Saturday 16th March 2024.
The people’s sovereign voice has spoken. That’s the way it is in a democracy: the Socialist Party took a bit of a beating and emerged with a couple of black eyes. But the AD alliance of conservative parties didn’t win anything either. The democratic parties lost in these elections. Those who haven’t realised this yet will certainly find out soon enough. Sometimes a disease takes a while to spread; sometimes the patient dies slowly and agonisingly. Once it’s over, everyone says, “if only he had lived honestly, admitted the truth and refused the money; if the corruption had been stopped, he would still be alive, sorry, governing.” But now it has happened, because there is hardly a family in the state of Portugal that has not been harmed in some way by the policies of the ruling PS government: from the decaying social security system to higher taxes, from the education system and the health service to the voluminous airport projects in Montijo and the highly controversial plan proposed by the Socialists, who were still in power last week, to mine lithium in the north of the country. And, in many of the government projects, this incurable disease, which spreads through a person’s body like cancer, plays a major role.
Have a great weekend – and as always, please feel free to write to me: theobald.tiger8550@gmail.com