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Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is a beautiful analyst, a great president of the Republic to whom even Ana Gomes gives a positive note when evaluating the mandate, but he has the most common defects in a politician, vanity. Only by vanity can you enter the fourth year of the term in a defeat in most polls and still score an arc, guaranteeing, in an interview with TVI, that his “popularity levels are so high that no decline leads to depression. “.
Marcelo’s astonishment at the popularity of other galaxies was widespread and I imagine that the emotion created in most of his collaborators has infected him. This alone justifies that a politician as experienced as him began to nurture the dream of breaking the record set by Mário Soares so early. There would have been no problem if the dream had stayed with him and a friend or two with whom he wanted to vent the anxiety that had taken hold of him. The persistent figure (70% for Soares in 1991) became a target unmasked and confessed by himself in countless conversations. Since politics is above all about managing expectations, Marcelo had made the fatal mistake.
António Costa reminded us well, when he wanted to stay with Marcelo to disguise the evils of the government, that there is no Portuguese who has doubts about two things. The first is that Marcelo will run again and the second will win. Only that is not what you will be charged for. The boast that he knew how to beat Soares’s record, allowed at the time by the withdrawal of the only Portuguese (Cavaco Silva) who obtained four majorities in the national elections, is the ghost that haunts him. The problem is that Marcelo’s campaign is not reduced to lowering expectations to exceed them.
Everywhere, people are doing the math and wondering how much each of the challengers is worth on the Paseo de Marcelo, who until recently we all imagined triumphant and without much history. As she is not a candidate supported by the PS, Ana Gomes will be worth between 10% and 2×10%. Marisa Matias achieved 10% in the last presidential elections and there is the expectation that she can repeat them. The PCP also wants to have a candidate and twice that of a disaster named Edgar Silva (4% in the last presidential elections) is the minimum level of dignity. The elephant is still missing in the middle of the room, which several polls have already placed in the double-digit bar and which presumes to be the second most voted, forcing Marcelo to a second round.
Here, with four months to go before the elections, it seems so unlikely that Chega’s candidate will be second and will force Marcelo into a second round, since the president will be enthroned with a record of democracy. In the accounts of the Head of State, ten plus ten, ten more, ten more leave very little room to continue dreaming about Soares’ result. We will see what campaign he is capable of doing to win clearly. Until then, Marcelo’s mission is to convince the published opinion that he has no responsibility for the unattainable goal that someone, perhaps an angel who enters the presidential dreams without authorization, stands in his way. You may already begin to remember that Cavaco was re-elected with just over 50% of the vote.
The truth is that, much more important than the extent of his victory, Marcelo’s great job is not to allow an extremist, racist and xenophobic to steal a significant percentage of the right-wing votes. History will judge the current president of the Republic, elected by the center-right, much more for his ability to help curb the rise of dangerous, divisive and anti-constitutional populism than for the percentage of votes obtained in reelection. If Ventura reaches 10%, Marcelo, even winning, begins defeated.
