A few days ago, I spent two hours listening to a political commentary show in which a pundit expressed astonishment at António Costa’s intention to vote for António José Seguro. The time I lost was oddly therapeutic—and revealing. It helped clarify the scale of the challenge we now face.

Portuguese television, particularly the kind that claims to be “informative,” knows it can harvest ratings from the controversy of the day. And so it inflated a minor absurdity into a full-blown spectacle. Did anyone seriously doubt that António Costa would vote for democracy over dictatorship? Of course not. That was never the point. The point was to embrace a culture of distortion, to stoke fires and resentments. And for now, it still works.

More troubling—though less frequently mentioned—is the posture struck by Núncio, a first-line figure from the now-defunct CDS, a party that Luís Montenegro has dragged through the political graveyard and propped up only to simulate relevance. In this context, Núncio declared that the democratic vote exists “on both sides.” That was rich. What’s missing here is a sense of shame from those who cloak themselves in democracy and Christianity yet cannot distinguish between the devil, hell, and António José Seguro. Freitas do Amaral would not be disappointed—long before his death, he had already acknowledged his party’s decay.

From Spinumviva, no different stance was to be expected. One of the few talents of the Coelho apprentice is his ability to speak at great length while saying nothing of substance. With one eye on authoritarian impulses and the other on an extreme-right electorate he still hopes to court, Luís Montenegro donned the absurd costume of neutrality and wore it proudly on the floor of Parliament. Some commentators strained to find coded appeals to “safe voting” in his remarks. But a prime minister unable to confront the man who claims ownership of the right tells us everything about how far this has gone.

Portugal, once again, is adrift. The results of February 8 are far more uncertain than many would like to admit. And regardless of who wins, André Ventura, the Salazarists, and even newly exposed extremist cells have already claimed a symbolic victory. Just as we now understand that Trump’s authoritarian turn will reshape the world, Ventura, too, has already changed ours.

So what is to be done? There are no magic potions. But we can start by looking at those leading similar battles elsewhere. The United States has shown that governing from the center is not viable in the face of resurgent fascism. In Brazil, the fall of a dictator proved that normalcy does not return overnight. The United Kingdom may offer a more intriguing clue.

The re-founding of the British left is coalescing around Zack Polanski—an unassuming figure, ordinary in appearance, seemingly unexceptional. Until he speaks. In his voice, there is a genuine desire to be better—and to carry the country with him. Not through force, but through transformation. Polanski and the Green Party have stepped into the space vacated by center-left and right alike, offering hope to those who refuse to vote for the separatist fascist hat worn by Nigel Farage. They avoid the center without attacking it, focusing instead on the great fault lines of our time: the economy, housing, health care, and education.

It is a new path built with old British tools. I believe it may also be the path to confronting the Salazarism that will rise again in Portugal’s next legislative elections. A green hope—without pedantry or moral grandstanding. Until then, faced with what we have, which is very little but still better than nothing, the choice is clear: Seguro must be president.

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

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 a sense of the significant perspectives on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI).