The Ports Monopoly Discussed in Parliament

The Socialist Party proposal for getting rid of the Sousa Group ports monopoly was discussed in Parliament yesterday but its discussion was put off by Jardim's party.

According to the CDS, the Sousas have been operating on a temporary license for nineteen years. All parties were against the fact the Sousas pay the Government, and therefore the region, NOTHING in return for the use of the license to operate using the ports facilities and infra-structure. This while practicing some of the highest prices in Europe, if not in the world.

Even the PSD, in the person of Jaime Filipe Ramos, who sits two chairs away from his daddy, the party's parliamentary leader, recognized that the current arrangement must be changed and that an alternative is being drafted by the Government. By whom and for when we do not know, but it was more than obvious that this news had a nauseating effect on Miguel de Sousa, whose face dropped to the floor.

Miguel de Sousa, a PSD backbencher is cousin of the Ports Monopoly Sousas, and also Jardim's latest challenger. Sousa is a more discreet and sophisticated operator than the Ramos clan, and those connected to him have been very nicely rewarded. Apart from his cousins who secured the Ports Monopoly, Sousa was also instrumental in setting up the 30 year concession for the running of the Madeira 'offshore' which was secured by the Pestana Group (again without public tender,)…of whom he is a business partner.

Since the construction sector, which was the main dominion of the Ramos family, has dried up, they now look on the ever-flourishing Sousa family with a distinctly less benevolent eye.

The Lifting of Immunity for Members of the Government accused of crime voted for the 1st time in Madeira

The lifting of the immunity from prosecution of members of the Government was voted for the first time in the Madeiran Parliament - but with a curious twist!

Hitherto, the Chair of the Parliament merely read the correspondence among which would figure letters from members of the Government requesting the non-lifting of their immunity from prosecution, and these, it seemed, often went unnoticed among the chit-chat of the MPs.

The New Democracy Party (PND), however, has long been trying to get the Public Prosecutor's requests voted, as already happens for the MPs themselves - but only after the newspapers (Garajau among them) exposed the MPs abuse of Parliamentary Immunity.

The New Democracy MPs (I am currently replacing Helder Spinola) have been challenging the Chair's procedure every time one of these cases crops up - which is remarkably frequent.

At the end of last year, in response to Helder's challenges, the Chair called for a legal written advice from a top constitutionalist, which duly materialized but was nevermore mentioned. I requested a copy and discovered why. The advice stated unequivocally that the authorization for the lifting or not of parliamentary immunity HAD to be voted.

Yesterday, for the first time, and giving the due credit to the PND, the Chair put no less than three requests for the lifting of immunity of government to the vote. To my great surprise, the two major opposition parties, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists voted AGAINST the lifting of parliamentary immunity.

Those who so often denounce corruption and denounce the inefficiency of the justice system are PROTECTING government members whenever the justice system does act! They complain, for example, of election fraud, but they are accomplices in protecting Jardim from prosecution in two separate cases brought against him for violating the election law.

José Manuel Coelho's convict protest in Parliament

 

José Manuel Coelho, MP for the Labour Party PTP, turned up in Parliament last week dressed as a convict as a protest against the Portuguese justice system. Coelho was condemned for difamation in a case involving Jardim and his Vice-President. I am condemned for telling the truth, he says. Coelho stated he would not appeal the decision and wanted to be sent to prison to show how biased some of the judges in Madeira are.

 

The day of the protest Coelho was absolved in another case brought against him by the Vice President, who had asked for 75.000 Euros in compensation. Such cases are moneyspinners for Jardim and his chronies, who resort to Government finance to ask for substantial personal compensations.

 

 

 

Parliamentary 'Pimp'

The PSD Madeira MPs meeting on the 14th was marked by new signs of internal struggle. Its Parliamentary leader, Jaime Ramos, renown for his civility and good manners, called his fellow party member Miguel de Sousa, the deputy chair of the Parliament, a 'pimp'. All because Miguel de Sousa wanted the parliament's agenda for the next few months to be fixed in advance.

None of the PSD MPs are allowed to miss a session for free that the opposition may gain the upper hand over their 2-seat majority and all of them have their business and leisure concerns. Jaime is free to set the agenda to his liking, which he does.

The insults - word has it that far worse expressions were used - seemed to be derived from business jealousies: Miguel de Sousa is closely tied to the company that runs the offshore and to the Ports monopoly, run by his cousin - the only sector that is not feeling the recession pinch; indeed freight costs have just been upped - Yippee! Jaime is the big man in the construction sector - once the Colossus of Government spending - which has now dried up, leaving his associates with considerable accumulated government debt.  Not a happy chappy.

Mayor of Funchal denounces climate of Fear

In an interview to the Expresso, Miguel Albuquerque, denounces the climate of fear lived in Madeira - a situation long denounced by opposition parties, who have often been targets of political persecution.

Albuquerque's denounciations, however, refer to the climate within Jardim's (and Albuquerque's) Party, the PSD. He refers to threats of 'cleansing the party' and of summoning, one by one, all militants who join his candidature for Party leadership.

Albuquerque also denounced the non-functioning of the Regional Parliament, namely, because the Government does not answer before Parliament. The Government simply does not go to the Parliament.

The 22 Regional MPs for the opposition have signed an appeal to the Constitutional Court, asking it to evaluate the 'ilegality and inconstitutionality' of the current functioning of the Regional Parliament.

Opposition Parties Sign Democracy Pact - Dictator Laughs

All eight opposition parties signed a pact for democracy at a ceremony held outside the Madeira Parliament this Monday. The opposition parties denounce the lack of democracy in a Parliament which lacks power to call the Government to account and which ends up as a puppet used to legitimize a de facto dictatorship.

Bertie, at an EU-funded official inauguration ceremony in the countryside, reacted saying 'this hotch-potch  means that none of them have any shame, coherence, principles or values'. 'These are the fascists and communists all in the same bag'. 'They have been together for the last 30 or so years (the time Bertie has been in power) and from time to time they do a clown act like this'. 'Although its not a laughing matter, because Madeira has many problems, the truth is that I have to laugh when I see fascists and communists and the whole mixture together, all of them totally shameless'.

Bertie is plainly totally off his rocker!

Bertie Skips Motion of No Confidence

The regional parliament, today, was set to debate a motion of no confidence proposed by the Socialist Party. The President of the Regional Government, who never goes to Parliament, simply ignored the debate, sending a single junior member of his executive to represent the Government.

In view of the Government's absence, the Socialists withdrew the motion, calling on the President of Portugal to either dissolve parliament or ensure the Government is present at such debates, as would be the norm in a real democracy.

Jardim called the motion of no confidence 'an episode of political terrorism mounted against the President of the Regional Government.' 'This folklore on the part of small parties aims to disturb government, through constant intentions to summon us to Parliament, when the government members are far too busy concentrating on the more important challenges of the future of the Madeiran people.' -  Bertie was due to be giving a talk to pupils of a school in Curral das Freiras. Too busy to be accountable to Parliament then...

PSD abandons Parliament over vote of condolences for EuroMP Miguel Portas

The CDS party yesterday presented a vote of condolences in memory of the recently deceased EuroMP Miguel Portas. The vote was boycotted by PSD parliamentary leader, Jaime Ramos, who abandoned the session, followed by a number of PSD MPs.

This is the second time in the last month that the PSD walked out of a parliamentary session. The previous occasion occurred when an opposition MP requested the floor to defend his honour. This time, however, only a handful of MPs followed Ramos out, his son and a number of other MP’s remained.

The opposition, apart from the CDS, also abandoned the Parliament two days ago in protest at the absence of the Government who never appear to defend the diplomas they send for Parliamentary approval.

The chair of the Parliament adopts a dual criteria for dealing with these protests. When the PSD abandons the session, he calls for a break; when the opposition walks out, the session carries on as usual. The most notorious occasion was when all the opposition walked out in protest over a PSD motion to have then Socialist opposition leader’s mental sanity examined by a medical board. The PSD then proceeded to vote through 17 motions in 15 minutes.

Transparency, Debt and limit of Mandates

The Public Prosecutor's Office has denied it has found any new hole in the Madeira accounts, but does this invalidate the readings that the debt may now be over 8 billion? No, or rather, we simply don't know. It seems to be a simple game of semantics.

And why don't we know? Because there is no democratic system of check and control. The Parliament, does not function. The Government never goes there and on the rare occasions it does so, goes there on its own terms: it does not provide the requested information and allows no debate. It simply appears to make speeches. Last summer, for instance, the Secretary of Finances went to the Parliament to say the regional debt amounted to little over 1 billion; weeks later it had to admit that is was over 6 billion.

There is absolutely no transparency in the Madeira accounts and none of the State entities, Parliament, Justice System, Public Prosecutor's Office, function in way resembling those of a Democracy.

Why, is the President of the Government of the Autonomous Region of Madeira the ONLY elected post without a limit of mandates? Simply because the whole Democratic system has been screwed and manipulated to perpetuate the power and the abuse of power of one man - a man who cannot be held accountable to Parliament - or any other institution, for that matter - and who now spends his Sunday mornings preaching his theories to churchgoers in the churchyard after Sunday mass.

Many journalists and politicans absurdly refer to him as Europe's longest serving elected leader. There can be no comparison since no elected leader in Europe can serve for more than two or three terms in office ... and this rule is made precisely to prevent corruption and chronyism and so that noone can stay in power long enough to manipulate the whole system in his favour - to perpetuate himself in power (with abundant election violations from which he is imune from prosecution!).

Portuguese Parliament debate on Madeira’s Democratic Deficit, 1992

In May 1992, the Portuguese Parliament held a debate on the democratic deficit in Madeira. The speech of the Socialist MP, Jaime Gama, addressed the issues of the asphyxiating effect of party-political power on the administration, economy and society; the lack of control in the regional accounts; the government’s control over media; the climate of permanent intimidation; the disrespect for the opposition; the quest for constant conflicts with institutions; and the isolationist conception of autonomy:

‘4 – A climate of intimidation against those who disagree.

When, everywhere, democratic powers nurture criticism, independent judgment, analytic spirit, controversy, disagreement and the open confrontation of opinions, the Regional Government of Madeira systematically intimidates all those who dare to differ.

Government communiqués which, in principle, should be destined to clarify the population on matters of public interest are frequently used to insult the authors of any observation that does not conform to the official viewpoint.

The President of the Regional Government does not refrain from grossly insulting any citizen who exercises his right to air any heterodox view on the merits of the regional administration.

Civil servants are forbidden from airing their opinion (they are criminally sued) and their advisory statements (pareceres) are obliged to be free of any views that discord with the Regional Government.

In a traditional society, where nobody welcomes to see their name attacked or insulted, the intimidating weight of  verbal terrorism – to which the principal leader of the Government and the PSD leader of the regional parliament systematically resort to – is a powerful inhibiting factor and apolitical obstacle.

The reinforcement of autonomy in Madeira absolutely requires an end to this sort of practice. Democracy is not the tyranny of the majority.

5. The disrespect for the opposition – for all and any opposition -, namely in the Regional Parliament.

For the power installed in Madeira, the opposition is not another form of serving the interests of the archipelago, a possible alternative to the regional government or a healthy and necessary supervisor of acts of government. No! The opposition are purely and simply a band of criminals, who are treated like animals rather than decent citizens.

Whether a Communist or a Christian Democrat, an independant or a Socialist, anyone who opposes the PSD/Madeira has no reason whatsoever to exist. They are reduced to nothing, to a species of the most abject and despicable beings, their harassment as turncoats, delinquents or traitors, is one of the most perturbing aspects of the philosophy and practice of the regional PSD.

It is this totalitarian slide – which only does not reach a higher level of final implementation due to the national context – that leads to the level at which the Regional Parliament function:, a parliament where it is extremely difficult and indeed rare to be able to challenge the Government, to hold question and answer sessions, to obtain answers to requests or to constitute Commissions of Inquiry…

6 The search for a systematic confrontation with institutions

The logic of the behavior of the PSD Madeira has for long been that of de facto power, above all institutions and against them all.

For 16 years, the region has lived without a defined statute, a whim long tolerated and systematically used in a blind paranoia of confrontation from which no one escapes.

A trade union, an association or a party disagree – they are summarily tried, condemned and politically executed.

A businessman does not walk along the right corridors to win good grace – he is a vulgar capitalist.

A journalist, or a newspaper, does not obey – it will receive no subsidies, its (government) publicity will be cut, an edition or even the company will be bought, they are insulted and slandered.

A Bishop dares to refer to conditions of extreme poverty and promiscuity – there is an official communiqué against him.

The police or the courts want to exercise their functions in an independent manner – they must be regionalized.

The Armed Forces are not consistent with the whims of the regional authorities – they are a band of effeminate cowards.

The Minister of the Republic dares to veto a bill – he’s  ‘cuban’.

The Prime Minister and the Government will not pay off the [region’s] debt – ‘we don’t need the national PSD for anything and if need be we can always resort to those arguments that everyone knows’ [i.e. the independence of Madeira]

The Portuguese Parliament wants to discuss Madeira – it is not competent and its members, beginning with those of the PSD, belong to a base political class.

The President of the Republic says there is a democratic deficit in the Region – he does not deserve that people get out of bed to reelect him.

This activism, which feeds itself on the still unrelenting conspiracy against Madeira, devastates all and leaves no one standing…

Nothing has changed since 1992 and all these traits have only become exacerbated with time.

Private Eye on Madeira

(published in 2009)

With our cake, port and hardy island mentality, Madeira, an outcrop in the Atlantic and an autonomous region of Portugal, conjures up old-fashioned values. Our fondness for our traditional way stretches to our politics and a bygone era when leaders were no-nonsense characters who knew how to get things done.

Dr. Alberto João Jardim is such a man. He has been in power for 30 years (a little behind Colonel Gaddafi but just ahead of Robert Mugabe). As a young man he was an ardent supporter of the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal and wrote propaganda for its army, then fighting dirty wars in Africa. He was against multiparty democracy but these days Madeira is, at least constitutionally, a part of modern Europe and ours is an elected leader.

For this Dr. Jardim praises what he calls our "superior people", our blissfully few difficulties being the product of a "satanic triangle" between what passes for an opposition, the independent press and the English, who have long controlled our economy.

A place as special as Madeira needs a special kind of democracy. Thus our public prosecutors recently decided not to pursue a case against the violation of election laws on the grounds that the violations weren't serious enough. Opposition speaking times in parliament have been cut three times in the last year, provoking one opposition deputy to raise the Nazi flag in protest. The president (who is executive head of government) only goes to parliament once a year to get the budget approved. On this occasion, he answers no questions and speaks for an unlimited time, during which he insults every member of the opposition, one by one. The Spanish paper El Mundo calls Jardim 'El Maestro del Insulto'.

But why bother with parliament when one can speak directly to the people? In one year, Jardim managed to preside over 450 official openings: a roundabout, 100 meters of new road, any number of white elephants. The ruling Social Democratic Party has a policy of supporting an ambitious public works program; and who better to deliver on so many of such contracts than a clutch of building firms and one of the island's biggest suppliers of cement, in which, coincidentally, Jaime Ramos, the party's general secretary, is a prominent shareholder! He is also treasurer of the party's foundation which owns 40 or so buildings on the island, used as party offices and conference centers. The foundation also owns land in the mountains which served as a landfill site. Symbolically, it is now being converted into a space to hold, er, political rallies.

Madeira's publicly owned newspaper, the Jornal, officially undercuts its rival with a cover price of just 10 cents, but in practice is handed out for free thanks to the generosity of the taxpayer (€3 million a year) and the advertising departments of government  ministries and agencies, who contribute €500.000 annually. The paper toes a consistent editorial line, as might be expected when only Jardim's closest party allies are allowed to write opinion pieces.

The president, with no sense of irony, sees himself as something of a "godfather" figure, recently exhorting his party's youth wing to be a mafia "in the good sense". When João Carlos Gouveia, leader of the main opposition party, raised the issue of corruption in parliament, the majority passed a motion to have his mental faculties examined. Opposition MPs promptly walked out in protest - leaving the president's supporters to vote through 17 motions in a mere 15 minutes.

When Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese president, visited last year, Jardim warned that he should not attend parliament because it was filled with lunatics. Accordingly Cavaco received opposition delegations in a hotel room. He concluded his visit observing that Jardim's regime was a "model democracy". 

Madeira's Problem: no democracy, no free-market

The problem behind the Madeira debt is lack of democracy. The Regional Parliament is powerless to check and control the executive since it has as much power as the German Reichstag after Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act. Jardim's unending program of building infrastructures, the main source of the Madeira debt, is used to finance his election campaigns, providing his main means of propaganda, the daily inauguration ceremonies held in the run up to elections.

The problem behind the Madeira economy is lack of free-market. Tourism is the only sector which does not depend on the Government and where the Government finds it hard to interfere. All the other sectors are heavily dependent of the Government, if not for custom and financing, then for getting past red tape and for 'favours'. The ports monopoly, for instance, was handed to the Sousa Group in a very strange arrangement. It costs many times over to unload a container in Madeira than in the Azores and this is one of the reasons why cost of living is high in Madeira, despite the EU susbsidies to keep it low.

Building construction was one of the dodgiest sectors. Many promotors had difficulty in getting building approval; they would sell their land only to find that someone 'connected', after a simple phone call, could build twice as much on it than they would be allowed. This has since subsided, partly because of the real estate market crash and partly because hundreds of people, fed up with this situation, resorted to the courts, moving proceedings against illegaly approved buildings.

The Government has hundreds of ways of favouring some and harassing others, be it through inspections, red tape or economic persecution.

The Rubber-Stamp Parliament

Jardim’s party is proposing to alter the rules of Parliament once again, reducing the quorum from one half to one third of MPs; i.e. to 16 MPs. The reduction in numbers of MPs elected by the PSD made absenteeism more of an issue. The PSD also proposes to move all voting to the last session of each week, basically so that its MPs would not have to sit through the debates. But the debates themselves have long ceased to be debates: parties with a single MP have only 2 minutes to intervene on each issue.
The PSD privileges ‘efficiency’ over debate in the functioning of the Parliament. An example of this efficiency is the occasion when all opposition members abandoned parliament in protest at a PSD proposal to submit the then opposition leader, João Carlos Gouveia, to a sanity exam. The PSD took advantage of the absence of the opposition parties to debate and vote through 17 motions in 15 minutes.
The CDS has proposed an alternative, more democratic version, which also obliges the President of the Government to go to Parliament for a monthly debate – Jardim has always refused to answer to Parliament and only sets foot in the building once a year to get the budget approved.

The Joke Parliament

The Regional Parliament set the following made-to-measure rules of intervention to discuss the budget rectification:

a. The Government disposes of 15 minutes to present the budget rectification.

b. Parliamentarians are allowed to ask one single question, not exceeding the time limit of one minute.

c. Questions cannot be reformulated

d. The President disposes of one minute to answer each question.

e. No protests are allowed.

f. Following this, each group, in the following order is allowed to intervene for the following period:

g. PSD: 34 minutes; PS: 8 minutes; PCP: 3 minutes; CDS: 3 minutes; Bloco, PND and MPT 2 minutes each.

h. No protests are allowed.

i. The Government is allowed 15 minutes to respond.

j. No further requests for questions or clarifications allowed.

k. The parties are then allowed a further intervention for the same period above (g), but in reverse order.

l. The Government is allowed to intervene FOR AN UNLIMITED PERIOD OF TIME.

Obviously this is not a Parliament where there is any room for debate or exchange of ideas.