Unanimity and lack of debate
About a year ago the American Democratic Party was confronted with a huge political crisis. The president and candidate for the November 2024 elections finally realized that he was unable to face Donald Trump and abandoned the electoral race. At that time, two opposite currents came into confrontation regarding the choice of successor and party leader: one that defended an open convention, with debate between opponents and the choice of the leader by the congressmen; Another that preferred a demonstration of unity around a single candidacy, arguing that there was no time to do otherwise given the proximity of the convention and elections.
As well known, the second option won and the party-with all its internal disagreements-joined around a candidate who had been defeated by Joe Biden in the primary democrats. Kamala Harris, then vice president, became leader of the Democratic Party and chosen to face Donald Trump. And once again, he suffered a defeat throughout the line, with the Republican to win a huge majority, in the popular vote and at the electoral college.
Even though it happened on the other side of the Atlantic, the episode is very close to the strange and practically unanimous choice of José Luís Carneiro as future secretary general of the Socialist Party. Just over a year ago, with the resignation of António Costa and legislatures on the horizon, the PS organized direct elections that opposed two currents in the party. One led by Pedro Nuno Santos, another by José Luís Carneiro. The first one comfortably won with 60.9% of the votes and the support of almost all federations, the President of the Carlos César Party and the Secretary General of Socialist Youth, Miguel Costa Matos. The dominant political line in the PS was clearly left -wing, leaning against the parties that formed the ‘geringonça’. José Luís Carneiro was in modest 37.7% of the votes.
Now, in the face of the resounding defeat in the legislatures of last May 18, it is for the candidate who obtained a minority of the votes, whose vision for the PS and the country was defeated internally, which the party turned into. No debate. Without alternative applications. It was a turn of instant needle, a kind of party-to-party that changed their position because the winds blow from another direction. More than that. The unanimous support for José Luís Carneiro appearing to have been cooked behind the scenes by an oligarchy that runs the destinations of the PS – as in the American Democratic Party – due to his personal interests but which is presented as a necessity: to show unity before local elections.
This means that the reflection that many in the PS asked during and after the election night of May 18 will never take place. With an elected leader, there will be no room to discuss programmatic lines or recognize past errors. What will not be new to the PS, the party that never dealt, recognized or discussed the mistakes made during José Sócrates’s leadership. On the contrary, those who were with the main defendant of Operation Marquis remained in power, perpetuating their positions as deputies, ministers and MEPs, as if they had never been part of the circle of power of socratism.
The same seems to be happening now. Those who have been with Pedro Nuno Santos in recent years, who have defended him and his ideas with all the conviction in newspapers and televisions, are preparing to act as if they had never played any role in the leftist derivative and to defend precisely the opposite. Some have done worse and put the circular that it was Pedro Nuno – and only he – who took the country to elections since he decided, alone and stubbornly, to reject the government’s confidence motion, against the wise councils of all those around him and predicted that the result would be disastrous. They will have kept silence because the party once again needed unity before the elections. But as seen in the United States, unity can fool some for a while, but it doesn’t deceive everyone all the time.
José Luís Carneiro has had several executive functions. He was Mayor, Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Government of an absolute majority of António Costa. It is regarded as a PS centrist and represents a line with which AD can easily dialogue. May have been competent in the various positions it held. But it can also be certain: as soon as you are in the lead of the PS it will be quickly and in force attacked because it was the minister who extinguished the service of foreigners and borders and created AIMA, with all the chaos that followed as regards the situation of immigrants in Portugal.
