” that “fails and ignores the vast majority of opposition proposals”.

Paulo Raimundo, Secretary General of the PCP, for his part, believes that “more than a concrete assessment of the exercise of the mandate, what matters is that it develops into what is feasible in terms of defending, fulfilling and upholding the Constitution of the Republic and its role in defending national interests and sovereignty”.

Pedro Filipe Soares, parliamentary leader of the BE, more critically, blamed Marcelo for what is happening in the country today, because, he believes, “the mandate of the President of the Republic is inevitably marked by the contribution to the instability that the country is. The crisis policy, provoked by the Socialist Party and stimulated by the statements of the President of the Republic, led the country to an absolute majority that promised stability”.

Only, he adds, “what we are witnessing today is quite the opposite: the instability of the government itself, adding case after case, adds instability to the lives of those who work and see their wages swallowed up by inflation”.

André Ventura, leader of Chega, argues that “the performance of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa” with “constant interventions in the public space on the most diverse themes” has trivialized the president’s word and taken away power from what would be a voice of authority should be , determination and stability” at a time when “we are seeing a government falling apart and deteriorating day by day”.

And then the criticism: “We have had a president who is always ready to lend a hand to the prime minister and the socialist party, and little oversight of the government’s actions, which is bad for democracy”.

Inês Sousa Real, leader of the PAN, says that Marcelo “despite saying that he does not intend to be a factor of instability for the country, it is inevitable to look at 2021 and not assume that the fact that the government has been dissolved, it hastened.” , claiming that the country could not wait for a state budget, which would only take effect at the end of June 2022, especially given the current situation of political instability”.

“The mandate of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (…) is still dominated by the trip to Qatar or less cheerful statements about the abuses committed within the Catholic Church (…) and the failure to do things such as the environment ( .. .) and also in terms of animal protection, we do not understand the near absence of references in the president’s speech,” he emphasizes.

Rui Tavares, from Livre, says that if in the first term “Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa showed that he was able to follow the novelty of the Contraption with understanding and a sense of impartiality”, in this second term “the task is much more difficult, under an absolute majority of the PS that is more unstable than the two previous governments of the same party and a right increasingly co-opted by its extreme”.

Translation? There is “a crisis of democratic representation, due to the polarization and imbalances in the system, especially when the old center parties are co-opted by an authoritarian far right”.