Madeira News Blog

(12th June). Today’s main news headline : ‘Critics Of The Leader Of PS-M Spread – Now the independents start attacks on João Carlos Gouveia. Carlos Pereira, face of the party on economic matters, wants the weak and erratic leader substituted by Maximiano Martins or André Escórcio’. It’s just a continuation of the same old saga really, with Pereira being a member of the socialist party of Madeira having his say on what every one has already said, or at least thinks. I think the message from Madeira is already clear, following poor results for the socialists in last Sunday’s elections.

The Legislative Assembly of Madeira gets back underway next Tuesday, after the break for the European elections. Amongst the first items to be dealt with are: A proposal by the PS-M socialists for an enquiry into why Madeira has lost €500 million in European Funding, travel subsidies for residents travelling to Portugal, and new labour / employment laws.

Prime Minister José Sócrates has called a meeting of his top strategists and advisers for Monday, to ‘analyse the political situation’, following a poor showing in last Sunday’s European election. Sócrates recognises the defeat, but is keen to separate the matter from domestic elections due to take place in September / October. "These elections are for Parliament. It will come the moment when the Government is in question and the future of governance. This is not the time", he said, guaranteeing that his executive "will maintain the current course."

‘Child Labour Badly Monitored’. Inspections to identify cases of child labour are not happening as they should, and the problem has certainly not been eliminated in Portugal. Evidence of child labour still exists in the ‘arts’, and also in agriculture, where children work on family farms, although not at the expense of education as used to be the case.

(11th June). The body responsible for overseeing matters of elections, some sort of ombudsman, has criticised the councils of Câmara de Lobos, Funchal, Santa Cruz and São Vicente, and asked them to change their rules and behaviour regarding party political posters during election campaigns. Two political parties complained after their election campaign posters were removed by council officials, on the grounds that the political parties did not give prior notice of their intentions do put the posters up. The ombudsman has ruled that as unconstitutional behaviour. I have to side with the councils on this one, despite court rulings to the contrary. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me that a political party has to write to a council to advise that they are putting up a poster, otherwise how would the council know where to go to remove it?

I think all the news reporters of Madeira must have taken a well deserved short break, along with everyone else. The Diário tried to make it look otherwise, but nearly all the stories are old news, national news (some one else’s), held-back news. and news that is not time sensitive. I am expecting a busy ‘catch up’ day in the newspaper tomorrow to make up for it. Not much on the RTP website either.

(8th June). The main news headline in today’s Diário : ‘Orange Card To Sócrates – The PSD won unexpectedly the Europeans, benefiting from reduced voting for the PS’. Extending the voting pattern from yesterday’s European election, the Diário feels the Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal, prior to national elections later this year, is being shown an orange warning card by the voters (quite clever I thought!).

‘MADEIRA – The Madeiran voters clearly bet on the social democrats (PSD) candidates list, helping to confirm the position of Nuno Teixeira. The socialists (PS) fell to half of 2004, and their candidate Emanuel Jardim Fernandes stays here’. PSD here collected 52.5% of the vote.

‘PORTUGAL – In the last 2 months no one believed that the PSD would manage top placing, as achieved yesterday. A crisis and the socialist government are factors in this turnaround, but also there is a triumph called Paulo Rangel’. Nationally, PSD collected 31.7% of the vote, ‘and won it’s first European election in 20 years with significant numbers’.

59.8% of the eligible voters on Madeira opted to spend their Sunday elsewhere, and definitely not in the polling station, as a new record low turnout is recorded. Nationally 64% didn’t vote, compared to a European average of 56.9%.

‘Madeira Loses Deputy (MEP) In The European Parliament – Nuno Teixeira is the only representative for Madeira’. The new member will be the only direct link between Europe and Madeira, after the socialists (PS) didn’t get sufficient support to renew its place in Europe with the Madeiran candidate. Nuno is the 7th Madeiran to take the responsibility, and stated that his commitment is to "defend the interests of Madeira and of the Madeirans with the means available to him, speaking the truth". The losing PS candidate, Emanuel Jardim Fernandes, 10th place on his party list, saw just 14.7% of Madeirans vote for his party, half the amount it had in 2004 when the candidate was elected.

President of Madeira, Alberto João Jardim, said that the PSD can not let itself be "dazzled" with the victory in the European elections, arguing that "early indications at the national level indicate a strong concern about the government of the country (Portugal)". The leader of the PSD-M notes that it is "very serious in a democratic country that the two communist political forces together have exceeded the 20 percent mark at home". Despite the satisfaction for the "goals achieved, mission accomplished again, this is no time for euphoria because it was only the first round of a cycle of three elections," he said.

Voting day yesterday had plenty of coverage, and that was not just about the results. The president of one council was reprimanded for campaigning ‘at the urns’, after that was legally prohibited in any form after Friday. Over 250 complaints were made to CNE (the election monitoring body), with people having problems using the new all-in-one ‘citizens cards’ for voting, and other changes in the voting system meant people were turning up at the wrong polling stations. It was clear by 4pm yesterday that turnout was going to be even lower than the poor showing in the last elections. One voting station in São Martinho, three hours after opening had only had 3 voters come in. Young people were very noticeably absent. I think I have covered about 10 articles in one paragraph here, but it’s all water under the bridge now.

The full story for Madeira is : PSD(+PPD) 52.52% of the vote (1 place in Europe), PS 14.69%, CDS-PP 8.34%, PCP-PEV 6.65%, BE 5.44%. You can see a full breakdown in the Diário supplement today, which you can also see here online. ELECTION NEWS 2009

In the national picture, PSD took the most European seats (8) with 31.7% of the vote, followed by PS (7) with 26.6%. Left Block (BE) took 3 seats, with 10.7% of the vote, CDS-PP took 2 seats, also with 10.7%, and CDU 2 seats with 8.4%. In a geographical picture across Portugal, PSD dominated in 16 regions, PS in just two, and PCP in 3 southerly regions. Whilst the defeat of the PS was expected on Madeira, it came as a bit of a surprise on the Azores, where the PS have a fairly new absolute majority in regional government.

(6th June). ‘Crimes Using Weapons With Tougher Sentences – New Law on Weapons enters into force today’. The new gun laws, which toughen the punishment for crimes using guns, comes into force today, according to the Ministry for Internal Administration. The law was passed in Parliament on 19th March with the votes of the PS (socialists), the abstention of the PSD, and the CDS-PP, the PCP, BE and ‘The Greens’ voted against. By law, those who sell or transfer firearms without permission, can be punished with a sentence of two to ten years in prison. I thought it odd that the green party voted against, as firing a gun causes pollution, but knowing that lot they probably thought the new law wasn’t tough enough.

(3rd June). The Portuguese population living in Spain increased 10.4% last year. There are now 140,424 Portuguese living there. Other nationalities moving to Spain only registered a 6.3% increase.

(2nd June). The minister of health in Portugal has admitted that there is a second case of ‘Gripe A’ in Portugal, brought in by a Portuguese citizen that returned from the USA. The 33 year old is under observation in Porto hospital.

(6th June). ‘SB Airlines Returns – Venezuela’s airline resumes direct flights between Caracas and Madeira’. The first flight was yesterday, with the landing at 8am and take off at 11am. Carola Torquemada, the company’s commercial director for Europe, told the Diário that SB Airlines went through a major restructure, both in terms of its shareholder structure, and at an operational level, and now presents itself as the largest airline in Venezuela in the international market. Initially there is just one weekly flight, but if there is sufficient demand then SBA will consider a second weekly round trip.