The Portuguese are among the most pessimistic and distrustful European electorate when assessing their politicians, a situation that has been getting steadily worse for five years.
A new study reveals that most of the voting population has a healthy distrust of political parties which translates into higher and higher levels of absenteeism at the polls.
Since the start of the financial crisis, the Portuguese level of satisfaction with democracy has diminished and, according to data given out during the presentation of the debate "In Search of Freedom" at the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, "perceptions of democratic rule have been degraded."
According to the Opinião Pública web portal, political parties do not deserve to be trusted, "There is the feeling of living in a new dictatorship," according to a comment from one Siza Vieira during the debate.
The downward trend also was found in other countries such as Spain and Greece with absenteeism in Portugal running from 8.5% in the 1975 parliamentary elections, to 41.9% in 2011.
In the 2014 elections only 37% of voters bothered to drag themselves to the polling station in a display of lethargy that insults those that replaced dictatorship with freedom in 1974.
Despite Portugal’s 1974 revolution which was followed by Spain (1975), Brazil (1989) and Chile (1989) the appetite for politics has dinished with the result that politicians no longer feel accountable or connected to the electorate.
"Every nation gets the government it deserves"* and if the Portuguese electorate are no longer bothered with the democratic process then their politicians will continue to behave as they are behaving.
* Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), French political thinker and historian.
Comments
What is deceitful is how many British have been lured here to Portugal not realising that they are giving up rights that we Brits. take for granted - like a Fair Trial.
Ask any Brit who has failed out here - what went wrong - or those still here struggling to be economically active.
How often was it dishonest advice from some local elite 'professional' they had trusted - that finished their hopes here ?
Followed by the threat that years waiting for a local court hearing would only result in a judgement that 'You - The Brit. - was trying to cheat the system' or 'it was all just a language misunderstanding etc ! '
We Brits become 'Ze Povinho's' here when we step off the aeroplane !!
A democracia estas de rastos
E uma ditadura muito sofisticada
"Eles comen tudo e nao deixam nada"
Not sure if this is our esteemed Editor's words ?
The height of absurdity and insult was for the Portuguese Government to hold a rock concert in Grandola last April to commemorate the 'failed' revolution of 1974.
If even the Army Captains who 'led' the original revolution have now twigged that it never happened ... all of us in the EU should taken note.
As other commetators have often said ... was Portugal even remotely ready for the economic and social changes being in the EU would bring ?
And is Portugal still just as backward .... 28 years later ? How could it have failed so badly ?
Not least - All the Troika recommendations that affect the elite's interests like closing Tribunals, Municipals and Freguesia's now being unravelled !
3 years possible progress towards EU standards wasted.