There are candidates who emerge with books, manifestos, in-depth interviews, political theses and long meditations on the state of the nation. And then there is José Seguro, who appears… himself. No annexes, no literary supplement, no strategic thinking appendix — just the promise that, if you haven’t written anything about the country yet, it’s because you’re saving the best for the big moment. Or maybe because you prefer not to ruin the surprise.
The path that led him to the presidential race is so peculiar that it deserves an exhibition in a museum: “From Political Youth to Programmatic Silence — 40 years of continuous movement”. Seguro spent his entire life within the political system, to the point that some observers believe that, if we open a drawer in any office in São Bento, we will find a file with his name. Not because it was hidden — but because it was always there, as discreetly as it was permanent.
There are those who say, with humor, that Seguro almost denied being on the left — but only almost, because nothing in his career was radical, abrupt or dramatic. Seguro is more a fan of “let’s see what happens”, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves” and “it may be left-wing, but what’s the question?”. It’s an ideological flexibility that would make an Olympic gymnast jealous.
There are also those who remember, always in a satirical tone, his famous academic-political journey: from ISCTE to international relations, in one of those elegant movements that only those who know how to retreat with style can execute. It’s not an escape; It’s a strategic pirouette. Portuguese public life is grateful for variety.
Then there is the title “teacher”. Nothing more Portuguese than this: if someone teaches two classes, they are already a teacher; if he gives three lectures, he is “Mister Professor”; and if you have a decade of political career, then you can be everything at the same time — deputy, professor, honorary status, commentator if necessary. Seguro follows this great national tradition with distinction.
But the most deliciously satirical part of his career is his frequent statement that he “has been out of politics” for the last decade. Now, this is similar to a fish saying that it “has been away from the sea”: it can swim deeper, it can avoid the surface, but the ocean is always there. Safe may have been less visible, less talked about, less tested—but always within the ecosystem that nurtured it from its youth. It’s one of those rare cases where being “out of politics” means just being… behind the scenes with low lights.
And now we arrive at the presidential candidacy. Not accompanied by a book, nor a major published programmatic vision, nor even a conceptual sketch on a coffee napkin. It arrives like this: pure, light, silent, almost minimalist. In the business world they would call it white label; In politics, it is called “customary sympathy”.
Your speech? Friendly. Your tone? Pleasant. Your style? Reassuringly predictable. Seguro presents himself as someone who has always been there and will continue to be there, with or without written ideas. It is, in a way, the human version of the supermarket generic: it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t bother, and sometimes it even solves the problem.
If the Presidency of the Republic were awarded for kilometers traveled at party headquarters, for attendance at meetings, for hours spent in the corridor, Seguro would win with an absolute majority. The problem is that it requires something else: strategic thinking, vision for the future, political courage — and, ideally, a sentence or two that will go down in history.
But José Seguro is true to his style. Don’t speed up, don’t take risks, don’t invent. He advances calmly, convinced that the absence of controversy is, in itself, a presidential program. And perhaps, in a tired country, this will even work.
In the end, his journey is a small masterpiece of involuntary political humor: a candidate who always lived within politics and said he was outside; who arrives at the race without saying much, but saying it with conviction; who never bothered anyone… and who now wants to represent everyone.
If this is enough to get to Belém?
Ah, this is already satire!