You recently argued that the political control of the Regional Government by the Legislative Assembly of the Azores is not sufficient for a correct system of government, which generated some debate among those who think about the political phenomenon on our islands. Can you explain your point of view?

I recently defended it and have defended it in the specialty since my 2010 book “The Eighth Revision…”. This can be explained in two different ways: constitutional science (technical) and political science. In technical terms, it’s enough to point out the signs: regional governments are as partisan as parliamentary deputies; regional governments are elected indirectly, taking into account the parliamentary reality; all laws and government programs are approved in this context; parliamentary agreements are subject to the party matrix; in the Azores, governments last at least two continuous decades; in Madeira, four continuous decades. Regarding political dynamics, regional politics is based exclusively on these two bodies, the parliament, and the government; therefore, after the elections and the approved government program, the government crosses its arms and simply puts out fires here and there, parliamentary agreement there and there. In the introduction to a study of ours published in the magazine of the Historical Institute of Terceira Island, this seriousness and reality is stated: “… the legislative identity of the Autonomous Region of the Azores in the last two decades is weak and dangerous, pretentious and overbearing, possessed of a certain degree of ignorance, an enemy of the political history of the Azores, possessed of a weak institutional dignity, with a strong de-legalization, with a strong incidence of usurpation of powers and inertia, and subject to many judgments of profound unconstitutionality and illegality…”. The autonomous system’s weaknesses lie in the system of government: for political and procedural democracy to exist, discourse and oversight must be practical. If the regional government wants Chega to reduce the number of people on a subsistence income, it’s to keep itself in government and the government in parliament; that’s political corruption: it’s a game of interests without government control, without taking into account the concrete problems of society. Everyone likes to know that fewer X dependents exist, but no one wonders what happened to those people. Autonomy doesn’t just belong to those with the opportunity or the mental quality to have a job; it belongs to everyone in harmonious solidarity.
And another powerful and very painful sign: why do regional parliaments and governments have their own laws and political projects that change the rules and political formulas of the Republic on the islands and, in this context, produce many commands to the detriment of the islanders themselves (as we showed in the study above); and why do they only have two bodies, parliament, and government, when the state has three, one of which is independent of political parties?

Why can’t the Republic’s Representative and the Republic’s President exercise political control over the government? Is it because it doesn’t work? Or is it because they don’t want it to work?

It doesn’t work because they both have no power: the Representative of the Republic has no political control functions, neither parliamentary nor much less governmental. Nor does he have legitimacy because he is not elected. He only has the power of contentious supervision through vetoes when signing laws. The President of the Republic can send messages, but that doesn’t mean anything, although he can dissolve the regional parliament, bringing down the government; on the one hand, he can’t dismiss the government, nor can he dissolve it for political reasons because he has no political relationship, neither daily nor direct: only in the event of an accident of extreme political gravity could he, on his own, dissolve parliament. This has never happened, nor will it ever happen, because the system does not have this matrix. In other words, these two state bodies, which function in the regional government system, do not have any item showing the possibility of promoting government control.
And perhaps also because they don’t want it to work: the Representative of the Republic doesn’t even fulfill the full function of vetoes, 1st, because he may even participate in writing regional laws to avoid opinions and vetoes; 2nd, because he doesn’t do successive monitoring, 3rd, because since the last Minister of the Republic (who declared that he was coming to the Azores, but wasn’t coming to create problems) the system of inaction has been in place. The President of the Republic made this clear when he kept the same people in the positions of Representative of the Republic as the previous President of the Republic, Cavaco Silva, showing the value he places on autonomy, showing that old age in democracy is not a problem, an unexpected conclusion from a very competent professor of Constitutional Law.

How is a President of the Autonomous Region, as you advocate, going to resolve this issue of the system of regional government?

It will be clear and straightforward: on the one hand, he will do all the regional tasks that now fall to the Representative of the Republic and the President of the Republic; on the other hand, as with the President of the Republic, this new regional post will be elected by direct and universal vote and outside the party context. It will acquire other functions similar to those of the President of the Republic in the national model: on the one hand, it will periodically listen to the regional government to monitor the implementation of the government program, and on the other hand, it will listen closely to the leaders with parliamentary seats. Basically, instead of having two state bodies that are ineffective in defending fundamental rights, we will have just one that is entirely regional and will be able to guarantee the normal functioning of the institutions, having the conditions for legitimacy because it is elected by direct and universal vote and because it is constantly observing and listening to the reality of the Azores – and so it can both political control parliament and also and above all the regional government. And finally, after almost fifty years of civilizational backwardness from a political point of view, the islanders would acquire a genuinely democratic system of government.

With a President of the Autonomous Region, isn’t there a danger of him becoming a kind of viceroy? Or a parallel power within the regional system?

Impossible. Has the President of the Republic ever reached these heights in the national system? Of course not! And why not: because the President of the Autonomous Region will only have the mandate that the islanders give him by secret and universal vote and from a candidate who has no political party; because that mandate has time limits; because his functions will obviously be provided for in the Constitution; and, as with the President of the Republic, in addition to powers, there are also limits. This kind of thinking also existed in 1975 and 1976, when it was said that autonomy would lead the islanders to independence; the exact opposite happened because the islanders (although they had not yet gained a strong ideology of regional unity due to the lack of a system of government that pushes for archipelagic solidarity and harmony) have strengthened the bonds of national unity.
This new body will have two essential functions: on the one hand, it will guarantee a democratic system of government, and this is essential in any modern society, mainly when autonomy implies differences between the national, regional, and European; on the other hand, it will strengthen the feeling of regional unity because a legitimate body will be present twenty-four hours a day to suffer the bitterness of the Atlantic with the islanders themselves, it will listen to the populations and, with constitutional and electoral legitimacy, it will be able to supervise with political effectiveness.

With this ecosystem of power that you are advocating, even including a new body, the President of the Autonomous Region, aren’t you underestimating the role that municipal power can play?

What nonsense! Only a fool could think that, with all due respect. “Municipal” power existed before our country was formed. Municipal power is independent of political power and should remain so. I am well aware that in the Azores and Madeira, there is (due to the absence of a democratic system of government) a tendency to deprive local authorities of their power, entangling them in funding so that whoever is in power in the regional governments can perpetuate themselves. In fact, this question comes in very handy: the archipelago has the legal regime of ARAAL contracts dedicated to supporting municipalities, which has allowed the funding of those of the same political color to the detriment of others, and there has even been an identical regime for parish councils for about a month now. The assault has begun.
You can look at it from a historical point of view: Luís da Silva Ribeiro, the man after whom the Angra Library is named, advocated a regional system in which municipalities met once a year for specifically regional deliberations. As an ideology, this model was entirely superseded by the Carnation Revolution, which brought us political autonomy in 1976.

in Diário Insular-José Lourenço-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso-American Education Foundation for sponsoring FILAMENTOS