The Azores now find themselves living through an unsettling déjà vu, a moment eerily reminiscent of the ill-fated Mobilizing Agendas of 2021. That infamous labyrinth—117 million euros swallowed by confusion, commissions of inquiry, and other institutional excavations—ended precisely as we all knew it would: in catastrophe. A mess without catharsis.

Today, we face a new triad of “agendas” that mobilize and convulse regional power—the Regional Plan for 2026, the PRR, and the privatization of SATA—and a growing fear that they may lead us down the same tragic corridor, where the only head to roll was that of the unsuspecting Bastos e Silva.

It can be summarized with disarming clarity: the 2026 Plan, approved through the abstentions of PS and Chega, is a damp squib; the PRR will not be fully executed (since we cannot meet one investment plan in a year, much less two simultaneously); and the privatization of SATA is pushed yet another year into the future—an intentional slow burn designed to exhaust the government and gift the opposition an advantage.

Never before have we witnessed such spectacular political miscalculations from a government nearing the penultimate year of its mandate—errors so grave that they serve the opposition, on a silver tray, the possibility of next year’s Plan and Budget debate becoming the very stage on which the regional executive collapses.

Should the government fall next year—and this is more than a hypothetical; it is an approaching probability—no party will wish to associate itself with the negative evaluations certain to arise from the Plans and the SATA privatization. In that case, José Manuel Bolieiro risks becoming the first President of the Government in the history of Autonomy not to complete a full term.

Imagine it: a President legally entitled to twelve years in office, undone halfway through that span, not by war or natural disaster, but by political carelessness—by errors of choreography, by the inability to read the rhythm of the choreography he himself conducts.

If early elections follow and the coalition replicates the same electoral arithmetic, the opposition will have no hesitation in toppling the government soon afterward. They will know that José Manuel Bolieiro cannot seek reelection, having already completed three terms under current law.

All this is, admittedly, a scenario—but a scenario the current Bolieiro government seems, as the expression goes, to be loudly inviting. Perhaps there is still the belief—naïve, one might say—in both the Santana Palace and PSD headquarters that Francisco César’s presence alone guarantees stability.

Yet the approval of the 2026 Plan and Budget represents a paradoxical gesture of goodwill from PS and Chega: a portrait of stability offered with one hand while the ledger of accountability is sharpened with the other. It is a message that reads almost liturgically: We are giving you the conditions to govern, do not dare fail. At the end, we will settle our accounts.

And the end will arrive in one year’s time, in the debate over the Plan and Budget for 2027, the last of this government—when the implementation of the PRR and the SATA privatization will also be weighed. By then, the government will be even more fatigued and, most likely, drowning in unpopularity.

The verdict will not be generous. It will be sufficient to reject the Plan and Budget for the following year and bring the government down.

If we cannot execute a single investment plan in one year, how shall we accomplish two—one stacked upon the other, with the PRR looming like an overgrown shadow?

Even worse: how shall we arrive at the end of 2026 with any semblance of good governance, when that year demands the simultaneous execution of EU funds, negotiations with Lisbon on the Regional Finance Law, the implementation of PO 2030 works, and the completion of the SATA privatization?

This government has made elementary mistakes in political strategy.

The SATA case, in particular, is a mirror held up to the Mobilizing Agendas—reflecting back all our old miseries. The privatization process has been an outright disaster, mismanaged from its very inception.

The erosion inflicted on this government by this case is uncannily similar to the ruinous handling of the PS administrations before it—yet the coalition has learned nothing. Instead of resolving the problem quickly—precisely the issue most devouring its popularity—the Bolieiro government decided to prolong the agony for another year, scorching itself slowly under the “malicious and bureaucratic” approval processes of the European Commission.

Another year of losses poured from public pockets. Another year of instability for an airline whose fragility increasingly threatens even the backbone of Air Açores.

It is a cascade of institutional suicides.

One mysterious question hovers over the entire process: how has the consortium bidding for privatization managed to reach agreements with the unions to reduce costs—agreements the current owner, the Regional Government, has never managed to negotiate, at least not on such a scale?

There was more than enough time for the process to be concluded this year. José Manuel Bolieiro, Duarte Freitas, and Berta Cabral bear responsibility for the collapse of negotiations—sometimes refusing to sell to the consortium, later accepting out of fear of the courts, then granting postponement after postponement—an inelegant soap opera performed before the public, who watches, unaware that the invoice will arrive at year’s end.

All of this was mismanaged from the beginning. There should have been no competitive tender. Direct negotiation, as in the TAP reprivatization, was the obvious path. But here we are.

And so, ironically—on Black Friday—the region is handed over like a discounted commodity, surrendered to the lowest bidder.

Azores Airlines will be sold with liabilities erased, routes redesigned, a savings plan implemented, nine aircraft as assets, slots across strategic airports, workers accepting temporary reductions in privileges, and—astonishingly—the workers forced to shoulder the tragic narrative of the “Cachalote” tranche to justify not paying the Christmas bonus in full.

Yet, for all this turbulence, privatization does not mean the Azores will be left isolated from the world. Public service obligations will remain, though adjustments to international routes will be inevitable—particularly given the likely elimination of Ryanair routes, yet another problem the government failed to manage competently. Other airlines will certainly eye the new gaps for opportunities.

What should trouble us most is not privatization itself, but the government’s passivity in the face of so many converging crises.

It has become painfully clear that this administration is wholly incapable of managing the complex processes of transportation reform—whether by air or by sea.

SATA is what it is; EasyJet was what we all witnessed; Ryanair is what we are now watching unravel. Ponta Delgada airport seems besieged every summer. Pico’s runway extension remains a forgotten scroll on a bureaucratic shelf. Horta airport lies under the dominion of our friend Arnaut, who comes once a year to collect taxes—his luggage carried for him with ceremonial courtesy. Maritime transport is a tragedy we all can recite from memory.

This litany of ruinous mismanagement is not a promising résumé for any government in desperate need of profound restructuring.

To this must be added the government’s profound internal disorientation.

Duarte Freitas announced €30 million in cost reductions in the public sector—roughly half of what we will pay in compensation for the infamous “Cachalote.” The following week, the Secretary of Health announced the creation of an Observatory for Addictions. A month later, the Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs declared the birth of a Regional Directorate for Space. During the Plan and Budget debates, yet another entity was proposed—an Observatory for the Atlantic Climate.

More spending. More bureaucratic bodies. More Observatories multiplying like barnacles on the hull of the regional administration, no one quite sure how many exist or what function they serve—all contrary to the coalition’s own electoral promises.

And the confusion goes deeper still.

On October 9, when the State Budget proposal was unveiled, the President of the Government expressed “satisfaction,” declaring that “all our forecasts have been confirmed.”

Four days later, PSD deputy Paulo Moniz hailed the proposal as “a fair document that fulfills the expectations of the Azoreans.”

One month later, after the PSD Regional Council—and surely after intense internal pressure—Bolieiro reversed course: “The State Budget has taken timid and insufficient steps for the Azores.”

Should we believe October or November?

This disorientation within the PSD reflects the wider turbulence afflicting the coalition. The CDS’s direct attack on Berta Cabral illustrates the fraying atmosphere inside this government, where it is increasingly common for officials to undermine each other.

In such a scenario, the coming year cannot offer promising omens.

We are facing a fragile government, a weak opposition, a slowing economy, cooling tourism, collapsing transport systems, galloping living costs, and a chronic shortage of workers.

May the Christmas season illuminate Dr. Bolieiro.

Published in Açoriano Oriental · Diário Insular · Portuguese Times USA · LusoPresse Montreal

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 various leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with insight into the diverse opinions on some of the archipelago’s key 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).