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| Autarca voltou a prometer "políticas activas" para Campanhã |
Moreira foi capa do NYT e quer valorizar freguesias do Porto
New York Times fez capa com a eleição de Rui Moreira no mesmo dia em que este visitou a base do poder local
No mesmo dia em que o New York Times fez capa
da sua edição internacional com o novo presidente da Câmara do Porto, descrito
como o primeiro independente a ganhar o governo de uma grande cidade na Europa
Ocidental, Rui Moreira dedicou a agenda a uma descida à base do poder local, as
freguesias. O autarca visitou as sete (resultado da fusão de 15) freguesias. E
promete, às sextas-feiras, dedicar a atenção a cada uma delas.
Foi quase uma sessão de cumprimentos, sinal de "respeito", de "vontade de
colaboração com as freguesias" este périplo que terminou em Campanhã, à porta da
junta presidida pelo socialista Ernesto Santos, já ao cair da noite. O
presidente de câmara alvo da atenção mediática global pretendeu, simbolicamente,
voltar atrair a atenção dos media locais e nacionais para uma parte do
Porto que nos últimos dias foi notícia por maus motivos - os cortes de luz nos
bairros do Lagarteiro, Contumil e Cerco, entretanto suspensos por pressão da
autarquia, e o anúncio do encerramento do centro de saúde local, que afinal vai
apenas ser sujeito a obras. "Esse problema [com o centro de saúde] foi resolvido graças ao empenho do meu vereador Manuel Pizarro", assinalou Moreira, que destacou também intervenção do presidente da junta e a compreensão da Administração Regional de Saúde do Norte, que acabou por perceber os problemas de mobilidade que uma mudança de instalações acarretaria para os utentes, muitos deles idosos.
Na próxima sexta-feira, Rui Moreira vai começar por dar atenção às questões de Massarelos/Lordelo do Ouro, mas Campanhã - o Porto Oriental, e mais pobre - deverá merecer uma atenção constante ao longo do mandato. "É um dos pontos de convergência com o PS que agora está connosco na coligação. Temos-nos queixado, e com razão, dos desequilíbrios nacionais, em relação a Lisboa, mas não podemos ter esse discurso e permitir na cidade os desequilíbrios que havia. Campanhã precisa de políticas activas que procuraremos implementar. Teremos uma particular atenção às pessoas, à necessidade de criar emprego e às situações de emergência que aqui são mais graves que noutras zonas."
Campanhã, ou qualquer outra freguesia não tiveram qualquer menção no trabalho extenso que o New York Times dedicou à eleição de Moreira no Porto. O jornal olhou para esta vitória como uma resposta, diferente, em Portugal, a uma crise, comum na Europa, que afecta os partidos tradicionais, abrindo noutras geografias espaço para o populismo e o extremismo. "Espero que isto contribua para que olhem para o Porto como uma cidade diferente. Se ajudar a promover o Porto internacionalmente, fico muito satisfeito. De resto, não me compete fazer a avaliação do efeito da entrevista", explicou Moreira.
The New York Times
November 7, 2013 / http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/world/europe/outsiders-election-gives-portuguese-a-ray-of-optimism.html
Outsider’s Victory in Portugal Reflects Continent’s
Discontent
By RAPHAEL MINDER
PORTO, Portugal — Rui Moreira seems an unlikely answer to
the populist discontent stalking Europe’s mainstream political parties. Scion
of one of this city’s richest families, he studied abroad, ran the family
shipping business for a while, and then invested in everything from a popular
nightclub here to wine distribution in Brazil and real estate in Chile. Until
recently, politics was of little interest, he said.
Yet in Portugal’s municipal elections in September, this son
of privilege ran as a man of the people, and won. More than that, Mr. Moreira,
57, managed to do something virtually without precedent here or almost anywhere
else in Western Europe, being elected mayor of a major city without having been
affiliated with an established political party.
His victory, Mr. Moreira said in an interview as he was
sworn in last month, amounted to more than a protest vote by citizens fed up
with the parties — conservative and Socialist — that have mismanaged Portugal’s
economy. It was proof, he said, that “voters now reject a system that has
allowed apparatchiks to control traditional parties, in Portugal and elsewhere
in Europe.”
Indeed, long-established parties on the left and right are
taking a beating across Europe as voters associate them with corruption, joblessness
and stultifying bureaucracy — both within parties and governments — feeding a
perception that Europe’s crisis is not just one of economics but also of
leadership and ideas.
Their record-low popularity has collapsed the political
center in austerity-squeezed countries, providing openings for populist parties
to make inroads from the fringe, such as the U.K. Independence Party in
Britain, Golden Dawn in Greece, the National Front in France, and the Five Star
Movement in Italy.
“The risk for Europe is that difficult times help spread
populism, which in the worst-case scenario can then turn into totalitarianism,”
said Mr. Moreira, who also wrote a book last year, “Ultimatum,” focusing on the
slump of mainstream parties and Portugal’s general troubles.
The Portuguese voiced their disaffection mostly by shunning
the polls in September, raising the abstention rate to a record 47 percent.
Those who did vote punished the governing Social Democrats of Prime Minister
Pedro Passos Coelho, who has overseen unpopular austerity measures to comply
with the terms for Portugal’s €78 billion bailout, negotiated by the previous
Socialist administration with international creditors.
Mr. Coelho’s party won just 17 percent of the vote; the
Socialists 36 percent.
Mr. Moreira said he decided to run for mayor after being
urged by a loose association of leading Porto personalities, including
businessmen and some former politicians. He ran as an outsider. Unable to
leverage any party apparatus, he covered by his own estimation about 600 miles in six months
by foot, crisscrossing the city in an unorthodox campaign that included posting
hundreds of videos on social media websites.
It helped that even before the campaign, Mr. Moreira had
become something of a local celebrity by channeling his lifelong passion for
F.C. Porto, the local soccer club, into writing a regular newspaper column and
appearances on a leading television talk show.
“The people in the poorer neighborhoods mainly knew and saw
me as a real defender of our club,” Mr. Moreira said. “I have one of the
cheapest seats in the stadium and that is where I plan to remain,” he said,
pulling out a season membership card as if to prove his bona fides.
Twice divorced and a father of two, he attended the German
school of Porto, and spent his youth in various countries, including England,
Norway, Denmark and Germany. He received a diagnosis of terminal kidney failure
at 27, leading to a life-saving transplant from one of his seven siblings.
Before this year, Mr. Moreira said he had no real desire to
enter in politics, because he had so many other business activities to keep
himself busy. But as the economic crisis deepened, he said he was increasingly
frustrated at how politicians had failed to explain Portugal’s austerity
policies to the public.
Mr. Moreira said his country needed an austerity program to
clean up public finances, “but what has happened in Portugal has been an
overdose.” Recent spending cuts and tax increases, he said, “were made blindly
rather than properly targeted,” for instance lowering salaries of all civil
servants rather than only of those working in particularly inefficient sectors.
Having no party affiliation, he said, has given him more
latitude to speak his own mind, to focus on the needs of his city and greater
independence from orders from Lisbon, the capital, where the main parties have
their base.
In general, he said he backed a stronger European Union. But
he deplored the fact that Portugal had suffered from overcentralization since
joining the bloc in 1986, with Lisbon party leaders making sure that a
disproportionate amount of European subsidies stayed around the capital rather
than being spread to other cities.
A former president of Porto’s chamber of commerce, Mr.
Moreira ran on a decidedly local reform agenda, focused on issues like
renovating derelict areas of Porto and making sure that money that arrived in
Porto stayed in Porto.
“The real competition,” he said, “is between cities and not
countries.”
But his surprise victory also carried a broader message for
Portugal, and perhaps all of Europe, where he says closed party systems induce
a general lack of accountability — in the party and the political leadership.
He is fond of referring to party members as apparatchiks.
In many European mainstream parties, the leadership
selection process takes place behind closed doors, with the appointment then
rubber-stamped at a national party congress. Some parties, however, have
recently started to switch to a more transparent approach, like the French
Socialists, who in 2011 allowed all left-leaning voters to select François
Hollande among six Socialist candidates for the French presidency.
“We don’t have primaries like in the United States,” Mr.
Moreira said, “but people certainly no longer accept the idea that a candidate
simply gets chosen by an inner party circle.”
Still, some commentators suggest that Mr. Moreira overstates
his independence. In fact, they argue, he owed much of his recent success to
feuding within the Social Democrats who controlled Porto’s City Hall for the
past 12 years and had trouble agreeing on a replacement candidate for their
departing mayor, Rui Rio.
The Porto establishment’s endorsement of Mr. Moreira shows
“the cynicism and the capacity of an old political oligarchy to adapt to
circumstances and to manipulate public perceptions,” said Rui Ramos, a
political analyst and history professor at Lisbon University.
For his part, Mr. Moreira insisted that “I’m not the result
of power play.”
When asked whether he was instead Portugal’s answer to
Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire media tycoon who became New York’s mayor,
Mr. Moreira laughed and said that “I just wish that I was that rich.” His
property and other assets amount to less than 10 million euros, Mr. Moreira
said.
Before delivering a speech at his swearing-in last month,
shopkeepers came out to embrace him. José Miguel Folhadela, the manager of a
men’s clothing shop, said he had voted for Mr. Moreira because “he doesn’t need
to make more money but can still relate to ordinary people.”
“I really hope his independence is an asset,” Mr. Folhadela
added, “because other politicians have no integrity.”
Mr. Moreira also got a hug from a local soccer legend,
Domingos Paciência.
“I’m obviously in a state of grace,” Mr. Moreira said, “but
let see how long it can last.”
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