As has become customary, the main political parties and the media are once again staging the charade that the upcoming legislative elections will be a choice between two prime ministerial candidates, in this case, Montenegro and Santos.

They are once again shamelessly ignoring what is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, in particular that “the Assembly of the Republic is the representative assembly of all Portuguese citizens,” that the deputies who constitute it “are elected by electoral districts” from among the “candidates presented by political parties” and “represent the whole country and not the districts for which they are elected,” that “the Government is constituted by the Prime Minister, the Ministers, and the Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of State,” that “the Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic, after consulting the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic and taking into account the election results,” and that “the Government’s program is submitted to the Assembly of the Republic” for approval or rejection.

The Constitution of the Portuguese Republic does not mention the figure of a candidate for prime minister, does not stipulate that the prime minister appointed by the President of the Republic must be the candidate of the party that wins the most votes in the elections and, above all, it establishes that all members of parliament are equally important, regardless of the party or constituency for which they are elected, and represent all Portuguese citizens in the process of establishing, approving or rejecting the government solution defined after the elections, taking into account the election results.

According to the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, unlike in other countries, legislative elections in Portugal are not intended to elect a prime minister from among the candidates for the office presented during the election campaign, nor is the Assembly of the Republic that elects him a college of party delegates, despite this being the condition to which political parties have reduced it. The version of the Portuguese political system repeatedly disseminated by the propaganda of the main parties and their echo chambers in the media is a serious perversion of what is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

This perversion is only possible because there is a huge deficit in citizenship education, and citizens accept that political party leaders use disinformation and manipulation to promote it.

Jorge Bettencourt is a retired commander from the Portuguese Navy.

Elections for the Portuguese Parliament are on May 18th.