Rua Pascoal de Melo, Lisbon, 7:30 AM. The HR manager who, because he was “very different from the stereotype” of the company, took SONAE to a Halloween party and samba school in Carnival and who later that afternoon would eat a slice of bolo for the first time in Arruda dos Vinhos -rei, arrived at the agreed place, Padaria Portuguesa, for breakfast.
Gray suit, white shirt, black backpack on his back, blue suitcase in his left hand – which would accompany him almost all day – Rui Rocha, with a somewhat hurried step, leaves his “things” on the esplanade and takes his place in the queue of customers. The silence that was continues. No one seems to recognize the leader of the Liberal Initiative. Even the photos Leonardo Negrão took of him did not change his indifference. No curiosity.
The “insurgent”, who now has no time for blogs, but where he recorded the phrase – “The pandemic can be an opportunity for Portuguese agriculture” – by the minister, the then Maria do Céu Albuquerque and the current Maria do Céu Antunes , who consider ” without a doubt a nullity so that it could even be the only one to escape … the rest are completely devastated by Galamba”, he says “shy”, but nothing like he was: “I have already evolved a lot “.
But neither there nor on the bus, number 706, which we were to catch shortly afterwards, did we feel much of the evolution. Not even later, at the end of the day, in Arruda dos Vinhos, crossing the medieval fair three times.
What has changed in Rui Rocha’s life? “The most radical change was not the leadership, it was more the candidacy for deputy [por Braga] and then the elections. Then the one who probably had a more complicated period was my daughter. Both my wife and my eldest son were already in Lisbon. My wife [que dali a momentos haveria de chegar] she is a teacher, she couldn’t find a job in Braga, it’s one of those cases where she went all over the country. My son has already studied here, at Técnico. The youngest was the one who was very used to her father. And her father came to Lisbon the year she went to university in Porto”. How is family life arranged? “Braga… we use the house in Braga to get together on weekends. We insist, I do”. And how many years of marriage? Rui Rocha laughs, hesitates for a moment and the calculations begin in his head: “So… wedding 26… more… it’s 35.. it’s 35 between dating and marriage”. Are you sure? The laugh is immediate: “I have…”.
The phone rings. Rui Rocha had barely touched the orange juice, sandwich, and coffee.
– “How are you, daughter? Did you wake up well?”.
For a few minutes, the conversation turns to the day’s agenda and the return to Braga “around two in the morning”. New call. “It’s the morning calls,” he explains.
– “You have to… yes, yes… it is after Portugália… that… there is a Pingo Doce… Almirante Reis, yes… it goes down”.
WhatsApp ringtone won’t stop. “It’s always pumping. What you’ll hear during the day is the notifications always pumping. Today [o telemóvel] it started pumping at 7:30 a.m. because of the polls: IL growth, we’re up half a point… the leader with the best evaluation… good news. Calling… isn’t used much anymore”.
We return to the conversation about what has changed. “I love Lisbon, I’m not that kind of rivalry between cities. I love Lisbon, I always have. My life is relatively simple: I take the 706 here and 20 minutes later I’m in the Assembly. First I brought a car, but then I left it behind”. Why? “It made me a bad person in the middle of this. The traffic, the parking that doesn’t park, the confusion. I prefer public transportation.”
Moments later, the conversation “it’s next to Portugália” is decoded. Adélia, in jeans and denim jacket, arrives smiling. “It’s my wife,” says Rui Rocha. “I’m totally confused… I wasn’t planning to come,” says the wife of the IL leader who “didn’t think, I had no idea it would change our lives like that. It changed, it changed a lot. You know, we are a fashionable couple of old… we started dating in 1988 and we were always together…”.
Rui Rocha gets up and goes to get coffee. Her husband’s “embarrassment” is not at all in Adélia who speaks of “calling all the time”; from colleagues from the conservatory and the university of applied sciences who ‘were already nice, but then [da eleição para líder] increased. And I didn’t like it”; the “time” when in restaurants “recognize him”; the “time they congratulate him and me” or “when I’m in the supermarket, when we go shopping, I hear people talking about the moult. They don’t know who I am and I hear everything.” And he laughs.
08:50
The bus journey takes 24 minutes. “Silence. This is the atmosphere. I don’t know why. I was never approached on the bus, on the metro, yes. Sometimes I meet Pedro Filipe Soares from BE who enters Rato”. Do they talk? “We don’t do much, but it’s not for anything special. We’re as cordial as in parliament. Marta Temido… I think she uses the subway… there near Avenidas Novas, I caught her from time to time”.
We talk low. Rui Rocha explains to me that he is “a very intuitive type”, that “he is not yet” in 706 “caught in any political urgency”, and that “it is important to react quickly to events, he sets the tone of the reactions of the rest [partidos]”. And that lunch with Luís Montenegro? “There was no message other than the open line of communication”. Was the photo worth more? “Yes, I think it applies in this case”. pre-election coalitions”. That’s all? “Either we have the ambition to change, or it is a waste of time”. And of course, he explains, there is a “clear” certainty: “We are putting proposals, the principles of state reform. And yes, it is more right-wing things. In social and political freedoms … we are already in the areas of the most left-wing parties”. Red lines? “I don’t get along with parties that can handle the PCP. It’s the same vehemence as with Chega”.
We arrived at the parliament. Rui Rocha rushes in. A few minutes later there is a meeting with the “communications team who start sharing the news of the day from 7am”. They speak of the “declarations of the [deputada] Joana Cordeiro that worked beautifully”, the problem of vaccines that is a “conflict between the ministers of health and finance”, the military programming law that displeases the “source of Belém” [e riem-se] – Rui Rocha scoffs at the “official entity to exonerate ministers” -, of “Costa e Silva, the minister who is definitely not a socialist”, of Chega who is already going down “in two polls in a row”, and of the “strategy not to abandon the theme of the degradation of functioning institutions”.
“Anyway”, emphasizes Rui Rocha, “at some point we have to put the note of the alternative”. When? “The discourse of degradation applies until the end of the CPI. Then we move on to concrete proposals, the alternative. Turning the discourse around from the parliamentary days [final de junho]”. All agree.
And what’s left? A certainty fell. The IL leader, on the 2nd, “bet everything that Galamba would not succeed[va] of the 6th”. It passed.
Minutes later, the plenary on Friday – voting day. Ten in the morning and practically a desert of deputies. Slowly the room is “tidied up”. There is more noise from conversations than officers and interventions are barely audible. Rui Rocha goes in and out of the plenary. At the time of the polls there were 202. In the “fumódromo” already after 12:30, after the polls that ended earlier, there are people who are “outraged” because they are “missed” for being late.
1:45 PM
It’s ten o’clock at lunchtime. They say they go to “Conforto” often. This is followed by a new meeting, reduced to four elements, to prepare the visit to the WYD site. “We are two months further, it seems to be a moment when everything is not properly arranged,” says Rui Rocha. The Chief of Staff explains the “central” themes: mobility, health and safety.
The communication advisor, who would act as driver, prepares contacts with journalists. “All forewarned” but only RTP, who made a six-minute live, and Lusa appear. During the journey, which lasted 34 minutes, themes that could possibly be discussed are memorized. And they did. It was predictable. However, the “media space still does not match the electoral value of the party,” complains Rui Rocha.
Next program? Creation plenary assembly of the territorial core of Arruda dos Vinhos. It is not until 6:54 pm that Rui Rocha, already close to the medieval fair, is recognized in the street. Is it annoying not to be recognized? “It is a road to be taken, there are only 4 months to go. There is a fame to be conquered”.
On the way to the “plenum” – there were 15 people – four women strike up a conversation. They offer king cake. However, none of them know who the man really is. “The face is not strange to me,” says Adélia. “Look, I’m at home, my wife’s name is also Adélia,” Rui Rocha replies. But it is more they who speak. The IL leader barely speaks, smiles “shyly” and eats a piece of king’s cake for the first time in his life: “It’s better than I thought”.
Source: DN
