With an eye to the elections coming up this autumn, Loulé council has announced investments of €21 million for Quarteira.
The vote-buying strategy is on an unprecedented scale with a cultural centre and a new gymnasium being dangled in front of voters’ noses.
The Quarteira GNR will get a new base in the refurbished fire station and a school suddenly is to be refurbished after years of being ignored.
Loulé's mayor, Vitor Aleixo, has just opened a new link road, the grandly named Avenida Atlântico, and hopes that today’s announcement of his boundless munificence will be enough to sway undecided voters and return him for a further term of office.
The €4.8 million budget for the EB 2,3 D. Dinis school is the mayor’s best bet, but the neew GNR station should attract voters as should the second phase of Passeio das Dunas at €2.9 million.
Between 2014 and 2016, Loulé council is at pains to state that it already has spent around €12 million on lots of high-profile activities, including the Papa Francisco Avenue, Passeio das Dunas (1st phase) and the new Avenida da Fonte Santa.
Loulé is not alone in suddenly announcing a host of projects designed to attract gullible voters. In fact, Loulé council under mayor Aleixo has turned from debt to surplus.
The high property rates in the Loulé council area have been a lucrative source of income and one that the mayor was happy to plunder through the years of austerity.
Now the council is a financial success, Aleixo has turned his spending plans towards the poor and the feeble-minded, expecting election year announcements to be an adequate substitute for real buildings and improvements, rather than late-in-the-day projects that may never get started.
