November, the month of All Saints, is lavish in Portuguese politics.

Traditionally, believers eagerly await the promises of the budgets – both the State and Regional budgets – which almost always end with a legion of martyrs, disappointed by the commitments sacrificed in the roll of oblivion.

These days, we are witnessing yet another celebration of intentions, including a Council of Ministers dedicated to the Autonomous Regions. Yet, many of the promises announced over a year ago have not been fulfilled.

The parade is huge, but I will mention just one because it has been testing our patience for many years, and the PS and PSD government officials have not yet achieved the capacity to resolve the islanders’ ordeal.

I am referring to the blessed Social Mobility Subsidy, which forces us to endure the via sacra of the CTT, to perform a martyr’s ritual without the need for the 12 stations, as one CTT office, crowded with people and with few staff to serve them, is enough for us to carry the cross from Pilate’s praetorium.

In the midst of the age of Artificial Intelligence, there is not a single charitable soul in the governments of the Republic who has yet invented a formula for this problem. The current Minister of Infrastructure, the one who burdened us with a maximum ceiling of €600, as a gift to the poor airlines, assured us in November last year, in the midst of discussions on the State Budget, that the electronic platform for reimbursement of the subsidy would be operational “in June 2025”!

We are now entering November 2025, with a new budget approved, yet the platform remains a mirage.

We have this here too. The Azores Government, in the Investment Plan submitted to parliament in October 2023, guaranteed that in 2024 it would start the project to connect Ponta Delgada and Mosteiros. It is now 2025, and there is no draft of the project, yet the coalition has already committed a huge blunder in the local elections in Ponta Delgada…

The list of commitments, year after year, has become a routine of discrediting the “regional frenzy of promises,” so characteristic of this autumnal time of year. It was the Ribeira Grande Health Center, the Lajes do Pico Health Center, the runway expansion, the port of Santa Iria, port and school maintenance, and so on. Even the announcement of a ferry to transport passengers and vehicles between S. Miguel and Santa Maria, with support from the PRR, sank amid yet another tender mess in which regional governments are experts, following the pattern of the shameful privatization process of SATA.

In this matter of letting in seawater, the Republic is not far behind, as it also announced in June this year that, with funds in the 2025 Budget, it will launch an international public tender for the creation of a regular ferry connection between the mainland and the Autonomous Regions of Madeira and the Azores. The fireworks were seen by the Republic’s government as “essential to reinforce the feeling of national integration, ensuring that island citizens have access to mobility services similar to those in the rest of the territory.” It can therefore be concluded that the much-vaunted “national integration” remains a pipe dream.

The shortcomings and political inertia we are witnessing in the Republic and in the Region are worrying.

The revision of the Regional Finance Law continues to be postponed, a long-promised multi-annual budget plan has yet to see the light of day, the management of public debt is sailing full steam ahead towards the abyss, the privatization of SATA is a desperate soap opera for taxpayers, the management of the PRR, particularly in terms of recapitalization, is another total disaster with no end in sight, and we taxpayers are watching all this with a huge lump in our throats and our wallets.

Finances, which are usually a bastion of sustainability and quality in any government, are being battered by strange demands, without shame and without resistance. All that remains for us to do is to ask All Saints to have compassion for the poor islanders, who will have to pray hard to escape this Via Dolorosa.

Happy holidays in honor of all the saints of our politics.

In Diário Insular-José Lourenço, director

Osvaldo Cabral is an emeritus journalist with over 40 years of experience covering the Azores. He was the director of RTP-A (the public television station) and the Diário dos Açores newspaper. He is a regular columnist for many newspapers throughout the Azpres and the Diaspora.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with insight into diverse perspectives on key issues in the archipelago.

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).