And on the 19th?

On the 18th I will have no doubts: I will vote for the CDS (where it is) as usual, as I am not one of those who, tired of an old marriage, run after the first miniskirt.

I have doubts that the AD will win with an absolute majority. If it doesn't happen, we will stay as we are and will drag ourselves along painfully until the electorate shows signs of being fed up with the speeches to the “Portuguese men and women” announcing yet another small bodo, a small triumph, and the appointment of a commission for the timid reform of this or that – in the NHS, in the justice system, in housing, in taxation, in the “fight” against fires and the tragedy of the homeless and other tragedies.

If and when a new electoral vote is held, it will probably be under the auspices of a new President. And if this is the admiral who perhaps finds important things about the country and the world, but keeps these profound insights to himself while relieving himself of banalities, I can already see him saying that it is necessary to “give the floor back to the Portuguese”, the well-known expression for those who use pre-fabricated chatter.

It might not have to be this way. At this point, it would have been possible for journalists to compete to air the dissensions that existed within the Government, between the AD ministers who wanted to reform this and that while their Chega colleagues were pulling their hair out because certain reforms hurt their electoral clientele and their world view – but elections would not have taken place.

Or the other way around or in another way, as for counterfactual exercises each person does what they want.

There is no shortage of opinionated judges, some of them notable, such as António Barreto, who would welcome an understanding between the two largest parties for the worthy purpose of “reform”, because the slow and steady slide of the country towards the bottom of the development spectrum worries the most conscious. However, there is no fundamental reform of almost anything that does not imply the privatisation of the economy and the slimming down of the State, and with that, mortal blows to the multiple interests that, like stubborn ticks, have embedded themselves in the economic and social fabric – precisely the result of decades of socialist policies.

The calculation behind centrophilic engineering is that offending the interests of many “natural” voters of the PSD and PS is only possible if the two are in agreement, otherwise the one who capitalizes on the discontent of what one does is the other, who at the first tide reverses everything.

As a line of reasoning, it's not bad. Except for the fact that almost no worthwhile reform (except, perhaps, that of the Justice system) can be done with the PS, but against the PS. So the defence of a Centrão confesses two things: one is that right-wing reforms are not possible in Portugal; and the other is that whoever undertakes them commits suicide.

But no: Passos Coelho proved that it was possible to be genuinely reformist and win elections; and the rise of Chega guarantees that outside the state party (as the late Medina Carreira called it) there is sufficient human capital to build majorities.

It would be desirable if the votes that go to Chega would all go to AD. But the very fact that this will not happen proves that those on the right who want something different do not trust that with AD it will not be more of the same.

There are those in Portugal who want to change. If the AD understands this, and has the benefit of an absolute majority (even if it needs the crutch of the IL), it would do well to ignore the shouting of the media and the opposition and rebuild the atmosphere of the troika , this time without the humiliation of foreign bosses, without the pressure of periodic good behaviour exams, and with time to think and measure.

Where to start? There is so much to do that I certainly won't, in my comfortable armchair, make a list, which would be immensely incomplete, and here and there very debatable.

But I now request an easy, expeditious, cost-free and healthy reform: we must stop referring to the Portuguese as “Portuguese men and women”. This language is cowardly and ignorant. Cowardly because it represents a semantic concession to the leftist mood of the times, which kicks tradition in the name of equality with a hammer; and ignorant because it disregards grammar – the masculine plural refers not only to the masculine gender but also to the feminine.

And, when you look at it closely, perhaps it is not just a matter of tweaking the discourse. The necessary changes require men with strong beards, even if they are women. After all, Margaret Thatcher or today Giorgia Meloni, and many others in the past and increasingly in the present, show the way without anyone accusing them of lacking femininity.

Editorial note: The views expressed by the authors of the articles published in this column may not be fully shared by all members of Oficina da Liberdade and do not necessarily reflect the position of Oficina da Liberdade on the topics discussed. Despite having a common view of the State, which they want to be small, and the world, which they want to be free, the members of Oficina da Liberdade and its guest authors do not always agree on the best way to get there.