How Portugal voted and not voted.

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Monday February 21, 2005 21:34

by iosaf & julia

Portugal celebrated as its right as a democratic state and member of the family of civlised nations a general election Sunday last February 20th 2005.

The result was a foregone conclusion, José Sócrates won an outright majority returning his state to socialist rule with the lowest recorded abstention in Portuguese democratic history.

the poisoned chalice of Socrates

The 47 year old engineer came to lead the Portuguese socialists and accept the poisoned chalice when his predeccesor died of a heart attack during the last general election campaign.

José Sócrates is well qualified for the job.

His name is José. That generally goes down well with us for starters.

He is also very popular with the pre-platonic crew of corruptors of youth.

He also at the moment stands very low in the international insurance stakes on doing a John Smith (a technical expression we in the know use for pre-election tragic heart attacks).

To what can we attribute his meteoritic rise?

Well as a commentator in the Sunday Preview article on the newswire commented, all eyes were on Spain on Sunday "coz the portuguese suck". Attentive readers will also know that the traditional right wing voters of that land had been smuggled into the spanish state by Manuel Fraga on false papers to abstain in the Spanish ratification of the European Constitution.

The final results there were also a foregone conclusion. 10,804,464 yes (76.7% of votes) 2,428,409 no, (17.3% of votes) and 849,093 spoilt.
There was a resounding 67.7% abstention.
For those of you interested in numbers the pecentages 76.7 and 17.3 mean something.

The results of the Portuguese mass exercise of the franchise, which let us reflect a moment as mature and clever types mostly with jobs and stuff, are the result of many centuries of struggle-

Oh yes, indeed sure there was once a neo-platonic time when Geraldine Kennedy wouldn't have got a vote, on account of being-
a woman - a catholicke - being untitled.
But don't let that get in the way of your appreciation of modern civilisation.

So those results of centuries of struggle brought the Portuguese be they catholicke or dissenter, black or white, male or female to a voting section of 61.5% of the population from the Azores to Fatima from the Algarve to Lisbon.

Of which over 45% went to Mr Socrates.
and the rest went to his opponents.

Jolly good show.

Mr Socrates operates a "pink" colour party, as the more traditional strugglers for democracy in the post dictatorship Portugal which is very european (everyone drinks milky coffee and you can go there on ryanair and easyjet) are the "reds".

The last people to sport "pink" as their party colours were the prime minister and chums of Georgia.

They died from carbon monoxide which are more common molecules than the complex fatty quickly dissolved even in post mortem type things that cause heart attacks.

check the "introducing Julia article" for details.

So what can we say?
Be very good @ your job Mr Socrates, for there are verily more things on this planet than ever you dreamt of in your philosophy, and you have permission to approve the constitution coz it would be more stylish that either the richest states or even France reject it instead. But you go corrupting the youth, or even hinting at a return to "non-democracy" and the molecules will get you.

We are very very serious, and by the time the penny drops it will be too late to even think "they told us so".

oh and
Well Done!

http://economia.eluniversal.com/2005/02/21/int_art_21110DD.shtml
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=83225
(you'll be glad to know all Spanish and Portuguese markets are delighted with the results of Sunday -the rich have even more money in their computers now)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3194918a12,00.html
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5551461

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Comments (7 of 7)

humbly apologise for him (give a conspiracy theorist an inch of space and he's off on the JFK)

by j

Wed Feb 23, 2005 04:23

you are right He was wrong.
it was not the secretary general of the Portuguese Socialist party who did a John Smith, it was another prominent member of the party.
Mr Socrates has risen to prominence for all the good reasons just like Mr Blair.

well done, you're very good at searching and checking facts. I feel better now knowing Sousa Franco wasn't the secretary general, that would have been creepy.
And I apologise to all the young and impressionable readers who might have got the wrong impression by the misleading impressions I impressed on the internet.

And we both wish Socrates best of luck with the cholestrol and the new Georgian government luck with the ventilation, and the government of the former yugoslavian republic of macedonia the very best of luck with planes.

****INCREDIBLE****

by i can't believe this

Wed Feb 23, 2005 00:30

!!!This is spectacular!!!
Mr. "trusted news source ", don't ruin the word "trusted" by citing things like those.
It is 100% ( 100.000000000000% ) ridiculous to say that Antonio Sousa Franco was the last leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party. Let's get ( or rather.....try to get ) things strait: the official word for the leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party is secreatary general ( "secretário geral" ).
ANTONIO SOUSA FRANCO NOT ONLY WAS NOT THE LAST SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE SOCIALISTS PARTY AS HE WASN'T A SECRETARY GENERAL AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The six secretary generals of the Portuguese Socialists Party were ( chronologically ):
Mario Soares
Victor Constancio
Jorge Sampaio
Antonio Guterres
Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues
( is ) Jose Socrates

"trusted news source ", i invite you to see some news sources, like http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3790365.stm and http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040609094125.1wmyd9bk, where you might see Antonio Sousa Franco refered as "the head of Portugal's Socialist Party list for this weekend's European Parliament elections". Even more enlightening to you might be the link
http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040614002928.n1rfbmcz , where you can see the comments of Mr.Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, the Socialists Party leader, days after the death of Mr. Sousa Franco. ( hey, has a homework, you can investigate in truly "trusted news source " when was Mr. Ferro Rodrigues Leader of The Socialists Party and conclude that that period includes the date of death of Antonio Sousa Franco )

So, the TRUTH is: Jose Socrates predecessor was Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues; Antonio Sousa Franco, who was the head of Portugal's Socialist Party list for the last European Parliament elections died from heart attack.

"trusted news source", "be nice to me", "apologies and stuff" are all cases of bad word choosing from your part.
Really, this is was awful episode. The inicial mistake in the article, in spite of already being a very serious mistake ( combined with all the jokes made all this nonsense really a shame ), the fact that there where two replys insisting on the same mistake is scandalous!

Its not too late for "apologies and stuff" and for you to "be nice to me". But i don't want it anyway. What i want is just for you to acknowledge the ( repeated ) mistake or, if that is to much to you, i just ask for the error to be removed and, above all, from now on, that you live up to the spirit of the trustworthy, independent media. That includes not producing nonsense articles like this one.

Quoting from Mr."O Raio":
"It was me, and not Socrates's predeccesor who almost had an heart attack when I read all this nonsense!"

whatever.

by trusted news source

Tue Feb 22, 2005 21:42

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65394&condense_comments=false#comment78236

"Sunday, Jun 13 2004, 3:41pm

I forget to tell you. Antonio Sousa Franco was leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party, a "Smithite pre Blair Labour Party" which has ruled Portugal several times since the country become a democracy and a member state of the EU.
Sousa Franco was finance minister from 1995 -1999, he was buried on friday after collapsing from a heart attack while being driven away from a rowdy campaign session at a fish market in the northern town of Matosinhos.
He is not to be confused with Sousa Kysher the fictional criminal or Franco the former dictator of Spain. Portugal votes today, polls taken after his death were announced indicate 34.9 for the ruling Social Democratic coalition while 35.3 percent said they would cast their ballot for the Socialist Party.
The Communist Party would get 7.3 percent of the votes in the European parliament elections which will be held in Portugal Sunday, while the far-left Left Block would win the support of 5.4 percent of all voters, the poll found.
So Portugal will continue to be a "lefty sort of place" no matter what happens.

I'm not sure if this effected the Football."

http://www.correiomanha.pt/

Now its too late to be nice to me with apologies and stuff, pray for the souls of Bam that have suffered their second improbably earthquake during a Bush holiday period. You might like to take up a collection for them.

where do you people got that info?

by -

Tue Feb 22, 2005 15:55

Socrates predecessor was Eduardo Luís Barreto Ferro Rodrigues who was alive and in good health on election night, celebrating the absolute majority of the Socialists Party.

My trust in the estates of modern society is selective and based on my critical mind. Many "facts" that circulate on the worldwide media are, to me, of questionable truth.
But that's not the case about Socrates predecessor - dead/alive. I invite you to trust me and the media and believe the Mr. Ferro Rodrigues is indeed alive.
About the comment "But please don't make the mistake of thinking you understand the nature of the 4th estate just by listing the owners of European or North American or Australian media titles and TV. ", it seems to me that you know pretty well the nature of the 4th estate. I just hope you didn't make the mistake you talked about.
As a final note: i do praise the various "independent media"; variety makes beauty. In the case of information ( and media ) it's more than just about beauty ( :-) ) - it is about the very notion of being informed ( correctly ). In my opinion, that involves collecting the information from various sources. It's just sad that the 2nd hit on Google News ( sorted by revelance ) when the search is "Jose Socrates" is this page.

yes he did indeed die from a heart attack

by belladonna

Tue Feb 22, 2005 13:59

as did John Smith, Tony Blair's predecessor.
no joking. if you place your trust in the estates of modern society be they, church, army, beurocracy, media, unions or social assemblies, you're just doing what is expected of you as "a democracy consumer".
But please don't make the mistake of thinking you understand the nature of the 4th estate just by listing the owners of European or North American or Australian media titles and TV.
we are sadly or happily (who knows?) co-dependent.

heart attack?

by O Raio

Tue Feb 22, 2005 04:03

cabalas at gmail dot com

It was me, and not Socrates's predeccesor who almost had an heart attack when I read all this nonsense!

stupid comments

Tue Feb 22, 2005 02:31

Not only is this stupid, it is also incorrect - when it is stated that "The 47 year old engineer came to lead the Portuguese socialists ... when his predeccesor died of a heart attack during the last general election campaign." ( unless this was yet another joke ). The Socialists' front runner for the European Parlament did indeed die from a heart attack.

Indymedia's site with things like this....i'd rather view the facts from the "dependent media"

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How Portugal voted and not voted.

Comments (7 of 7)