The book ‘José Sócrates – Ascensão’ (Dom Quixote), set for release this Tuesday, features João Miguel Tavares aiming to portray why the former prime minister “is a politician different from others” and outline how “Portugal became a country where a politician with his profile could reach the most powerful position in the State and remain there for six years amid numerous scandals”.
The journalist, Público columnist and political commentator argues that Sócrates’ individual characteristics “would be irrelevant if they had not found fertile ground in the country’s institutional weaknesses,” highlighting that it was in the “Portuguese political ecosystem where Sócrates found the right environment to impose his personality and style.”
Tavares recalls the electoral successes of the former socialist leader, such as the absolute majority in 2005 and the comfortable victory, “already surrounded by serious suspicions,” in 2009, emphasizing that “it was not the scandals that brought him down,” but rather the economic crisis and the arrival of the ‘troika’.
“Had Portugal not faced the brink of bankruptcy, it is possible Sócrates could have remained many more years in São Bento, surrounded by suspicions and loyalists,” the introduction states.
For the author, “it was not the accumulation of cases that destroyed him politically,” but the “diminishing of his influence,” signifying, he argues, that “the problem was never just Sócrates,” but the “country that allowed and sustained him.”
By using only what was published in the media or in books, João Miguel Tavares aims to prove that “there was always public information to draw his profile” and “find patterns that made him unsuitable for the position of prime minister,” but the information did not circulate as it should have, nor had the impact it should have, in a country with a supposedly critical and attentive public space.”
The political commentator lists, among the “collective and institutional failures” leading to his rise, the “lack of critical spirit of his supporters, partisan sectarianism, lack of judicial independence, lack of media scrutiny, excessive weight of the State, excessive credulity of some voters, and the excessive tribalism of many commentators.”
“Faced with such rarity, it becomes a civic duty to know who Sócrates is and how he got so far. It is essential to understand how he built his career, how he imposed himself in the PS, how he stayed six years in São Bento, the strategies he used to maintain power, how he created his circle of loyalists, how he managed the public-private relationship, and ultimately, what drove him to commit his life to such activities,” writes the author.
Referencing a quote by Eduardo Lourenço about the Estado Novo, Tavares says Sócrates was a “disease lived as health” by Portugal in a “mechanism of dissimulation that the country is far from overcoming” and a democracy where “manifestations of abnormality continue to be absorbed as if they were trivial.”
This project, originally titled ‘José Sócrates Nunca Existiu – The Man Who Fooled Us and the Country That Let Itself Be Fooled,’ took nearly a decade of João Miguel Tavares’ work and covers the path of the former prime minister from birth to the first absolute majority of the PS, in 2005.
The author reveals that two more volumes will follow: ‘Poder’, on Sócrates’ six years as prime minister, and ‘Queda’, dedicated to his arrest, indictment, and trial.
The Marquês case, in which José Sócrates is the main defendant, includes 21 of 117 accused of crimes such as corruption, money laundering, and tax fraud.
