“Operation Marquês” and other cases that shook the regime

“This is a scandal.” This phrase is repeated more and more, in the face of a succession of cases and little cases that seem to shake up politics almost every day and that are once again dominating the agenda this week, with the start of the Operação Marquês trial, this Thursday, the 3rd. But, after all, what is “a scandal”? And why do we seem increasingly numb to that which should outrage us? Bruno Paixão has been investigating these phenomena for 20 years and wrote a book after reading all the editions of the newspapers Expresso, O Jornal, O Independente and Sol, published between April 25, 1974 and April 25, 2024. Armed with 50 years of news, the researcher from the University of Coimbra detected 7,662 articles about political scandals, in a total of 153 cases, from which the 100 biggest were selected, according to a Media Intensity Scale, developed by two professors from the Mathematics Department of that university. First conclusion? Out of 100 scandals, 66 happened up until 2009, the year marked by Face Oculta, which, according to this scale, deserves the category of “major scandal”.

“Twenty years ago, scandal was already a threat. Today, scandal is a lethal weapon, which has the potential to cause harm to all stakeholders and contaminates the entire democracy,” Bruno Paixão told VISÃO, recalling that the last two legislative elections were a direct consequence of political scandals.