Almost ten hours of recordings, questions asked in the comfort of a room, in the hustle and bustle of fairs, at service stations across the country, many answers: there were months of conversation between journalist Valentina Marcelino, deputy director of DN, and Gouveia e Melo. The result is the book The Reasonswhich has just been published by Porto Editora.
The launch was held in Lisbon at the Sociedade de Geografia, with the main hall full of people. Gouveia e Melo and Valentina Marcelo answered questions from the work’s editor, Henrique Pinto Mesquita, but Valentina also asked more questions, in addition to telling behind the scenes of The Reasons.
It was a conversation about democracy, trajectory, behind-the-scenes current affairs, with pauses for applause, like when the presidential candidate said that “I don’t want Portugal to ever become a dictatorship again” and that “as long as I’m alive and able to fight, I’ll do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen”, he said about his visit to the Peniche fort, where the dictatorship’s prisoners were held. Among these prisoners was Valentina Marcelino’s father.
The journalist also explained the reason for accepting the challenge of writing the book, knowing that Gouveia e Melo would be a presidential candidate. “I hesitated a lot because of the elections. The last thing I wanted was to be glued to any candidacy, because independence is something that I value very much as a journalist”, he began by saying.
But the main reason was a need that journalists naturally have: to ask questions, at a time when interviews are increasingly shorter. “I had a lot of questions to ask and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Also because I was a new political actor and there was a need to get to know you”, he reported.
The deputy director assesses that the result of the book is “a lot of content and information”, with answers about her values and trajectory. He said that he prepared the questions based on the topics that people need to know, such as health, education and defense. “The conversation flowed naturally, the admiral really likes to talk”, he summarized.
The admiral responded with laughter. “At sea we only have two things, eat and talk.” And if he was at sea for so many decades, spending 31 days in a submarine, the editor questioned whether this was more difficult or the presidential campaign. “These are different challenges”, he highlighted.
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Check out images from DN photojournalist Paulo Spranger.