There are those who still insist on reading the electoral results with the same eyes for all elections. The Portuguese people still haven’t noticed, obviously.
Elections of a different nature should never be compared, but rather previous elections of the same nature: local elections with local elections, legislative elections with legislative elections and so on. It appears to be a basic and obvious exercise, but it has not been perpetrated by analysts. See the mistake of, on the eve of legislative elections, belittling Chega because the European elections were not as overwhelming as expected. Result: 60 deputies. The comparison now has to be made, obviously, with previous local authorities. And, as is more than evident, Chega grew exponentially.
But this text is not focused on this calculation. This text is to warn how far political elites – some – are from people’s daily and present reality. Ricardo Leão was the best example of this perception. Against many voices from his party – the PS – with emphasis on Alexandra Leitão, he carried out the diagnosis, analysis and applied the most correct actions to the problems that his municipality, Loures, is experiencing. He gave priority to the population’s complaints that showed a reality different from ideology. Practice is sometimes far from theory. He didn’t care about the almost public lynching he was subjected to by his party “comrades”. He faced the elections alone and, as a result: he was one of the big winners of the elections. And why? Because he pursued proximity politics with his target audience, the voters of Loures. Not the public that applauds in Largo do Rato.
Alexandra Leitão did exactly the opposite: she said she was moderate, but she joined the extreme left. A bankrupt, ideologically empty and demagogic extreme left. Those who live in Lisbon are fed up with words, they want action that solves their problems, not fleets on the Tagus. It is saturated with those who attack opponents, full of bile, and forget to provide concrete proposals for resolving these problems. Alexandra was not only extremist, she joined other extremists and carried out a campaign of slander, focused on bringing either Carlos Moedas or João Ferreira down, instead of focusing on making a difference. I had a lot of material for this, I didn’t know how to use it. Result: there was less voting with the coalition than the parties all together in relation to the values of the last local councils. Let her look at her colleague in Loures and draw conclusions. The first seems obvious to me: more Lion, less Piglet.
Assistant professor at the Autonomous University of Lisbon and researcher
(do CIDEHUS).
Write without applying the new Spelling Agreement