Luís Montengro ((c) EPP)
AD, under the PSD leader Luís Montenegro, would have a majority with Chega. They won’t get that. They may make an agreement with the so-called Liberal Initiative, which is billed as “pro-business”, but in reality is the local version of The Tufton Street Gang, though the latter won just eight seats.
87 is way short of the 116 majority line. And the only other party out there on the right is Chega. Underscoring the fact that Montenegro has to own the mess was PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos conceding the contest and saying explicitly that his party would go into opposition. He saw the bed of nails and decided that his team were not going to lie on it. So why the problem?
Ventura and his party are not going to take responsibility for anything; it will all be someone else’s fault. UK politics watchers will recognise this as “doing a Farage”: Mr Thirsty initially lauded the Brexit deal presented by Boris Johnson, but more recently has declined to take any responsibility, because this was not “his” Brexit, which would have been a far superior proposition.
Worse, Montenegro has previously denounced Ventura, rightly identifying him as a xenophobe, a racist demagogue. So now, even with IL on board, and perhaps two of the four seats still to be declared, even if Chega abstained on his budget vote, 89 seats would be vulnerable to the centre-left and left taking him out. Because they would be able to muster 93, also assuming that the PS take the other two of those four yet to be declared. A word about that.
André Ventura. And his twitchy right arm
Chega could help Montenegro by backing his budget, but here a problem enters: further down the road, this taking of responsibility could be held against them. Ventura and his pals will happily vote something down - that’s easy - but making a positive choice to support something - that’s hard.
The BBC notes that “The Chega leader said his party was ready to help build the next government. But even though he has watered down some of his policies … there seems little chance of him having any role at this stage” but cautions “Former centre-right leader Luís Marques Mendes said there had never been an election night like this before: ‘I think we'll have fresh elections early next year’”. By which time the voters may have rumbled Ventura.
All that the left and centre-left have to do is to choose their moment. Unless Ventura and his gang are prepared to make a positive choice and back Montenegro. But if they back AD, and AD turn out to have got something wrong, that would rebound against them. Of course, the Chega claim that everyone else in Portuguese politics is corrupt could also work against them.
That would occur if anyone in Chega, or linked to them, were to be caught with their hands in the till. Ventura is adept at playing the victim - think Trump playbook - but his support is yet fragile. At least there was one big positive from yesterday’s contest, and that is turnout, which, at 66%, was far higher than two years ago, and a high turnout is always good for a democracy.
Meanwhile, eyes are on the President to nominate a PM. No pressure, now.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
13 comments:
That's all very well and good, Tim, but what are the various Portuguese parties' positions on the photoshop skills of Kate and the effect on the Conservatives' intellectual tradition consequent on the loss of Lee Anderson?
The only modicum of interest is whether the "abdominal surgery" consisted of poontang tightening for the benefit of the P.O.W
Anderthal's defection from the Tories to the Monster Raving Gammon Company Ltd has at least raised the collective IQ of both organisations.
Ah, yes......"centrists".
I'm not sure what the word on the street was where you come from, Anonymous, but round Bertie's manor it was thought that the P.O.W's predilections would be more likely to have him requiring a degree of personal *loosening* than the tightening of any other party.
In Britain's "Labour" Party, "centrist" = Quisling.
As in the Quislings in the Legal and Governance Unit who helped smear Jeremy Corbyn as "antisemitic" - that's the same Jeremy Corbyn who has fought antisemitism and racism throughout his political life. That's the same Quislings who exchanged racist emails attacking Diane Abbott, the same Quislings paid off by Chief Quisling Starmer for "a job well done", also enabling a tory election "win".
Thus debasing the term "centrist" wherever it's used, including Portugal. It's the new international political Newspeak. Available throughout Gammon LaLaLand for all lovers of Big Brother and his Victory Gin.
Time you tried reading another Orwell book, Anonymous.
You might find useful some of his writing on the decline of political discourse and the need for clarity and precision in English writing generally.
See if this cap fits (red star above peak, obviously):
' ...(much political writing)consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.'
Or this:
'....modern writing at its worst....consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order... and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier – even quicker, once you have the habit ....'
Sound familiar?
There's much more good advice where that came from.
Fraternally,
Bertie
13:58.
"...(much political writing)consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.'
Or this:
'....modern writing at its worst....consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order... and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier – even quicker, once you have the habit ....' "
Yup, that's you to a Newspeak T, me old Micawber Quisling. Well done.
Meanwhile, at PMQs, your hero "nuanced" Zionist-without-qualification and Chief Quisling Starmer shouted Yahboo! at Richman Sunak, who had already shouted Yahboo! at him. "Centre-right" and "centre-left" in "nuanced" action.
Keep taking the Victory Gin. For all the "good" it will do for the innocent dead in Gaza. You know, as promised by the Zionist-without-qualification.
Have a nice "nuanced-centrist" day.
QED
I'm am intellectual and really appreciated the comments under the articles in the days before Bertie got quite so verbose.
Now, I just stick to the superb articles themselves. Good one again Tim.
PDC.
'I'm am(an?) intellectual'. That's something that someone (for some reason) might say *about* you, Mark, but it's not really something you ought to say about yourself, is it? (Unless, of course, humour is the intention).
Especially when the claim in your second sentence seems to be disproved by the assertion in your first.
Burlington Binky
Always gets stinky
Each day when he's handed his arse
His words go all weird
Each time that he's skewered
And then he's only a farce
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