In Portugal, the left overtaken by its demons – L’Express

The image of the financial brigade arriving on November 7 at the São Bento Palace in Lisbon stunned the country. At the head of the executive since 2015, the head of the PS is cited in “Operation influencer”, an investigation into suspicions of corruption, influence peddling and prevarication in the award of a major project. green hydrogen in Sines, 150 kilometers south of Lisbon, and two lithium mining concessions in the north of Portugal, where the largest European reserves of this metal essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries are located.

A shame for this key figure in Portuguese political life, who wanted to be the champion of decarbonization and was even criticized for wanting to move too quickly in this area. “It’s a huge surprise, especially since Antonio Costa had never been involved in such stories. On the contrary, he had managed to make us forget the horrors of the Socrates period. And now his political family is diving back into scandals”, observes Antonio Costa Pinto, professor of political science at the University of Lisbon.

Former Minister of Justice of Antonio Guterres at the turn of the 2000s, when the current Secretary General of the UN ruled Portugal, Antonio Costa knows, his torments are only beginning. “This earthquake will be followed by aftershocks,” predicts historian Yves Léonard, professor at Sciences Po. For this fine connoisseur of Portugal, “a tone of weariness” has surrounded Antonio Costa since his reappointment to power, in January 2022, after a surprise victory which gave him an absolute majority, without even the support of the radical left. Loss of power? Moral relaxation? The socialist leader had in any case been tapped on the telephone since December 2020, according to the Attorney General of the Republic Lucília Gago, appointed to this position in 2018 on the proposal… of her government.

If, for the moment, Costa has escaped indictment, the list of his relatives under fire from investigators is dizzying. Starting with Diogo Lacerda Machado, a close friend. This lawyer and consultant is said to have been the brains behind the Sines green hydrogen project and, in particular, the construction of a huge data center powered by solar energy. Valued at 3.5 billion euros, this contract would have been awarded to a company, Start Campus, in exchange for bribes, via a financial arrangement imagined by João Tiago Silveira, former spokesperson for the PS and former collaborator of Antonio Costa. The leaders of Start Campus were arrested, as was the socialist mayor of the town, Nuno Mascarenhas.

Another personality in the hot seat, João Galamba, the current Minister of Infrastructure and Secretary of State for Energy at the time of the events, who would also have been involved in this matter and violated the public procurement code during the allocation of lithium mines in the north of the country, with the complicity of the president of the Portuguese Environment Agency, Nuno Lacasta. Both men are indicted.

Even more embarrassing, Costa’s own chief of staff would have made the link between all these protagonists. Investigators reportedly seized 75,800 euros in cash from his office in São Bento. He was placed in pre-trial detention.

Faced with this great unpacking, the president of the center-right Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, asked the government to pass the next state budget by the end of November, after which he will pronounce the dissolution of the House of Representatives. Already, the young far-right Chega party is rubbing its hands. Its leader, André Ventura, has been promising for years the “great cleanup” of a corrupt democracy. Early legislative elections will take place on March 10, just before the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution which put an end to the Salazarist dictatorship in April 1974. Sad symbol.