More direct flights and combating seasonality

Increasing direct flights and combating seasonality are priorities for the PS/Azores candidates for the Terceira constituency in the February 4 elections.
In a statement, the Socialists say that they have been in contact with Terceira businesspeople in the tourism sector, who “expressed concern about the fact that Terceira is performing worse than the rest of the region in terms of growth indicators for the number of guests and overnight stays.”

“Terceira is noticeably and sharply diverging from the Region, with official data showing a situation that is 8 percentage points below the Region’s course, which has meant, over the last three years, a loss of relative importance of Terceira and its tourism in the regional context, along with the increase in the negative effects of seasonality, significantly felt in the first half of 2023, in which there were 6,592 fewer overnight stays compared to the same period last year,” they say.
The PS/Açores candidates for Terceira believe that “there is an urgent need to create a plan to combat seasonality, which takes into account the specificities of the island, making it a cohesive destination throughout the year, thus allowing for the sustainability of the sector.”
For candidate José Miguel Toste, “the disdain with which the PPM/CDS/PSD coalition treated the tourism sector in Terceira, reducing the number of direct international and low-cost flights to Lajes, limiting free transfers, abandoning the operation of inter-island maritime transportation of people and vehicles and leaving entrepreneurs to their own devices in the low season, could have no other result than to leave the island behind in this sector too.”
The PS’s main proposals for the full recovery of tourism in Terceira include “significantly increasing direct air connections with the rest of the world, with the reinforcement of low-cost flights and the resumption of routes to North America and Europe during the low season; promoting the destination of Terceira in what are its strategic markets, promoting the holding of national and international congresses in the fall and winter months, taking advantage of the auditoriums in the parishes; immediately resuming the seasonal operation of maritime passenger transport; investing in attracting themed cruises, making the most of the port infrastructures that have been built; ensuring the quality of hotel training; reopening the Youth Hostel in São Mateus and investing in the development of local tourist guides.

The Azores should sell abandoned properties
The head of the Liberal Initiative (IL) list for the Terceira constituency in the regional elections on February 4, Pedro Ferreira, argues that the region should put up for sale if it is unable to invest on its own, the more than 60 properties it owns that are abandoned and vacant throughout the island, in order to solve problems of lack of housing and places to set up companies.
After touring some of the properties owned by the Region that are abandoned in Terceira, Pedro said, next to the old Social Action Institute building on Rua de São Pedro, in Angra do Heroísmo, that this “property is already a danger to the safety of people and goods.”

“This is yet another example of the total abandonment to which the PS and Coalition Regional Governments have consigned Terceira. The island is currently experiencing, like the whole region and the whole country, a serious problem of lack of housing for families and the Regional Government, in Terceira alone, owns more than 60 properties, almost all of which are abandoned and vacant,” he said.
In this sense, the candidate said that “as the Region is not capable and competent to recover its real estate, IL, if it manages to elect a deputy to the Azorean parliament, will present a proposal for the Region to put up for sale all the real estate it owns that is vacant and abandoned, so that private individuals can do the necessary recovery to solve many of the problems of lack of housing and that companies have been experiencing in finding places to set up.

Continuing policies that “have made the Azores better”

Artur Lima, leader of the CDS-PP/Açores and candidate of the Coalition (PSD-CDS/PP-PPM) for Terceira, stressed at the presentation of the list in Praia da Vitória: “We are here because our budget was rejected”. He regretted that this “has prevented several initiatives from coming to fruition.” He said he was sure that “we are the only guarantee of the continuity of policies that have made the Azores better.”

“We’re not making promises; we’re delivering. This was the paradigm shift of this coalition, to develop the Azores as a whole,” he said, pointing out the difference “to the Socialist Party, which left us with poorly-done works, like the cargo terminal, which we had to inaugurate, and a hoax like PREIT, a disgrace that the people of Terceira cannot forgive.”
The centrist leader announced “the acquisition, which has already been made, of an automatic weather station for Lajes Airport,” which will guarantee “better navigability, more safety and more flights to Terceira,” as well as “the guarantee that the preliminary study for the expansion and requalification of the airport is ready.”
“We’ve set an example of governance because we’re not dividing to rule, we’re adding so that together we can be greater, counting on all the islands equally for the development of our region,” concluded Artur Lima.
The Unidos pelaTerceira PSD/CDS/PPM Coalition list is headed by António Ventura (zootechnical engineer, 55 years old), followed by Artur Lima (dentist, 60 years old), Mónica Seidi (doctor, 39 years old), Paulo Gomes (fish auction keeper, 47 years old), Rui Espínola (teacher, 44 years old), Andreia Vasconcelos (social worker, 38 years old), Luís Soares (PSP officer, 54 years old), Paulo Rui Chaves (operational assistant, 29 years old), Nídia Inácio (kindergarten teacher, 58), Alonso Miguel (environmental engineer, 40), Rafael Tavares Lima (lawyer, 30), Luísa Barcelos (senior criminology technician, 32), Paulo Sousa (teacher, 43), Beatriz Menezes (trainee teacher, 22), José Valdemar Ribeirinho (retired, 62), Maria Guilhermina Silva (certified accountant, 47), Luís Costa (technical assistant, 57) and Pedro Pinto (dentist, 52). The candidate’s trustee is João Marcelino Costa, and Tiago Rodrigues is the youth trustee

Government results are “a disaster”

The coordinator of the BE/Açores, António Lima, said in Terceira that “Bolieiro’s government has fallen because the results are a disaster in what is essential.”
“With the PSD, CDS, and PPM coalition government, poverty, inequality, early school leaving, underfunding of the Regional Health Service, and the region’s debt increased,” he said.

According to António Lima, the alternative that the BE presents “is to have the courage to confront the big interests that dominate the Azores, such as the deal that the Bloc denounced that guaranteed 22 million euros in excessive rents to the Bensaúde group through the sale of fuel to EDA”.
The BE also wants to “integrate all the precarious workers in the Regional Health Service and the Education sector into the workforce, to give dignity to those who ensure that health and schools work.”
“Creating a plan to combat early school leaving, making higher education free for young people in the Azores, guaranteeing adequate funding for the Regional Health Service and implementing new policies to retain health professionals” are other strong proposals that the BE presents in these elections.
“The right, with or without Chega in government, won’t do any of this and a new absolute majority for the PS will just be a return to the past,” said António Lima, who wants the BE “to be stronger in order to give hope for the future”.
For her part, Alexandra Manes, the BE’s first candidate for Terceira, stressed that the party “has proven the importance of its presence in the Azorean parliament” and gave an example of two victories in the last legislature: “the reduction in the Region’s interest payments to EDA, which saved taxpayers millions of euros, and the thirty jobs that were saved after the Praia da Vitória City Council threatened to fire them.”
“We have led the opposition,” said Alexandra Manes at a dinner to present her candidacy for the island of Terceira.
Alexandra Manes also said that “Terceira has been forgotten” by the coalition, “which has failed to make any progress on the investments needed for the Port of Praia and Lajes Airport and has left the problem of aquifer contamination exactly the same”.
Catarina Martins, national leader of the BE and former national coordinator of the party, pointed out that “the Bloc, in the Azores, has been the force of opposition and is the force of proposal.”
In the Azores, “the Bloc has been fighting to defend wages, for public services that guarantee fundamental responses to all people and to combat privileges and bargaining in the name of a transparent region,” she said. Regarding the right-wing coalition government, the BE’s national leader said it was “a collection of messes, which happened on top of a serious crisis and which worsened the region’s development indicators.”
“The right-wing coalition is nothing but a mess and a crisis on top of a crisis,” she concluded.

From Diário Insular in Terceira Island, Azores–José Lourenço director and Armando Meneses, editor-in-chief

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno–PBBI thanks the sponsorship of the Luso-American Development Foundation from Lisbon, Portugal (FLAD)

An overview of the elections in the Azores from PBBI-Fresno State as part of the PBBI-Fresno State-FLAD Lecture and Conference Series for the Spring of 2024.