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.
