Lisbon lost, a banker on the run and one peeved president: Bad times for Portugal’s Costa

António Costa should have been on top of the world: His Socialist Party polled well ahead of the opposition in nationwide municipal elections, his handpicked vaccine czar declared victory over COVID-19 after running a world-beating inoculation program and a long-running financial scandal saw a satisfying denouement and prison sentence for a high-profile banker.

But the sweet taste of victory has quickly turned sour as the primer minister’s bungled attempt to promote the vaccine hero degenerated into an ugly institutional battle, and he faces a national outcry after the well-connected banker slipped away to safety overseas.

The election lost Costa his capital city and successor, while the center-right opposition gained a new star in the shape of former European Commissioner Carlos Moedas, now the incoming mayor of Lisbon.

Moedas’ shock victory in the race for Lisbon was the headline story of elections for all 308 of Portugal’s city halls earlier this month.

Few gave the former European research commissioner any chance of victory in his debut election, but Moedas confounded opinion polls, bringing to an end 14 years of Socialist rule in the capital. 

Socialists losing their grip?

“We won against all the odds,” Moedas told cheering supporters. “We’ve shown we can change the system … We’ve started a new cycle; this has started in Lisbon, but I’m certain it won’t end in Lisbon.”

The Socialist Party (PS) still finished ahead nationally, capturing 37 percent of the vote compared to 34 percent for Moedas’ Social Democratic Party (PSD) and its small conservative allies. 

But the Lisbon defeat was widely seen as a turning point in the Socialists’ hold on Portuguese politics since Costa came to power in 2015.

The elections “were of national significance. The PS may still dominate the municipal map, but it comes out of these elections enfeebled, with a clear sense that its power has reached its limit,” Manuel Carvalho, director of the Público newspaper, wrote Monday. “The PSD was the clear winner.”

Moedas defeated the incumbent Fernando Medina, who succeeded Costa as Lisbon mayor in 2015. Medina was also a favorite to take over as party leader and prime minister when Costa steps down to seek a top European post ahead of the next parliamentary elections in 2023, as is widely rumored. Medina’s hopes now look dead in the water. 

Other key cities also slipped out of the PS grip, including Funchal, capital of Madeira island, and the ancient university seat Coimbra, long a Socialist fief. In the second city of Porto, the PS scored its worst-ever result — just 18 percent.

The results were a vindication for PSD leader Rui Rio, who picked Moedas as a candidate and staked his political future on securing a good score in the local elections.

Presidential perogative

On the day after the results, Costa seemed to have found the perfect antidote to the bad news. 

He joined with the country’s new national hero, Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, to declare the military task force running Portugal’s vaccination campaign was disbanding after fully inoculating 84 percent of the population — a world record. 

Following a shaky start to the vaccine campaign, Costa put Gouveia e Melo in charge in February. With quiet efficiency, the former submarine commander made Portugal the world’s champion jabber. 

Gouveia e Melo switched his usual camouflage fatigues for full dress navy whites in a photo op last week. “This thorny mission has been crowned with success and has strengthened the country’s self-esteem,” beamed Costa.

Later, the government leaked it was promoting Gouveia e Melo to head of the navy. 

Unfortunately, Costa and his defense minister João Cravinho appeared to have forgotten that top military appointments are the job of Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. 

The head of state promptly rescinded the decision to dump current navy commander Admiral António Mendes Calado, who happens to be an outspoken critic of government plans for armed forces reform. 

“There’s only one person who can take that decision, and that’s the president of the republic,” said a clearly irritated Rebelo de Sousa, who censored the government for dragging the vaccine hero into such a mess. 

Costa and Cravinho rushed to the presidential palace for late-night talks amid a wave of criticism from military figures and the opposition. 

‘The bitter taste of impunity’

Adding to Costa’s woes is the flight of banker João Rendeiro. 

Rendeiro had already been sentenced to a total of 15 years for money laundering, tax fraud and other crimes, but lawyers had managed to keep him out of jail. 

His conviction on fraud charges Tuesday with an additional three-year sentence, however, looked set to put him behind bars — until Rendeiro announced he would not be returning to Portugal, apparently after receiving judicial authorization for a trip to London. 

Media reports had him variously in Belize and Singapore. 

His escape provoked howls of outrage and seemed to confirm a widely-held belief, fanned by radicals on the right and left, that business and political elites are above the law.

“These cases almost always leave the bitter taste of impunity,” Mariana Mortágua, a deputy from the opposition Left Bloc party told parliament. “Decisions based on shady criteria … undermine the application of justice and its credibility in the eyes of the public.”