Lisbon's Political Drama: Left-Wing Coalition Seizes Control Against Voter Mandate

A Stain on Lisbon's Democracy

When we're told that history is cyclical, we realize that cycles often sink into oblivion because they're usually long. However, what happened in the election of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly's Bureau transports us to a very recent past, signaling a repetition of a much shorter cycle, revealing a democratic desperation.

In 2015, Pedro Passos Coelho won the legislative elections, albeit without a majority. The tradition that April's freedom consolidated in November's democracy was that parties accepted that the most voted force would form the government.

And in those years, in denial of the Portuguese rejection of socialist leadership, the radical left invented a new tradition: even if others win, the left unites to change traditions.

Ten years later, the PS repeated the exercise, but based on the conviction that the Left Bloc is more acceptable in democracy than the current Chega.

And let's be clear, the PS did not fall to the left out of naivety, but by strategic choice.

There are moments in public life when the attentive observer cannot help but frown, like someone finding a stubborn stain on new linen.

And Lisbon, always patient and courteous, now finds itself confronted with one of those stains, where the left, contrary to the will of Lisbon's residents, decided to extend its old shawl over the Municipal Assembly, not to protect it from the cold, but to hide it from the light.

The election of the Municipal Assembly Bureau was not, as would be expected in an enlightened democracy, an exercise in respect for the majority.

The left, minority but ingenious, united with the pride of those who, unable to command the ship, demand at least to hold the helm of the boat.

A revealing fact of a political phenomenon that deserves careful attention: defeated for the City Council, they still found a way to preserve control of the oversight body through a new coalition.

All this despite the sum of mandates clearly and unequivocally showing that Lisbon voted mostly to the right.

The political forces on the right (PSD, Chega, IL, and CDS) total 38 municipal deputies, while the political forces on the left (PS, Livre, BE, PAN, and CDU) only have 37.

And, even so, it is the left that comes to preside over the bureau of the body that oversees the executive.

At the installation session, the new president of the Municipal Assembly, elected by the PS, rehearsed words of balance, moderation, and institutional respect.

However, the speech did not survive the echo of the walls.

Shortly after, Alexandra Leitão announced that she would not enable budgets nor facilitate strategic proposals from Carlos Moedas' executive.

What could have been a gesture of institutional cooperation turned into a declaration of political war.

All this, because she knows she does not have a majority in the Municipal Assembly.

She even knows that the will of Lisbon's residents leaned to the right.

But, knowing all this, she insists on governing the deliberative body against the majority, like a troupe that, chased off the main stage, hangs onto the scenery wires to continue gesturing to the audience.

And thus, André Moz Caldas' speech of balance fell dead to the ground.

It didn't even live the time of a bell toll from the Sé.

This rehearsed contradiction impels us to a harsh reality. There will be no collaboration and respect. The AML will be the stage for the left's siege of Carlos Moedas' governance, and they will do everything to undermine the realization of Moedas' ambition for Lisbon.

Now, Lisbon does not deserve this pantomime.

The situation requires clarification, since the PS refused to accept the invitation to integrate a list headed by the first elected with the most votes (Margarida Mano), and because the will of Lisbon's residents was expressed at the polls with a right-wing majority, then that majority should preside over the Municipal Assembly.

And it is precisely here that the PSD, responsible for municipal governance, will not allow any dome of ambiguities. The city demands clarity. It demands respect for the vote. It demands that the majority that elected the right to lead the City Council also has voice and dignity in the Municipal Assembly.

This PSD, because it can rely on a majority, will not hand it over to the radical left. No more geringonça that harms the city, like the one in 2015 harmed the country, will be repeated.

And, curiously, in an irony of the times, Chega has shown signs of moderation in the AML. It did not attack, did not invade the tables of deliberation. It abstained because it demanded recognition of its relevance in a framework where, traditionally, it was ignored.

To better describe the next steps, I allow myself to plagiarize and adapt the famous phrase of Eça, that ironic moralist who saw the country as a bourgeois house where rubbish is so often swept under the rug:

This Municipal Assembly Bureau will not fall because it is not a building;

it will come out with benzine because it is a stain.

And the benzine, in this case, is democracy.