Tuesday, September 2, 2025. Paulo Simões, PSD representative and Chairman of the Economy Committee, takes the floor at a meeting to read a letter from Lisbon. For a moment, we are transported back to the Age of Discovery, when letters arrived from the monarchs of the Metropolis to announce news to the people of the island province, far away in the middle of the sea.

Simões reads the statement from Miguel Pinto Luz, another in the long line of ministers that Luís Montenegro seems to have deliberately chosen as examples of what not to do, or be, when calling for meritocracy. The Minister of Infrastructure made it known, through an intermediary, that he would not be heard in the Committee, to which he had been invited by the Azorean people, through their representatives and deputies. He made it known that he would not do so because he did not want to violate the principle of political impartiality. After all, where has a minister ever been seen to be political? And partial? Only in cartoons, surely.

Miguel Pinto Luz announced that he would not answer the questions prepared by the Commission on matters related to the evaluation of the current model of maritime transport and local supplies.

For the more distracted among us, what is happening brings us to a reality that borders on the abyss. We are facing a chronic and successive lack of adequate response to the supply needs of local businesses. Not even centralism escapes, because it is also in São Miguel that the situation has been felt with particular intensity. Responsibility is, of course, a matter to be addressed with Terreiro do Paço, because that is where the guidelines and strategies necessary to maintain sacrosanct territorial cohesion should emanate from. But that only works when it suits them, of course. The minister shielded himself and called for understanding and respect for the separation of powers and governments.

In an instant, Miguel Pinto Luz became a staunch defender of the importance of autonomy! Is the Montenegro government as transformative as Bolieiro’s?

It is important to remember that Miguel Pinto da Luz only deceives those who allow themselves to be deceived. Have you already forgotten his brief visit to the Azores as a candidate for the leadership of the PSD in 2019, where he showed deep concern for the University of the Azores and the institution’s funding deficit, accusing the then Government of the Republic of “not wanting to respond to this glaring problem,” adding that “A university with these characteristics, tripolar, in an outermost region, has challenges that we must look at and treat differently. We cannot treat what is different in the same way, and so we must have different approaches.” Your party is in government, and what has it done for the University of the Azores? It has adopted a funding model that harms the very institution it was so concerned about…

Returning to the present, it is true that, when it suited him, the same minister did not remember impartiality, or anything like it, and, in the same committee, he was heard on the subject of the Social Mobility Subsidy – after introducing a ceiling of €600 for maximum eligible costs, meaning that people now have to pay the amount above that ceiling (in addition to the €134) – presenting the province with statements full of veiled colonialism. The separation of powers, at the time, must have been on vacation.

Remember that Miguel Pinto Luz is from the same party that Paulo Simões represents and that José Manuel Boliero leads in the Azores. Remember, too, that we are living in times of orange plenitude, with all the organs of democratic sovereignty being commanded by the same party, which in some cases is assisted by other smaller parties. Portugal is totally governed by the PSD, and yet the PSD does not understand itself.

Such is the story of regional finances and the conference of leaders that Montenegro very, very much wants to hold, with Bolieiro and Albuquerque. Luís, back in Lisbon, when he is not busy hiding real estate from the Transparency Authority, spends part of his days finding ways not to talk to the gentlemen of the islands. Perhaps he is a lover of Portuguese history who wants to return to the time when the monarch spoke in Lisbon and the Azores listened. Even if, to that end, it means abandoning his orange-colored colleagues.

These disagreements and arrogant centralism also persist in other cases.

Take, for example, the statements made by the president of Praia da Vitória, who woke up from her summer slumber to remember that she had an election campaign to run this year. Vânia Ferreira questioned the management of RTP when she learned that it had decided to leave the RTP/Azores delegation on Terceira Island without any security and with its doors closed to the public.

For some time now, we have been witnessing a process of destruction of our public media channels. Montenegro and his neoliberal friends have resumed the efforts of their godfather Passos to end the project by the end of his term. And this work of dismantling the skeleton of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal will have consequences, starting with us, here so far away.

The gentlemen in ties have had their fill of propaganda and publicity, praising RTP/Açores for reaching 50 years of existence in 2025. Videos and institutional messages came from all over the country. What was lacking was a vision to save the ship and plug the holes. Instead, more cuts came, until the final cut, which will come one day.

What Vânia and Paulo didn’t tell us, but should have, is that the attitudes of Luís Montenegro, Miguel Pinto Luz, and the RTP administration are also their fault. The PSD is parasitizing the Azores and promoting and consolidating the colonialism and centralism that have always affected our islands. And if the PSD doesn’t care about its own, how much less will it care about the poor wretches who dare to speak out against them?

This is the future of the region. A group of nine islands where autonomy is a dirty word, and subservience is rewarded with contempt. Next year, there will be a party to celebrate a milestone anniversary. Someone should remember to mention this before it becomes the last anniversary to celebrate.

*title (Amigos, Amigos, Autonomias à parte) is a take on the Portuguese proverb: Amigos, Amigos-negócios à parte, literally meaning:  don’t mix friendship with business.

Alexandra Manes is from Flores Island but lives in Terceira Island, Azores. She is a regular contributing writer for several Azorean newspapers, a political and cultural activist, and has served in the Azorean Parliament.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

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).