This conviction is expressed in the book ‘Henrique Gouveia e Melo – A Biographical Portrait,’ by journalist and Polígrafo director Gustavo Sampaio, published by Manuscrito (Editorial Presença), which will be available in bookstores on Wednesday.
According to the author’s account, besides being proposed to continue as Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Gouveia e Melo was also offered the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, always with the aim of deterring his candidacy for Belém.
“Do you think they wanted to put you in this position to keep you out of the race for Palácio de Belém?” Gustavo Sampaio asks, to which Gouveia e Melo replies: “I’m almost absolutely sure of it. That’s why I thought the reasons were not the best and, therefore, I immediately abandoned that idea.”
The admiral, who led the Navy and was responsible for the Covid-19 vaccination process, does not mince words as he justifies the rejection of the suggestion made to him.
“Those who know me well know that when I’m pushed, I become more resilient […] It’s a characteristic of my personality. So, the more they wanted to push me to a certain place—for the wrong reasons—into an internal political struggle and not because they truly wanted me to change the Armed Forces or help them progress, it motivated me even more to make another decision,” he clarifies, though without indicating whom he refers to.
Henrique Gouveia e Melo states that he now aims to contribute to “the improvement and strengthening of the political system” because “this political system has rotten aspects.”
The book, spanning 206 pages, references a report by the weekly newspaper Expresso on September 27, 2024, titled ‘President bets on the Admiral’s reappointment at the helm of the Navy,’ which noted that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was willing to “do everything in his power” to prevent the military officer from running for office.
For Marcelo, Gouveia e Melo’s candidacy “has the potential to be successful and, if it indeed is, to represent at the highest level in the state forms of authoritarian populism against which the President of the Republic has issued successive warnings.”
“In Marcelo’s view, a military candidacy—which Chega has already stated it could support—besides that, possesses the potential to fatally divide the electorate to the right of the PS, possibly dealing a death blow to the chances of his preferred candidate, Luís Marques Mendes.”
In the book, Gouveia e Melo discusses his activity in the Navy, his responsibility during the pandemic with the vaccination process, his relationship with his family, the case of insubordination involving 13 sailors from the Mondego who refused to follow orders on a mission to monitor a Russian ship, and also his religious education.
“I believe in God and have faith, but I have distanced myself from religious practice; I am not a church fanatic,” he confesses, adding: “I became disillusioned with the Church as an institution, not with the people.”
Gouveia e Melo says he always thought the Church “should be more dynamic” and that it had become “very ritualistic.”
“All the issues the Church has had lately also disillusioned me regarding the organization. Although I realize that perhaps the majority are not like that. But the Church closed itself instead of… Only with Pope Francis did it truly open up and attempt to purge these kinds of issues from within. But the fact that they protect [themselves]… Showed in some way a corporate movement that did not benefit the Church. But the Church is a collection of men; it’s a human organization. A human organization is prone to failures, mistakes, and tests of the faith of the human organization,” he concludes.
