As election Sunday approaches, the debate around the city of Lisbon is being reduced to the logic of the “lesser evil”: those who do not like Leitão, are recommended to vote for Moedas, those who do not like Moedas, to vote for Leitão. This narrowing is understandable in light of the interests of each of those two candidates, but it is harmful to democracy. The risk it finds itself in today has several reasons for being, but one of them is certainly the ease with which the extreme right has been occupying the growing electoral space left free by the alternation between center-left and center-right. Making different types of discontent a weapon against democracy and against immigrant workers, the extreme right must be fought in different ways, but no serious fight will dispense with the recognition of part of the popular discontent that André Ventura’s populism takes advantage of.
It is in this context that the program proposed by Alexandra Leitão and the respect she decided to maintain for the political legacy of the Lisbon PS – from Medina and Manuel Salgado to collaboration with Moedas – are difficult to accept. As shown by the candidacy led by João Ferreira and the CDU in Lisbon, it is possible for the left to adopt a political position that achieves two things at the same time: attracting the attention and interest of a wider electorate than that of the respective party bubble; and be assertively critical and bold when starting to build another city. Unfortunately, Alexandra Leitão and her supporters are absolutely right when they say, in reaction to Moedas, that the current PS candidacy is as “moderate” as the previous ones. If a few months ago the business choice of António Vitorino as PS president in Lisbon surprised many people, today it seems to make more sense than ever. Why someone on the left would commit a crime against the country if they do not join this campaign is something that no one – not even my friend José Gusmão – has been able to explain so far.
There are three particularly serious elements in the strategy followed by the PS in Lisbon.
The first is the complicity with fiscal neoliberalism underlying the IRS return measure taken by Medina, first, and worsened by Moedas, later. This measure gives the city’s wealthiest classes the financial resources that should be at the service of public policies that benefit the popular and working classes, which we continue to hand over on a platter to Chega’s fascist demagoguery.
The second serious element is the giving in to the security agenda that Moedas has advocated in order to remain in tune with Chega’s racist agenda. The competition that Leitão and Moedas have fueled around which of the two has the most video surveillance cameras to place on every corner of the city is surprising when we look at the positions that Leitão once took on matters of rights and guarantees.
The third error is the contribution of the PS candidacy to the imaginary and life style and new economy policies dear to the Liberal Initiative, with the motto “Lisbon, city of innovation and entrepreneurship” and proposals that, to the “digital nomads” and the unicorns of Medina and Moedas, are now trying to add international programs to attract “temporary researchers”, in a kind of sabbaticals that, I imagine, are simultaneously supported by Airbnb and FCT.
The contrast with the candidacy of João Ferreira and the CDU is clear: 1) criticism of the individualism and class favoritism inherent in the IRS devolution, even though its fiscal demagogy is difficult to dismantle, and defense of a financial policy at the service of public policies for the entire city; 2) a policy of care and solidarity regarding immigration, without fear of adopting the idea of “Lisbon, city of immigration” as the motto of the CDU program; 3) a complete diagnosis and an integrated proposal of the housing and transport problems that affect the least well-off classes and groups among the population of half a million people who live in the city, without ever forgetting the other half million who pass through here daily in their commuting.
I have the respect for Alexandra Leitão that Carlos Moedas does not deserve. But neither the state of democracy in the country nor the social situation of the city admits any vote other than for the CDU.