Why Medina lost Lisbon and what I saw from the inside of Russiagate.

The mysterious vanishing of 25 000 votes

Fernando Medina, now ex-mayor of Lisbon, lost over 25 000 votes in the elections of September 2021 compared to 2017. To put this number in perspective: 10% of Lisbon residents who voted for him and the Socialist Party he represented in the previous elections — vanished in 2021. What is this mystery?

The most obvious thing one can immediately think of is that this loss should be attributed to the appearance of a charismatic opposition leader with enough magnetism to attract these 25 000 voters. However, if we look at the man who became the new mayor — Carlos Moedas of the Social Democratic Party, the Portuguese centre-right party despite its very central-left name — we’ll see that this is far from the truth.

Cars for the people

Carlos Moedas’ electoral campaign gained notoriety as he promised to close a major bike lane — a few meters of eco-sanity amidst a heavily polluted Almirante Reis avenue that connects the city centre to the interior — so that cars can pass. Himself moving around Lisbon on four wheels and, as mobility activists noticed, not thinking twice to park in double-row, the man is a living tribute to the 80s, the times when Lisbon’s major historical square — Terreiro do Paço (The Royal Yard) — used to be a car park.

How well did his anti-bicycle agenda and promises of more parking for all work? Compared to 2017, in 2021 his Social Democratic Party, in coalition with Christian Democrats, Monarchists and The Earth Party gained but 3 000 new votes. Even if we are generous and accept that these are the hardcore drivers who, disgusted by Medina’s bicycle lanes, switched sides and voted for Moedas, we are still left with 22 000 votes that Medina lost. Where did they go?

The Lisbon apathy

Portugal is remarkable for its low level of political involvement that has been steadily decreasing since democracy was established in 1974. In Lisbon of 2021, almost half of the eligible voters, or 49,08% to be precise, stayed home and, one can only guess, watched Netflix. So much for the Carnation Revolution and the glory of the 25 of April that put an end to a dictatorship and established democracy.

To compare apples with apples, or a past Iberian dictatorship with another past Iberian dictatorship, let’s see how the neighbouring Spain votes. The Portuguese numbers become even more demoralising in comparison: Madrid elections in May 2021 saw 75% of voters coming to the polling stations.

Why such apathy? Both Medina and Moedas never talked directly to the voters, preferring to do politics the old way: giving interviews to the media and hence reaching the ears of the elderly. The youtubing youth switching between podcasts and insta-stories was at no point involved. As no one has tried to talk to them recently, they have dozed off from politics. In the age group of 18 to 45 year-olds, it is indifference that reigns.

This is particularly poignant when I compare how the leading Portuguese parties are not even trying to copy the success of political campaigners from the outer world. When I see how Navalny and his team stream on youtube a few times a week, talking directly to the voters despite the unbearable pressure from Kremlin constantly trying to either poison, imprison, or both, I only wonder what Portugal could be if the Portuguese leaders tried communicating directly with their audience. None of the Lisbon politicians have bothered to open, say, a youtube channel and explain what they stand for to their voters. The sleeping 50% of voters have never been awaken.

That said, apathy alone still does not fully explain Medina’s mysteriously vanished votes. In the previous Lisbon elections voter no-show was at 48,83%, not that far off from the 2021 mark. In real numbers this means that in 2021 Medina’s final count lost around 10 000 voters. Even if for the sake of an argument we assume that all of these 10 000 people indeed used to be Medina fans, why did they not come and vote this time?

Over-trust in neighbours

Every poll, every conversation at a local café preached Medina’s win. Everyone was so sure that everyone else would probably vote for Medina, that many simply did not bother to show up at the polling stations, over-confident that the neighbours would do it anyhow, leaving Medina without the much needed votes.

If we simplistically assume that these 10 000 people did not come and vote out of over-trust in others, we still have only managed to explain 13 000 of the missing votes, leaving us with 12 000 missing souls unexplained. Where are they?

Split vote

In the previous municipal elections of 2017 the traditional big parties consolidated over 73% of all votes. The remaining minority parties received 26% of the voters’ attention — which did not move the needle.

Now, this has shifted quite dramatically in 2021. The leading parties’ collective share of votes shrank to 67%, while a flurry of minority parties split a much bigger chunk — 33% of the votes. This jump from 26% to 33% for non-mainstream parties roughly covers our missing 12 000 souls. They did not switch sides in favour of Carlos Moedas, they voted for someone else.

The voters who once seemed perfectly centrist have started looking for bolder alternatives. Some moved into the hands of a populist, radical far right Chega, giving the gypsy-haters and immigrant-bashers over 4,41% of the votes. Others, frustrated with the lack of ambition and vision in the big parties, turned to a newly formed right-wing Liberal Initiative (4,22%). These two right parties are the largest beneficiaries of the Portuguese disenchantment, reflecting the people’s need to vent out their frustration with inefficient institutions and high-level corruption among politicians.

As for the rest of the smaller parties, they kept their numbers: the communist-green block CDU grew a bit and secured 10,51% of the votes, while both the left-wing Left Block and the green PAN lost some votes and received 6,2% and 2,73% respectively. Collectively, the fractured left kept its 20% of the votes, neither receding nor progressing through time.

Polarisation

These elections have shown that there is a clear tendency for polarisation on the fringes. The Socialist Party, complacent with its seeming omnipotence, forgot to talk to its own voters, pushing some into political lethargy and others into the hands of smaller, more radical parties, while not even attempting to activate the dormant half of the electorate.

As for the Social Democrats and their centre-right coalition, they largely benefited from the erosion of the Socialist vote. What they did manage well was to mobilise their existing supporters, for whom it was not so much the figure of Medina that caused all the rage, but the powerful man who had named him mayor and successor — the prime minister Antonio Costa himself, reluctant to get rid of rotten apples in his cabinet of ministers, even if their luxury BMW kills a road worker while speeding to a meeting, as was the case with Eduardo Cabrita, the Minister of the Interior Administration. The centre-right played well on the defensive, retaining and galvanising the party’s core voters by employing every possible tactic they could get hold of, and here we need to talk about Russiagate.

Russiagate

What could have taken some extra grill from Medina’s sardines, to use a local metaphor, was the so-called Russiagate, of which I became an internal witness, as my private data — from home address to national identification number — was shared by Medina’s administration with the Russian Embassy and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, making it to the national news and stirring popular indignation.

For context: with a few other Russians living in Lisbon, in January 2021, we organised a demonstration in support of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader thrown into prison on cooked up charges right upon his arrival into the Moscow airport from Berlin, where he had miraculously recovered from the Kremlin’s attempt to poison him. We wrote to the Lisbon Mayor office to inform about our gathering, soon discovering that our data had been shared, which is more than just irritatingly unpleasant, given that Russia is a place where one can easily spend a week in prison for as much as an innocent tweet.

How did it all happen?

Let’s talk constitution

Lisbon, as the rest of the world, was in the middle of a pandemic. My major concern was bringing people together and not facing any fines, as public gatherings were prohibited by freshly published parliamentary decrees. Having reread the Portuguese constitution and the decrees, I came to a conclusion that our demonstration was political, not ludic, and hence our constitutional right to gather was intact and we could come together, provided that we respected all the COVID rules.

However, I wanted to make sure that my reading of the law was not flawed, so I insisted on sending requests to the Lisbon administration asking them to confirm or deny my interpretation. This is when I discovered the scale of their cluelessness and inefficiency. I never got a response from them on my question regarding our constitutional right to gather, yet given that I obliged them to push emails back and forward with incessant questions, by some error they forwarded to me their internal communication, where I discovered that they had sent our personal data to the Russian authorities.

Half a year of silence

Of course I immediately asked them to confirm that what I had seen was really what they had done. Of course on the same day I shared the story with a journalist from Público that seemed mildly interested in Russia. Of course I did nor receive any response or even faint interest, which led me to sending a formal complaint to the Lisbon mayor office, putting in copy everyone I could think of: the Justice Ministry, the National Data Protection Office and the Portuguese Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, together with other organisers I informally complained to everyone who had an ear to listen to our story.

I soon did receive a response to my formal complaint from the Lisbon administration. What I read made me laugh with rage: the email said we should have been more careful with sending our private data. I started having coffees with lawyers, who all seemed profoundly pessimistic, professing I would spend thousands of euros and endless years trying to find justice.

Yet history has its own ways. Over the following half a year the news must have reached Carlos Moedas, and the Portuguese Social Democrats’ media outlet Expresso rushed to be the first to contact me asking for an interview. The rest of the national media then simply could not stay behind: they all started contacting us asking for an interview. A month later, when everything had already been said and done, I finally even heard back from Público.

The center-right coalition needed a scandal denigrating Medina right before the elections, and they had it served to them on a gilded plate.

Unleashing Machiavelli

The whole story would have made Machiavelli smile with divine pleasure. We wanted justice and we wanted media attention, and what helped us was this historical contingency: our frustration coincided with the electoral cycle. We became Carlos Moedas’ chance at moral superiority, and his political advisers used every bit of our story to consolidate the coalition’s existing voters and try to overthrow Medina.

The repercussions of Russiagate were quite felt: at some point I happened to listen to a radio program which was receiving endless calls from all across the country, all these strangers discussing the case, revolted against the injustice. I have absolutely no reason to believe that the national indignation was not sincere, it was clear that even the socialists were appalled at their own incompetence. The history of secret police snitching on people is still all too vivid in the memory of the people, and the story did hit the national nerve.

When further investigation revealed that the Lisbon administration had been sharing protesters’ data with other countries for a decade, the abysmal idiocy of the Lisbon bureaucracy became all too evident. There was not even ill intent, it was sheer negligence. It is hard to say to what degree Russiagate influenced the outcome, yet it might have disgusted quite a few voters.

The big picture

The electoral results have made a few things crystal clear. The socialists were meant to win, but a confluence of interdependent factors did not allow this to happen.

The majority of those who never voted, did not vote, as the big parties never tried to engage with them in any significant, novel way. Moreover, they could have been further dissuaded by Russiagate.

Disillusioned socialist voters — who bitterly contemplated Medina’s roll back on ambitious projects in the city such as zero-car zones in the centre — either slided into helpless apathy and did not show up, or decided to abstain believing that the neighbours would vote Medina in anyhow, or voted for one of the smaller parties, Russiagate potentially speeding up this switch.

The staunch social democrats came and voted, and although they did not grow in numbers, in this historical context they were enough to make Carlos Moedas the new mayor.

What is next?

Both the apathy and the protest vote given to the smaller parties signal that there is an unequivocal need for a strong alternative movement capable of uniting frustrated voters from all ends of the political spectrum. There is no reason to think that the current Chega voters are convinced fascists demanding gypsy and immigrant blood, or that the Liberal Initiative voters are married to the ideals of neoliberalism. Nor would it be correct to think that those voting for the left do so because they are so very left.

Voting for these new parties is people’s attempt to not play the binary game again. The voters are most probably just having a fling with these parties, and are not necessarily ready to commit to a long-lasting relationship. What unites these protesting 33%, as well as those ready to switch among the socialist and social democrat voters, is the need for new transparency, efficiency and a healthy mix of progressive social legislation and non-suicidal economic policies. Currently, no such movement or party exists. There isn’t a charismatic leader capable of capitalising on this popular demand yet.

Such drift away from bipartisanship is far from unique: both neighbouring Spain and remote Germany have been going through these same processes for quite some time already, new parties conquering seats in regional and national elections. It is what democracies are for, and the fact that these changes are taking place are but a sign that democracy is alive and working. Personally, I see Russiagate as proof of that. Political competition forced the media to dig and uncover failures in the local administration, influencing the voters to rethink their positions and causing political change.

Portugal clearly has fertile ground for a third major player that could, in the future, break the established hegemony. The current attempts at creating an alternative have been but uninspiring: some dangerously chauvinistic, some boringly petty. We might see a drudgery of split votes incapable of substituting the powers to be, or we might see a true leader emerging from this foam of circumstances.