Political parties are the pillars of democracies. Without them, we would fall into regimes of single-person solitude, which usually result in oligarchies where there is no freedom of the press, the judiciary is subject to political power, where opponents of the established order end up in prison or simply get signed. In a democratic system we cannot, nor should we, antagonize parties. This does not mean that we cannot criticize them for their practice.
When we vote for a political party, whatever it may be, we do so with the expectation that it will contribute to the aggrandizement of the country in which it operates, and that its action will meet the expectations of those who gave it their vote. In elections, those who vote for a party do not do so so that deputy X or Y, from this or that party, can use their power to enrich themselves. We do not vote for the leader of any party to use the victory obtained as a platform for personal advancement to another position, turn his back on his commitment to the electorate and move on to another political reality, better paid and where luxurious perks abound.
Unfortunately, in Portugal we have no great difficulty in finding cases of people abandoning the country towards more attractive destinations, leaving the country to “God will give”. Do you want names? António Guterres, Durão Barroso, Vítor Gaspar, António Vitorino, António Costa, and so on…
Well then. There are two ways of being in parties. Either you are there from a careerist perspective, in an exercise of exclusive personal selfishness or, alternatively, you join a party to serve the country, think about its future and make a contribution so that the next generations inherit a better country than the one our parents left us. This is, without a doubt, the noble purpose of a political party, in a democratic system.
The current candidates for President of the Republic, António José Seguro, Marques Mendes, Cotrim de Figueiredo, António Filipe, André Ventura, Catarina Martins and Jorge Pinto are linked to political parties. There is no negative criticism here, nor does any of them lose their qualities due to their inclusion in political parties.
But the fact that they are running for President of the Republic means they have to distance themselves from the party reality to which they have belonged for years, in an attempt to appear in the eyes of public opinion with an independent stance, acceptably distant, a very convenient option for the position for which they are running. But, and there is always a but, public opinion does not forget what, for good or bad, marked these same candidates during their partisanship.
Gouveia e Melo does not have this problem. There is no party sticking to his skin. Man is he and his substance. Simple, without partisan mannerisms and vices, his speech is about the reality of the country. He has no ideological antagonisms with other party forces because his ideology is a challenge that he posed to himself, as a citizen, to contribute to the country’s development. The political questions he lists are those that any ordinary Portuguese person would ask. Why is it that after 51 years and many billions of euros we are still at the bottom of Europe? Can anything still be done to change this with the PRR ending in 2026? Why don’t we have a competitive economy? Why don’t our young graduates stay here and, when they do, they go to supermarket cashiers? And nothing can be done to change that? Are we really that different from others? Why have we been unable to reform justice for decades? If other European Union countries can do it, why can’t we? Where is the difficulty?
Gouveia e Melo, far beyond dry ideological questions, situates his speech in these simple but urgent questions to change Portugal.
As a man on a mission, as a soldier accustomed to charting a course and rigorously following that path, Gouveia e Melo gives the idea of devaluing the usual partisan verbiage to get to the essentials. It pays no attention to the aridity of party discourse. Listening to him, we get the simple idea that all his concerns will be centered on the bottlenecks that the country has known for 51 years. In the Presidency, if he gets there, his word and his influence will focus on what is essential to reform this country. It will try to do what has not been done in the last 51 years by those who, precisely, had this patriotic mission: the political parties.
Journalist