There's a misconception that Portuguese politicians, and Madeirans in particular, tend to make: they confuse mandate with ownership. Winning elections is not a blank check. It's not authorization to manage public money as if it were one's own, nor a license to decide as one sees fit, for whoever one sees fit, and with criteria that best suit those who govern. The Madeiran population gave Miguel Albuquerque legitimacy at the ballot box for a specific mission: to use public money for the benefit of all Madeirans.
Sara Albuquerque, the daughter of the President of the Regional Government, was paid by the commercial company Atalaia Living Care - Integrated Health Care, Ltd. It was Tony Saramago himself who confirmed this payment in Court, whose social welfare institution signed a public contract worth over 17 million euros with the Regional Government presided over by Miguel Albuquerque. This means that the daughter of the President of the Regional Government is paid by a company linked to the family of an entrepreneur who, in turn, signed a 17 million euro contract of public money with the Government of his father. When the news exposing these relationships was published, the Association attempted to silence those who made it public through the courts, but lost.
In plain language, this means that 17 million euros of Madeirans' money went to an organization with direct financial ties to the president who authorized the contract. When we talk about conflicts of interest in Madeira, we're not talking about vague suspicions or coffee shop rumors: we're talking about documented and court-confirmed facts that describe a web of relationships between political power and private benefit that should shame any democracy that takes itself seriously. The question remains: how many public contracts were signed with similar criteria? How many other 17 millions are out there that haven't made the news?
Miguel Albuquerque, the Madeiran population did not elect you to manage public affairs as an extension of the private interests of those around you. They elected you for something simpler, yet more demanding: to serve. With transparency, with integrity, and with the awareness that public money has no owner, it has a destination. And that destination has a name: the Madeiran people.
