Marcelo’s optimism has faded: “you can see that he is sad and grumpy”

President brought a darker Christmas message than usual. “It looks like it was pulled over”, and the silence speaks volumes.

“Every day — if we are attentive — we will discover that Christmas for many, almost everyone, is always the possible Christmas. Not the dreamed or idealized Christmas.”

It was with this darker tone that Marcelo Rebelo de Souza revived the tradition of the Christmas message from the Presidency of the Republic this year, in a text entitled “The Possible Christmas” in Jornal de Notícias.

Remembering “the millions who cannot even have a day in which their life of misery, hunger, war, exploitation, suffering, is different from everyone else”, the President of the Republic, who accustomed us with his smiles and positivity , was more ‘serious’ this Christmasand chose to highlight those who see the holiday “converted into a possible Christmas”.

“I speak of Christmas for Communities, Families, people, who, not even on that day, which for those who call it Christmas, can forget an illness, a prison, a mourning, a pain, an absence, a longing. Even though, without this presence, it would be easier for them to build at least a little Christmas”, wrote Marcelo.

“For those — who, strictly speaking, are no longer the overwhelming majority of the universe, or the very strong minority in so many societies — even for these, Christmas becomes a possible Christmas. The possible Christmas of the husband or wife, of the father or mother, of the son or daughter, of the brother or sister, killed by despair or by the fateful encounter with a third party”.

“A possible Christmas for a relative, a friend, a patient, a prisoner, a person far away in the world, a servant of the public cause on a mission in the same far corners of the universe”, continued the head of state: “closer to us, neighbors , formally or informally caregivers, without shelter, with shelter and homeless, without employment, without hope, with no reason to keep fighting”, in a Christmas that “for some, is, in fact, impossible or almost impossible”. Marcelo then says that in recent days, he has come across examples of all this.

“You can tell he’s sad”

Not President “there is a certain sadness. It’s Christmas, but Marcelo’s spirit is almost Easter”, says Bruno Vieira Amaral on Rádio.

Marcelo “has been talking less”, and the Christmas message coincides with his way of living in these last months of the end of his term: “you can see that he is sad” and that his optimism has “faded”.

“In other times, perhaps I would have been a little more optimistic”, believes the commentator: “it seems to me that is sad with what has been happening, with the relationship that will not be the ‘dreamed’ one with Luís Montenegro”.

There is still a year left until the end of the mandate, but “the tone is set” and its silence speaks loudat a time when the controversy and the threat of doctors in relation to a possible one are on the country’s political agenda.

“The fact that he refused to comment on these matters reveals, more than caution, a desire not to enter into controversy. It looks like it was pulled over“, says Bruno Vieira Amaral.

“Somehow he has been left aside and he is sulking, he is showing that he is a little amused with this whole situation”, he concludes.