The book “José Sócrates – Ascensão” is released on Tuesday. João Miguel Tavares says he wants to explain how a politician with Sócrates’ profile managed to reach “the most powerful place in the State” and remain there for six years, “in the midst of countless scandals”.
Journalist and political commentator João Miguel Tavares denounces in his new book the “collective and institutional failures”, in social communication and justice, which “led to the country allowing itself to be deceived” by former prime minister José Sócrates.
In the introduction to the book “José Sócrates – Ascensão” (Don Quixote), which will be released this Tuesday, João Miguel Tavares says he wants to present the reasons why the former prime minister “is a politician different from the others” and explain how “Portugal is a country where a politician with your profile managed to reach the most powerful position in the State and remain there for six years, in the midst of countless scandals”.
The journalist, columnist for “Público” and political commentator considers 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 that Sócrates found the right environment to impose his personality and style”.
Tavares remembers the former socialist leader’s electoral results, such as the absolute majority in 2005 and a comfortable victory, “already surrounded by very serious suspicions”, in 2009to highlight that “it wasn’t the scandals that brought him down”, but rather the economic crisis and the arrival of the ‘troika’.
“Had Portugal not been on the verge of bankruptcy, it is possible that Sócrates would have remained in São Bento for many more years, surrounded by suspicions and believers”, reads the introduction.
“The problem was never just Socrates”, but the “country that allowed him”
For the author, “it was not the accumulation of cases that destroyed him politically”, but rather the “decrease of his influence”, which means, he argues, that “the problem was never just Socrates”, but rather the “country that allowed and supported him”.
Using only what was published in the media or in books, João Miguel Tavares wants to prove that “there was always public information that allowed him to trace his profile” and “find standards that made him unfit to serve as prime minister“, but that “the information did not circulate as it should, nor did it have 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” for his rise, the “lack of critical spirit of his supporters, party sectarianism, lack of independence of justice, lack of media scrutiny, excessive weight of the State, excessive gullibility of some voters and the excessive tribalism of many commentators”.
“Confronted 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 established himself in the PS, how he remained in São Bento for six years, what strategies he used to maintain power, how he created his circle of faithful, how he managed the relationship between public and private, and, ultimately, what was the fuel that impelled him to commit his life in such activities”, writes the author.
Using a quote from Eduardo Lourenço about the Estado Novo, Tavares says that Sócrates was a “disease experienced as health” by Portugal in a “mechanics of dissimulation that the country is far from having overcome” and a democracy where it continues to “absorb manifestations of abnormality as if they were banalities”.
Book took ten years to write
This project, which was originally called “José Sócrates Nunca Existeu – The man who deceived us and the country that let itself be deceived”, took almost ten years of work by João Miguel Tavares and covers the former prime minister’s journey from birth to the first absolute majority of the PS, in 2005.
The author reveals that two volumes will follow: “Power”, about Socrates’ six years as prime minister, and “Fall”, dedicated to his arrest, accusation and trial.
The Marquês case, in which José Sócrates is the main defendant, has 21 accused of 117 crimes of corruption, money laundering and tax fraud.
