José Sena Foulão / Lusa
The Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo
The illustration of Admiral Gouveia e Melo next to King D. João II, the “Perfect Prince”, continues to deserve criticism and even the military looks at it sideways, pointing out “excessive vanity”.
Criticized by various parties and anonymous people on social media, the illustration that appears on the back cover of Revista da Marinha is seen as a kind of campaign for the presidential elections, with an arm in hand with the king D. João IIwhose nickname is “Perfect Prince”.
In addition to the illustration, the Chief of Staff of the Navy (CEMA) also writes the magazine’s editorial, recalling his three year term and some of the achievements achieved, namely the increase in salaries for Navy soldiers.
“If you used the achievements of the last three years to serve as a springboard for other flights this denotes a gesture of excessive vanity“, criticizes Major General Isidro de Morais Pereira in statements to CNN Portugal.
“She’s like Caesar’s wifeit is not enough to be serious, it is necessary to appear so”, adds the major general, highlighting that “this position falls badly among people from the Navy.” “The Navy is a collective work and not just one man”, he concludes.
“That is hidden, subliminal advertising. It’s mere promotion”, understands, in turn, Major General Agostinho Costa, also speaking to .
Published in Revista da Armada.
— Luís Paixão Martins (@lpmpessoal)
“You have to read between the lines and what I read is clearly a page of CEMA’s personal projection”, adds Agostinho Costa, highlighting that the illustration reports to “maritime mythwhich shows that the country’s future and success passes through the seas, mixed with the myth of Sebastianismwith the image of the providential man who arrives to take us out of the shadow”.
“For this type of situation to occur in an official Navy body it gets bad“, Commander João Fonseca Ribeiro also tells CNN Portugal, noting that the CEMA position “should not be personalised”.
“In military organizations, we have to separate the personal plan from the institutional plan“, he notes.
And even more “in a so cloudy phase like this one, in which the contexts [militar e político] mix, it was prudent not to use the official Navy organ with this type of content”, highlights the commander.
Gouveia e Melo ends his term as CEMA on December 27th after having already informed the Government that . After that, he will be able to announce his presidential candidacy in early 2025.
But even before he is, he is already the and is considered the most likely successor to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
