22/10/2014
Angel Rivero, Autonomous University of Madrid
The great surprise of the Portuguese elections held on 25 May to elect the European Parliament came from António Marinho e Pinto. The former Chairman of the Bar Association deployed an anti-corruption and anti-party speech in these elections, wrapped in deepening participatory democracy, which has given the MPT (da Terra Party), a hitherto tiny 'centrist, ruralist and nationalist' party, two seats in the European Parliament. Never before had this party attained such electoral performance: it reached more than 7% of the vote. The reason for this success, unprecedented in the history of this group, was that this time they had a very strong candidate. As Chairman of the Bar Association of Portugal, Marinho e Pinto had lambasted politicians from all parties in his fight against corruption. A fight he upheld with dedication and stubbornness in as many television programs as he could visit, in morning, afternoon and night shows. Marinho e Pinto earned, this way, the title of fair, and the halo of exemplifying the fight against the degradation of politics. The popularity thus achieved allowed him to pass judgement on those responsible for the crisis that has plagued Portugal for too many years now: the five parties represented in the Parliament of Lisbon which, in his diagnosis, encouraged or tolerated a corruption that resulted in the breakdown of democracy which began on April 25, 1974. They are carrying us, he cries alone, to 'collective suicide.' Unamuno, by the way, called the Portuguese a 'suicidal people.'
From Popularity to Populism
With the capital of popularity and the political support of the experiment of the European elections, Marinho e Pinto has taken another step in his new political career: the founding of the Democratic Republican Party (PDR). As expected in a country so fond of political mythology and of the great days in history, the date chosen for the launch of the party, 5 October, stirs the awareness of Portuguese identity. It was on that day in 1910 when the Republic was proclaimed as a result of the discredit of the Bragança monarchy and their parliamentary rotatism. Then, as today, corruption was rampant, filling the pages of newspapers, and those who demanded a radical change, a change of regime, shouted in the street and in parliament: 'theft, theft.'
Thus, the party presented in Coimbra in the above-mentioned landmark date seeks to establish, amid the uncertainty of the Portuguese, the promise of regeneration backed by a pristine figure who, to return to the Portuguese political myths, evokes the desired, providential man who will save Portugal in its darkest hour, as the Sebastianist legend claims, and that he will appear on a foggy day in Lisbon's Terreiro do Paço, the political epicentre of the country.
The Portuguese analysts, even granting Marinho e Pinto's obvious populism, have underlined his friendly personality, compared with other more sour populisms that have emerged in countries of the European Union. And this should not be surprising in the land of brandos costumes, where courtesy and discretion condemn any verbal and gestural radicalism. Thus, there's no place for xenophobia in the new PDR, unlike what happens in the populisms from other parts of Europe, although indeed they would have no one to address it to: there are no immigrants in Portugal but a great emigration wave which is already the most important in the history of a country that has always migrated. Nor is there in the PDR a condemnation of the democratic regime born in 1974. Political parties are guilty but there's no democracy without parties. The regime has to be regenerated in a democratic sense, but this is not about changing the regime or opening a constitutional process, as requested by the populists at this side of the Caia river.
Populism has been aptly defined as the doctrine that states that democracies' problems are solved with more democracy. This means that populism establishes the idea that politicians are to blame for all the ills of society, and if political responsibility is assumed by the people directly, they will be solved. Populism establishes mistrust in politicians as a rule, while sanctifying the will of the people, fair and good, embodied, of course, by the populist politician. And he says: let us flatter the people and condemn the politicians. The people not only have political wisdom, the people are naturally good while politicians are, he argues, naturally bad.
So, Marinho e Pinto has condemned all political parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic as equally guilty of the main problems of the country. These problems are, of course, the problems created by politicians: corruption; influence peddling; promiscuity between politics and business; government borrowing; embezzlement of public property. The solution? Creating a great popular movement that forces parties to modify their behaviour. Within this popular movement, 'new parties and new people bringing more honesty to politics, more credibility to democratic institutions and more hope to the Portuguese' would find their place.
The PDR is neither leftist nor rightist, it is the party of honesty before the parties of corruption and their political project, consistent with the definition of populism I pointed out before, is to 'perfect political democracy, economic democracy and social democracy.' To do this it is essential to break the parties' monopoly on the democratic process. A participatory democracy in which citizens have the central role that until now was reserved to parties is thus necessary: 'any citizen must be able to apply independently to any public office, without relying on a political party', and MPs must be 'autonomous and independent' from their political party because their commitment is to citizens and not to their party.
The PDR, which still needs to get 7,500 signatures by November 8 in order to be legalised by the Constitutional Court, has attracted old politicians from the Portuguese left and right and has indeed captured the attention of public opinion. Under the banners of 'Freedom, Justice and Solidarity' it aims to 'rebuild the Republic and make a new April 25 without armoured vehicles and without weapons.' It is too early yet to discern the outcome of this ambition but, leaving its uniqueness aside, this project shows a common European climate of democracy discredit where, forgetting history, populism has again found a great occasion.