In Portugal, a giant blackout is part of the legislative campaign
Three weeks before the elections and on the eve of an expected televised debate between the Prime Minister and his Socialist rival, the massive power outage of April 28 has emerged as a point of contention over crisis management.
"The blackout has arrived with a bang at the start of the election campaign and promises to cause havoc," Público announced this morning . Opposition leader Pedro Nuno Santos, the socialist, "has attacked Prime Minister Luís Montenegro for his inability to manage crises and his taste for propaganda," the newspaper noted. The televised debate between the two men, which was canceled on Monday, April 28, due to the massive power outage that hit the Iberian Peninsula at the same time, will take place on the evening of Wednesday, April 30, three weeks before the legislative elections.
“We had a blackout at the central government level, a lack of leadership, direction, and support at a time when the country needed it most,” the socialist candidate denounced. “Millions of people were left without access to reliable information, without clear guidelines.” While several Portuguese regions were without electricity for twelve hours, Pedro Nuno Santos criticized the authorities for alerting the population by text message once the power was restored.
The head of the executive, for his part, welcomed a rapid and effective response, and announced the establishment of
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