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

Load of politics in the newspapers now, a lot of it election news and issues, and particularly regarding the announcements of candidates at national and local levels.

(7th July). Today’s main news headline : ‘PSD-M Exercises Right Of Reply’. This goes back to 11th March, when the Diário published a report about the annual accounts of the social democrats of Madeira, after the constitutional court approved the accounts of the political parties for 2005. Anyway, you can imagine that the Diário picked a few holes in the accounts of the PSD-M, but it’s a long and complex article, to much to go into here. Anyway, the ‘right of reply’ published today finishes like this … "With this clarification is restored the truth about the facts that were improperly disclosed to the Madeiran people by the Diário de Notícias of Madeira and the author of the news report – Funchal, 12 May 2009 – The Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party of Madeira".

‘Fat Cats Take Holidays Almost Free’. It was a ‘hot’ topic back in 2007, and it is back again in the newspapers and in the conversation, referring to ‘Government Houses’. For most Madeirans, Summer holidays on Porto Santo Island are just too expensive, and they have to opt for other cheaper destinations. Few know about the ‘house(s) of the government’, and for those who do it is difficult to find a vacancy as demand is so high. For those lucky ones who get access, they pay just a symbolic €10 a night. The luckiest ones are our rulers, those in high places, such as the office of the president that has the right to reserve two such residences nicely located near to the beach. It seems there are also properties reserved exclusively for government use.

(6th July). ‘Constitution Of Jardim Feeds Contention – Proposal of PSD for the revision of the constitution is going to feed the war with Lisbon’. On the 22nd of this month Madeira’s legislative assembly is going to debate and vote on the proposal to revise the Constitution of The Republic, a topic which is going be of great controversy, both before and after September’s national elections. President Jardim has already said that he will attend the session to defend the proposal, something which doesn’t happen very often. The debate will focus on the autonomy of Madeira within the constitution, and although it has some support from the national leader of the PSD social democrats, it will also force the president of the republic of Portugal into the debate. The document has also been given to other interested parties for comment and alternative proposals, though it is unlikely that the PSD-M would allow any changes from opposition parties. The document, which reviews dozens of parts of the Constitution, substantially strengthens the legislative powers of autonomous regions in several sectors, including public administration. One small point of probable great controversy, is that until now the law prohibits the existence of ‘fascist’ organisations, and Jardim wants to change this to ‘totalitarian’, which may be deemed to include communist organisations who are growing in strength if the last election results are any indication. There is enough information on the matter to feed a week of blogs, but in rough terms the main proposed revisions fall in 5 groups: the creation of regional political parties and independent candidates for regional elections; regional expansion of legislative powers; redefining the system of regional referendum; removal of the office (post) of Madeira’s Representative to the Republic; and restructuring of the bodies of government. Opposition parties accuse Jardim and the PSD-M of trying to turn September’s national elections into a referendum on constitutional reform.

(5th July). ‘Candidates For The Assembly Of The Republic Cannot Also Be Candidates For Câmaras (Councils) Or Juntas De Freguesia (Parishes) the decision was made on Friday in a meeting between José Sócrates and the president of the socialist federations’. "A decision that raises the quality of democracy" said the latter person. A bit odd that, but no worries for socialists on Madeira who are unlikely to be elected to anything of consequence.