Politics must be a serious commitment to voters, not a game of personal ambitions or a strategic exercise of convenience of the parties. However, the next elections exhibit a practice that should be strongly condemned: the double application.
By Diogo Fernandes Sousa *
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It is not acceptable that there are deputies who, running for the legislatures at the beginning of May, are also positioned to run for September/October. Equally serious, there are those who, parallel to the legislatures, prepare applications for the presidential presidency of January next year.
This practice is a lack of respect for the voters and the democratic system itself. Requesting a political office means committing to the mandate and the responsibility it entails.
When someone presents more than a simultaneous election, he practically admits that he is not really engaged in any of them. He is putting his interest – and also the interest of the party – above the gravity and dedication that politics requires.
What to think of a candidate who asks the vote of the citizens to be a deputy, knowing that, a few months later, could renounce his position to take a city council? Or a politician who competes for the deputy only as a trampoline for a future presidential candidacy? This is not a public service, it is opportunism.
Worse still, the parties that accept and promote these double candidates reveal a profound lack of respect for the voters. By allowing the same person to appear in several voting newsletters in a short time, they show that they see public offices as parts that serve private interests, rather than essential functions for the correct functioning of the country.
Even those who compete in a place that is difficult to admissible in the legislatures must have the discernment of not accumulating applications. The argument that a symbolic candidacy has no real consequences is not valid, with any candidate, regardless of its position in a list of legislatures, is being associated with a project and must be available to take the charge if it is called or supports the elect.
Accepting a question only to “fill in lists” or “earn visibility”, while remaining in a list of elections, in particular an election like Municipalities, is not compatible with the gravity that politics requires. If a candidate is not really engaged in his municipality or parish, then he simply should not apply.
This strategy compromises democracy because it creates confusion among the voters, who vote for someone without knowing if this person actually fulfills a mandate; It reduces the quality of political representation, since it is elected it can be more interested in managing their next candidacy rather than effectively carrying out their duties; And reveals an obvious request to capture a public office for the benefit of personal interests on collective interest.
In addition, the wrong idea that politics is only for a small group of professionals circulating between public positions, guiding new faces, new ideas and participation of young people. The result? An increasingly distant political class of citizens and much less credible.
The solution to this problem is simple. Those who run for a political position should engage with him. Therefore, if a deputy wants to be mayor or councilor or president, to renounce the list of first legislatures, that is, that he is a person with ethics and simply does not apply in legislatures.
Voters deserve politicians who respect their choice and who take their functions seriously. Politics need more commitment and less opportunism. No more strategic moves for the benefit of the parties and candidates themselves: democracy deserves respect.
* Writer of the book “Direction of the Nation: Reflection on Portuguese”. Professor at the Jean Piaget Polytechnic Institute.
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