The government’s main opposition, the Social Democrat party (PSD), has spotted that the ruling Socialists have been adept in recent week at sending emissaries south to bring good news to the Algarve in the run up to this autumn’s local council elections.
The PSD–Algarve has stated that the recent investment announcements made by a government minister simply is blatant pre-election nonsense and that the infrastructure developments described in such glowing terms may come to nothing at all, or will be ages late.
The Social Democrats are correct: the sight of Infrastructure Minister, Pedro Marques, visiting the Algarve three times in the past week or so, has caused deep suspicion.
The Algarve's decrepit road and rail network has long been a vote loser so any good news announcements from the government have been held back until now - a year in which the socialists need a lot of council wins to vindicate their national policies. The excuses and cancellations will start after these elections.
Referring to the Marques visits as ‘raids,’ the PSD say that the announcements have been no more than intentions and are lacking in detail.
The Social Democrats are especially critical that Marques has no intention of commissioning the rail link to Faro airport. The minister already has blamed environmental issues before an impact assessment has even been commissioned. Marques stated, when asked about this vital rail link:
"We do not know if it is possible. In the coming months, we will launch the environmental impact study and, if possible, this investment will have to be scheduled after the electrification of the Algarve line.”
This waffle was seen locally as a long-winded way of saying ‘forget it.’
For the PSD, this additional and deliberate delay to the rail link is not acceptable as the project has been worked on for years but now is just a political football.
As for the saga of the EN125 roadworks, the Social Democrats rightly point out that it was Marques who stopped the upgrade project in the western Algarve last summer and had just made a big song and dance about relaunching the work in January 2017, months late.
"The announcements over the past weeks in the Algarve, which are being repeated all over the country, are forerunners to the local elections. The government is unable to resist the temptation to put the state machine to work in creating illusions that will not materialise, or if they do, they will not materialise in the near future,” reads the Social Democrat statement.
The head of the PSD, the former Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, also is guilty of changing history to make out he is the good guy that the Algarve needed all along.
In a bizarre series of recent statements about the Via do Infante motorway, Passos Coelho claimed he would have lifted the tolls during EN125 roadworks and of course would have reduced tolls way below the curent level, forgetting completely that he instigated the destructive A22 tolls system that has ended up costing the local motorist and the nation, dearly. He also refused to lift the tolls when roadworks started in the western Algarve.
Regarding the Marques trip to the south and accusations of electioneering, would the PSD be behaving any differently if it was still in power?
See also: 'Passos Coelho champions toll reductions for the Algarve'
