Much like António Costa’s geringonça, coalitions never work when the egos of leaders or the interests of party clienteles are placed above the common good.

José Manuel Bolieiro’s coalition already had its fate sealed during its first term, when the overlap of leaderships was evident, with interference in one another’s portfolios, culminating in Clélio Meneses’s thunderous resignation from the Health Secretariat “due to irreconcilable differences.”

The atmosphere of choreographed cynicism that exists within the coalition is well known and widely discussed behind the scenes.

As Clélio Meneses aptly remarked a few days ago, “cynicism, falsehood, disloyalty, lies, the duality of presenting one posture (supposedly friendly) to someone’s face while maintaining another, contrary one (effectively provocative and offensive), behind their back, is revealing and reprehensible in any human dimension, including politics.”

If Azorean politics were a marriage, we would now be at the moment when one spouse announces, halfway through the anniversary dinner, that the divorce has already been scheduled for two years from now, but that, until then, they still expect the soup to remain warm and the bed to be shared.

It is obvious that this will not work, and there is little point in disguising it, because a cohesive team cannot function amid public attacks and accusations of poor governance from one of the partners, making it clear just how deep the disloyalty runs and foreshadowing the “dirty laundry” campaign we are about to witness in the next electoral race.

In the midst of this internal whirlwind, sound governance has been lost, with everything moving backwards, to the suffering of the citizens — as seen in this scandalous episode during fifty years of self-government: at this moment, the Azores have the highest fuel prices in the entire country.

Bolieiro’s statement is a tactical “truth blunder,” but it is already clear that it will not work, at least until the discussion of the next Plan and Budget, when the continuation of this ordeal will fall into the hands of Chega.

Until then, we will witness a comedy of manners in which everyone pretends to be fighting for the Azores, when in truth they are merely arguing over who gets custody of the votes and who retains the right to use the official car until the final tolling of the mandate.

This strategy of “letting things burn slowly” pleases the opposition, even though, within the PSD itself, there are still those who dream of another kind of support, negotiating with Chega and IL while dispensing with the other partners.

Such a scenario is unthinkable for anyone who knows Bolieiro, a man incapable of breaking his “given word.”

Therefore, we will have a coalition for a few more months.

Government, however, we will not.

— Osvaldo Cabral
May 2026

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.