Ex-admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo has given his first interview as an official candidate for the Portuguese presidency, presenting himself as pro-life and, as president, willing to back a government led or including the populist-right party CHEGA.
Speaking on public service broadcaster RTP on June 2, Gouveia e Melo reiterated his ideological positioning as a centrist. He said he saw “no evidence of a correlation between immigration and crime rates”.
He also declared that his candidacy was decided by the strong likelihood of re-election of Donald Trump in the US 2024 elections, which he said he viewed with great concern given the odds of Trump “bringing instability to the international system”.
He also spoke about the conflict in Palestine and condemned Israel’s actions: “I do not agree, on humanitarian grounds, with what is happening in Palestine.”
He said he would be willing to approve the recognition of the Palestinian State as well, if so requested by Portugal’s parliament.
A former submarine commander, he led NATO flotillas throughout his naval career. He came to national fame during the Covid pandemic when he was tasked with revamping the organisation of Portugal’s vaccination campaign and making Portugal one of the most efficiently inoculated countries in the world.
The admiral has benefited from his non-partisan profile and reputation as an effective manager, traits which he would later capitalise on to get himself appointed Chief of the Naval Staff of Portugal.
While widely rumoured to have been aiming at the presidency, the admiral only made his candidacy official in May. He had made steps towards the role in the preceding years, namely by securing the endorsement of Lisbon Freemasons, an influential secret society that included many officials in the security sphere.
Maria Vieira, a famous former actress and since 2021 a municipal deputy, has been one of the loudest voices on the Right against the admiral’s candidacy.
Often deriding him as “Captain Birdseye”, Vieira claimed that Gouveia e Melo “co-opted and nearly imposed experimental vaccines which were and are to this day a direct cause of physical side effects and even deaths”.
Vieira also referred to the admiral’s previous statements of not being tempted to enter politics to label him a hypocrite and a “sailor of murky waters”, ultimately “lacking in charisma, character and competence”.
Gouveia e Melo, though, seemed to be gathering support from the backbencher factions of both the centre-left PS (S&D) and the centre-right PSD (EPP, currently part of Portugal’s ruling AD coalition), the country’s largest parties, and has consistently ranked first in the polls for next president of Portugal’s parliamentary political system.
