As a convinced Autonomist, it is embarrassing to hear, from a party “filled” with self-styled Autonomist mayors, calling in the media for greater autonomy of Local Power, this is because in the current constitutional and (neo)colonial context the increase in autonomy of Power Local necessarily implies the emptying of the Political-Administrative Autonomy of the Autonomous Region of Madeira!
Mayors who say they are truly Autonomists cannot, in conscience, call for more powers until Portugal grants full Autonomy to the Autonomous Regions. That is, as long as the Portuguese Republic does not transfer all of its competences to the RAM with the exception of Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, Foreign Policy, National Defense.
I will go even further, the mayors who say they are truly Autonomists should demand the extinction, in RAM, of all municipalities and parish councils, and at the same time demand that all their respective powers be transferred to a Public Institute that responds politically to the Government Regional and Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
The geographical and demographic dimension of RAM, in addition to its current state of socio-economic development, do not justify 11 “churches” and 54 “chapels” that give rise to the possibility of, in the words of American journalist and writer Frank Herbert (1920 -1986), attract “people who seek power for power’s sake”.
After almost 50 years of Autonomy, it is clear that the words written by Frank Herbert in “Chapterhouse: Dune” resonate with the dogmas of political science: “a good government never depends on laws, but on the personal qualities of those who govern. The government machine is always subordinate to the will of those who manage that machine. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.”
Now such a method of choice must take into account that “leaders make mistakes, and these mistakes, amplified by the number of those who follow them without question, inevitably lead to great disasters.”
In the context of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, the great disaster would be to see the process of Political-Administrative Autonomy, with the effective transfer of exclusive powers from the Assembly of the Republic to ALRAM, completely stagnant, the discrediting of the Autonomous Region of Madeira in Lisbon and in the Union European Union, all of this resulting in the degradation of the economic and social fabric of this outermost region.
On the way to the next Regional Legislative Elections, it is important to remember that Autonomy is a right, whose corresponding duty is its exercise. From the moment that autonomous institutions do not fully exercise the powers conferred on them (even though these can be constitutionally audited), these institutions and their representatives are alienating and “losing” the rights that they have. assist under the terms of the Law. Mayors cannot therefore call for more autonomy from the Local Government, without the corresponding Political-Administrative Autonomy of the Region in which they are located.
