For many years, at intervals, I lived in Lisbon, a city that I love. I then have a memory of seeing street washers with strong nozzles when I was a teenager, going through the different arteries of the city, leaving them immaculately clean. That image disappeared from my daily life for years, until recently, a few days ago, I saw with great joy a group of washers who, with a strong nozzle, left my street in a mess. But what a pleasant surprise! I hadn’t seen such an image in years.
I thought immediately. We are in election time and institutions do, during elections, and only during the pre-election period, everything that should be done in normal day-to-day life.
But, after all, what do these employees, street washers or any other people, do when it is not election season? Where are they? What is your role? Or were they hired now, at the last minute, to impress us? On to the vote hunt!
This issue of institutions only functioning to the full extent of their powers during elections is a delay and a sign of the immaturity of our democracy. Institutions, State bodies, must carry out their functions rigorously and fully, permanently, without regard to electoral calendars. If political protagonists think that last-minute attitudes influence the vote, “get rid of it”. Less and less are the Portuguese letting themselves be fooled by the maneuvers and the work started to be built around the elections for a stupid hunt for votes. Today things no longer work like that. The work of the different political protagonists is evaluated throughout the exercise of their mandate and not by the pre-election show off.
Unfortunately, in Portuguese society, some political leaders are still in a phase of behavioral indigence that leads them to think that voters are still embarking on pre-election façade work and that this fact is decisive in their choice of vote. It’s not entirely like that anymore. And, increasingly, voters’ choices are far from this logic.
Acting according to electoral calendars is an attitude of cultural backwardness and a practice of beardless democracies.
The institutions that we support with our taxes must do their work, with commitment, resourcefulness and professionalism, permanently. Employees are paid to have a professional attitude throughout their employment. Direct managers must ensure that institutions and those who are part of them are evaluated and rewarded according to their performance, over long periods of time and not for last-minute electoral freight.
The opportune electoral calendars must disappear from our political practice. This is also a sign of the maturity of our institutions. Justice must do its work in the silence of the offices, with consistency, with legal seriousness, with disclosure to the country marked by the evolution of the processes themselves. News about ongoing legal processes, at election time, whether they are about Luís Montenegro’s Spinumviva or José Sócrates’ Marquês process, should not have (or should never have had) media management according to electoral calendars. If there is anything new in the field of Justice, specifically factual, about this or that important mega-process, with significant media impact, then it should be reported on, with relevant facts that demonstrate its evolution and the good legal reasons for the country to be aware of them, regardless of electoral calendars or any other mechanisms outside of a healthy functional reason that justifies the Portuguese being informed.
This is how advanced, mature democracies work.
Therefore, dear readers, do not embark on the elections next Sunday, in the practice of hunting for last-minute votes. Evaluate which political leaders, in this case mayors, best performed their duties with consistency and seriousness during the previous term. No tricks or last minute work. The country needs serious leaders, dedicated to the public cause, qualified professionals who fulfill their duties. Enough of easy tricks and siren songs.
Journalist