Manuel Albuquerque is the new name to remember for Madeira as he has been voted in as the new President of the regional government.
He is a Social Democrat and the PSD won a controlling majority with 44.33% of the islanders’ votes with 24 of its MPs being elected.
The Christian democratic, conservative and national conservative party, CDS–PP, came in second with 13.9% and the new kid on the block, the JPP or Together the People, came in third with an impressive 10.3% of the votes.
The Socialist Party despite linking up with some samller parties, only polled 11%. Overall the number of abstentions was high at 51%.
Lisbon heaved a sigh of relief when incumbent Alberto João Jardim called it a day after 37 years of crackpot leadership, a political mix of Benny Hill and Basil Fawlty whose rude, boorish and insulting behaviour gathered voters’ support despite the island becoming further isolated from mainstream Portuguese political and economic activity.
Albuquerque is suave, connected and was the mayor of Funchal until he went for the top job at the age of 53.
It is the electorate’s hope that the financial situation in Madeira can start to be reversed with an uncovering of the myriad schemes and scams perpetuated by Jardim who ran the island without the benefit of fiscal controls.
