We have a new one. Since the second round of elections on February 8th, it’s been clear:
António José Seguro is the new president of the country
It wasn’t clear enough in the first round, because a presidential election must end in a majority of at least one vote more than 50%, which he didn’t have after the first round. His right-wing counterpart had also stolen quite a few votes, and the storms prevented nearly 37,000 Portuguese from voting.
So it was A. Ventura versus A. Seguro, which means “adventure” and “insurance” in Portuguese, respectively. Adventure versus Insurance – it sounds a bit like a cartoon. The adventurer didn’t win because he had billboards placed with racist slogans and attacked children with unusual names.
That doesn’t sit well with a population yearning for harmony
Now we have more presidents than you can count, because the mayors are also called presidents. Even the mayors of the sub-municipalities are called presidents.
Portugal, the only country in the world with a precedent of 3,568 presidents
In our sub-municipality Vinha da Rainha, we have a good one. At least, he’s the previous one; we haven’t seen the current one yet. But during the recent times of need, Senhor Evaristo was there! He came by every day to check if we hadn’t drowned or blown away yet. Of course, he couldn’t do anything about the rising water or the wind, just as well as we could, but the fact that someone cares about your plight makes a big difference in these kinds of circumstances.
He told us that things were calming down for a while, but that again another storm was expected the next day, and whether we needed help putting the furniture on stones. We had already done that, but thank you very much anyway. He told us that the dam had to be opened, so we might expect a bit more water.
He reported that things were also bad at Café O Choupal, that the tranquil river had now reached Hulk-like proportions, that the dike at Montemor had breached, and that he was keeping an eye on everything at night by driving back and forth.
Now, that’s what I call a president!
It gave us the feeling that we weren’t alone. That’s what I call engaged leadership. And I suspect I’m not alone when I say that we’ve come to expect that from our last president (Marcelo), and that we expect it from the new Seguro, and actually from all 3,568.
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings.#president #elections #Portugal )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.