Dissenting voices excluded from Bertie's Regional Congress

The Madeira PSD congress, held over the last weekend, showed Bertie stooping to a new low. To ensure a docile meeting and the usual fervent ovations to his two-hour-long speeches Bertie handpicked the 700 party delegates who were to attend. Left at the door and not allowed to enter were all those who had given their name to Albuquerque's candidacy: Pedro Calado, the deputy Mayor, Rubina Leal, former PSD commissariat member and others. Bertie's attacks on the traitors and enemies of Madeira, the internal and external ones, were met with the usual pavlovian enthusiasm and his motion would have been passed with totalitarian unanimity were it not for a lone hand raised in abstention: Miguel Albuquerque's.

Meanwhile Albuquerque's supporters are already loosing their jobs. Vanda Correia de Jesus who supported Albuquerque's candidacy has seen her contract terminated in some cushy, obscure Government department. 'Rome doesn't pay traitors', Jardim used to say when he hounded people who gave their face to the opposition out of their jobs. Now, its his own party members who are facing the same treatment (Vanda even happens to be the wife of a national MP for Madeira).