Madeira News Blog

OK, lets get the politics out of the way first.

(28th September). Today’s main news headline : ‘PS Win With Relative Majority – Votes determined in all 4,260 parishes of Portugal’. The socialist party won the legislative elections with a relative majority of 36.56%, managing 96 seats in the Assembly of the Republic. The PSD social democrats obtained 29.09% (78 seats), CDS-PP 10% (21), BE Left Block 9.85% (16), and PCP 7.88% (15). 60.6% of the 9,227,314 eligible voters voted.

‘PSD Obtain 48.16% Of The Votes On Madeira – PSD, PS and CDS-PP have elected representatives in the Assembly of the Republic’. The Social Democrats of Jardim won 48.16% (66,194 votes), The PS socialists had a late surge to achieve 19.51% (26,822) and the CDS-PP 11.09% (15,244). The PSD took 4 of the 6 seats in Lisbon, the other two parties took one each. In the last elections in 2005, the PSD and PS shared those seats with 3 each. Abstention on Madeira finished up at 45.48%, 1.68% of the votes were spoiled, and 1.13% blank.

"The country has gone crazy and the nation is sick" – president Jardim commented in this manner on the electoral result’. Alberto João Jardim said today that the results of the national legislative elections show that "Portugal is inside a nightmare" and that "the country has gone crazy and the nation is sick." The leader of the PSD-M, and winning head-of-list to the Lisbon Parliament, commented on the PS win at a national level with a lack of enthusiasm. He blamed the result partly on those who failed to vote. "Portugal is now in a nightmare. There is something wrong in this country. After there were four years of governance by Sócrates, and all the trouble in which the prime minister of a country was renowned for being involved, there is a result that still gives him a relative majority, although less than the number of abstentions nationally, this means that the country gone crazy", said Jardim. "The situation in Portugal is very serious, and it is the Portuguese that in part that contribute to the situation. Each country has what it deserves, but in the case of Madeira we are worried that we are involved in this picture of a nightmare", he continued. Despite the election result, Jardim said that the national leader of the PSD, Manuela Ferreira Leite, "is in a position to lead the campaign for municipal elections" that start today. El Bertie finished by offering his heartiest congratulations to the Socialist Party for a well fought victory, saying to prime minister José Sócrates that he was looking forward to yet another productive mandate in Portugal, and that Madeira was rooting for another strong period of mutual cooperation at government level … and then I woke up.

UPDATE :

If the election results from Madeira yesterday were applied in the local elections here in two weeks time, PSD-M would win in 53 out of the 54 parish elections, and would continue to rule in all 11 câmaras (councils). Only the freguesia (Parish) would have escaped the social democrat’s clutches.

The full results nationally and in detail for Madeira can be seen in the Diário special pull out supplement today HERE

(27th September). Today’s main news headline ‘Abuse Of Minors At Home – Growing with an abuser : it is the drama of children at the mercy of close relatives that exercise the crimes in the secrecy of their homes. But also there are false accusations in cases of litigious divorce’. Sub headline : ‘When the enemy lives inside the house’. There are dozens of cases of sexual abuse of children every year in the Family Court. The abuser is nearly always a relative or neighbour. Most of the victims are girls aged between 7 and 12, with the abusers being men. A father, stepfather, an uncle or neighbour, but the story is always terrible and scars for life. On Madeira the cases exposed mostly involve children in unstructured and poor families, although it happens in all the social classes. I don’t want to read the article any further, but I am sure that gives a gist of the problem, albeit probably unwanted. I have heard the matter talked about, and even know a victim (who is definitely scarred), and back then it was almost a part of life for some. At least now some of these cases do get exposed, and there is something the kids can do, that’s if they have the courage to face the consequences.

‘Elevator Of Fajã Fell With 17 People On Board – A cable came loose and two people were injured after a 50 metre fall, until the the safety [brake?] mechanism was activated’. The two injured foreigners were taken to hospital, with one said to be "serious", after the accident in Fajã dos Padres. The lift was on the way up when the cable ‘came loose’. Both tourists were released from hospital later, one suffered an exposed fracture to a hand, the other with chest pains. How terrifying! That lift is the one west of Cabo Girão, and the total height of the glass lift ride according to one source I found is 250 metres, one of the highest in Europe. I contemplated going on it a few years ago, but chickened out having arrived there.

‘Line Continues In Order To Narrow The Street – Câmara de Lobo tries to avoid returning €2.1 million to the EU’. One white line that saves the council €2m, but it is not yet certain the solution found by the council will be accepted by Europe. This story has been batted around for months and months, but it may be that finally it is resolved. EU funding was granted for a agricultural road in Limoeiro, a road that should be around 4 metres wide. The council then built a road 5.5 metres wide, that did not qualify for the funding, and it had to be returned, as the council decided it was out of the question to narrow the road. Some bright spark then had the idea of making a 1.5 metre strip down one side, and reserving the lane for pedestrians, a sort of pavement. The remaining road is then 4 metres, and therefore qualifies. Well that’s the theory, but the road isn’t then really wide enough for two cars to pass, so one will end up driving on the ‘pavement’. If the European bureaucrats were stupid enough to be conned out of XXX’s of millions for other scams and white elephants by Madeira, no doubt this will be another con to add to the list. As you may have gathered, and I am taking the side of the taxpayer on this one, as clearly the original application was a con … does that look like a farm track in the photo?

‘Medicines Are More Expensive In Portugal – Electronic prescriptions will save the state €55 million a year’. More than half the medicines sold in Portugal and Madeira have a higher price than in other countries in southern Europe. It is estimated that 61% of medicines are more expensive here than in France, Spain, Italy and Greece. However, the good news is that we receive a good service in our 63 pharmacies. An ageing population means that our pharmacies are going to get busier in the future years. The new electronic prescription system mentioned cannot be introduced yet, as the law needs to be changed for data protection purposes. Can’t argue about the service in the pharmacies that I have used, it has always been excellent, despite the language difficulties I used to have. I even took a stray dog into my local chemist once, and they dealt with her very efficiently, although they didn’t offer any assistance in administering the treatment. I propose a round of applause for our excellent pharmacists at 5 pm this afternoon, anyone joining me?

For those who were miffed or inconvenienced during the TAP strike, and feel a grudge toward the airline, this might sway ones opinion. The pilots already earn an average of €8,600 a month, and are looking for a rise to take them to €9,600.

‘DECO Fail Fresh And Frozen Duck – Serious lapses in hygiene and storage result in a poor classification of the product’. 12 types of pre-packaged and frozen were tested, and found to be defective, mainly through lack of freshness in the innards. All the fresh and frozen products were failed as "unacceptable" by the consumer defence organisation.

A 59 year old man has died from his injuries in hospital. It seems that he fell 10 metres off a wall in Tendeira in Caniço.

‘Super São Roque And Sá Lead In The Low Prices – A study by DECO [consumer protection] analysed 70,000 prices for 181 products throughout Portugal’. Super São Roque and the Sá supermarkets in Santa Cruz, Ribeira Brava and São Martinho came out top on Madeira. One ‘basket’ contained 100 products for those who liked branded products, the other ‘basket’ contained 81 items for low budget customers. Santa Cruz Sá came out overall top, with São Roque in equal second place, but offers the cheapest shopping in Funchal. As for the most expensive, amongst others are the Pingo Doces in Anadia (Funchal) and Dolce Vita, and one of the Modelo stores came out badly as well. The analysis of data collected by DECO show that the savings in your shopping cart can reach €940 [a year?] without having to travel long distances and without cutting the list of products required. I am very surprised that my local Hiper Sá scored so highly. I will have to start going there again and see what the difference is after I switched last year. Anyway, that may be my last blog money saving tip, and may you save €€€’s until the next survey next year.

The ferry company Naveira Armas, that operates the services between Madeira and Portugal, is to put itself forward as a candidate to operate a ferry service for the Azores.

Marítimo lost 2 – 1 at home against Naval yesterday : ‘New Setback Intensifies Challenge For Carvalhal’.

‘Day To Choose Representatives – 260 thousand Madeiran voters elect today the six deputies that will represent Madeira in Lisbon. There are 12 parties and movements in total running in the legislative elections’. Another article I am going to skip, as it’s just churning over old ground. The c.250 ‘urns’ in 52 parishes opened at 8 am today. They will close at 7 pm, and the first projections are expected an hour later.

‘European experts monitor elections on Madeira – Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe come to see if the elections are ‘clean’. Two observers from the OSCE are here to make sure that there is no monkey business going on. The observers are from Armenia and Bosnia, and have already made contact with the party leaders, candidates, representatives of the state, and journalists. The politicians and parties have also been forbidden from doing any campaigning or carry out any activities relating to the local elections on 11th October, until tomorrow that is.

Something I didn’t realise until now, that if there should be a change of government after today, it should be able to begin it’s functions at the end of October. However, the Assembly of the Republic cannot be dissolved until March 2010.

I can’t believe I have managed to get through the complete Diário today before midday, less than 3 hours. All the reporters must be out on election duty. Looks like I will have a bit of free time to skulk around the local polling stations this afternoon and mingle with the crowds. I may have a look at the Jornal later on, but there again maybe not.

Today’s Diário is almost true to the letter of the ‘law’, which says that on the day before elections there should be no political activity and it should serve as a day of reflection, and only has one political story today, compared to an average of around 30 every day this week. The law specifies that candidates cannot go out on the streets pestering people, rallies are banned, and normally political propaganda posters have to be removed from the streets, and that last point is the subject of today’s article. Because of the close proximity of the local elections, the National Election Commission has decided to turn a blind eye to the fact that streets are still littered with posters, and would presumably just be replaced again on Monday if the law was enforced.

Anyway, I am going to have to break that rule with a true story* of an important, or rather unfortunate, political event that happened late last night here in Ribeira Brava. It was strange really, as I have already said that there have been no rallies or candidates visiting the town as far as I know, and even the number of posters could be counted on one hand. I think this town must have a reputation as a political ‘dead zone’, but last night that was all about to change.

It must have been around 11.30 pm, just 30 minutes before any political activity became illegal, when I entered a late night drinking establishment, and as is normal I did a quick scan of the joint before taking a seat at the bar. I recognised all of the faces, a dozen or so, except for one man in a grey suit sat at the far end of the bar from me. He looked like he had come straight out of a second hand car lot, with greased back black hair and a goaty beard (no no not goatee!), you know the sort. Anyway I greeted those nearest to me and ordered a soft drink (well it was certainly soft if one poked a finger in it), and quickly surveyed the joint, noticing a number of red objects on the bar and tables where people were sat. Some people had red baseball caps, note books, pens, pencils, and a few even had bright red oven mitts. Strange I thought, but the sight of my beverage arriving and the man in the grey suit getting off his stool and heading my way distracted my attention. I gave the barman a €5 note, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the grey suited man plonk himself on the stool next to me and put a large white carrier bag on the floor between us. I have no need for a second hand car, so I was already mentally practicing my "no speaking Portuguese" retort as I could see he was about to speak to me, and he did.

I will have to divert from the story at this stage, just to explain something highly relevant. My oven gloves at home have been in poor condition for some time now. It all started one time when someone else was using them, and a large black burn hole appeared on one hand (yes I know who you are, and I haven’t forgotten that you tried to hide the fact). After that things went downhill, and the stitching started working loose, and stains appeared that couldn’t be shifted however many times they went in the washing machine. For several years now I have been looking out for new oven gloves, you know the sort where both hands are joined together, but the only pair I saw cost 11.49 bl**dy Euros. I had seen plenty of ‘one handed’ oven mitts, but they just wouldn’t do the same job, and by the time I had brought two they would work out to be even more expensive. The best thing to do therefore was to minimise use of the oven, until the problem could be resolved, and as a result it hasn’t been switched on since last Christmas. Anyway back to last night …

The man spoke to me with forked political tongue, and pointed to his white carrier bag on the floor. What is it this time I thought, wet fish, lapas, overpriced undersized pyjamas, … but as a courtesy I looked down and peered into the bag to spot lots of red objects … type as previously described as littering the tables of the establishment at that precise moment. A deep stoop and a closer peer into the bag, and I could see red notepads with a white PS branded on the covers. It then suddenly dawned on me that this man was either a campaigner, or even an actual candidate for the PS socialist party, and that this was his bag of goodies to entice the wavering voters. Of course I am unable to vote in national elections, but clearly he didn’t know that yet, and I had to think quickly and slip on my best Portuguese tongue before my cover was blown, in order to acquire the maximum selection from that white bag, hopefully even a red oven mitt, or even two. Just then my change arrived from the €5 note, and I put out my left hand to receive it, and answered the man’s question with an equal measure of forked tongue, about how I was thinking of voting PS, but that I was still torn between them and the BE Left Block, who had a much catchier theme tune. A few seconds went by, and I couldn’t hold back any longer, and I spouted out "tem lá lutas". He didn’t understand, so I pointed with my right hand to my raised left hand, which was purely by chance clenched tightly as it still contained my change from the bar, and repeated "luta, luta", waving my clenched fist, not really being sure of the exact complete word for oven gloves. His expression changed, and at that point things started to go downhill. Anyway, to cut a long story short, as I wrestled him to the floor, a beer got knocked over soaking his grey suit, and as other customers heard the breaking glass, bodies came running over to pull us apart. Strangely though, it was as I had my hands around his throat that I suddenly remembered that the Portuguese word for ‘glove’ is in fact ‘luva’, and logically ‘oven glove’ would be ‘luva do forno’. ‘Luta’ means ‘fight’.

Anyway we got separated, and after a few minutes of exchanging threats and insults, when the best I could manage was "I’m going to tell Uncle Bertie where you live" (which drew blank looks all around) the matter was eventually straightened out. But after all that, he didn’t have any oven mitts left. I did however get a nice pencil with a built in eraser, a pretty cr*ppy pen, and a PS notepad.

That was the night that politics in Ribeira Brava came ‘back to life’.

* Embellished in parts for heightened enjoyment