arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Torrential rain is falling on an election night in an unnamed European capital. The results are just in
and the government is in shock. The turnout has been massive despite the gales - but more than 70
per cent of voters appear to have deliberately cast blank votes.
This is the premise on which Jose Saramago, the Portuguese novelist who won the Nobel prize for
literature in 1998, bases his latest novel, Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (An Essay on Lucidity), a political
fable that questions the validity of western democracies.
But, if abstentions are substituted for blank votes, this fictional scenario could prove uncomfortably
close to reality when Portugal votes in the European parliament elections in June.
Polls forecast only 30 per cent of the electorate will turn out, a drastic drop from 72 per cent when the
country first voted in a European ballot in 1987 in a special election for the two new members,
Portugal and Spain, who joined in 1986. Voter turnout has fallen in every European Union country
except Belgium, where voting is compulsory, and Denmark, but in Portugal it has fallen most sharply.
In the last election five years ago only 40.4 per cent made it to polling stations.
Alarmed politicians blame the calling of the election on June 13, a bank holiday weekend Sunday
when the Portuguese are expected to flock to the beach. The Euro 2004 soccer tournament, which
starts the day before and is being hosted by Portugal, may also distract attention. But politicians also
see a deeper malaise behind the growing apathy. President Jorge Sampaio, urging the country to
vote, says he is "horrified" by the prospect of even greater apathy this year.
Sociologists and politicians are anxious to discover why the Portuguese - shown by opinion polls to be
enthusiastic Europeans who place a high value on EU aid and membership of the eurozone - find
European elections so uninspiring.
Studies suggest Portuguese voters see the European parliament as relatively powerless and remote,
both literally and in its impact on their lives.
Being elected a member of the European parliament (MEP) is characterised as a "golden retirement"
for second-tier or ageing politicians and because of the list system adopted by political parties few
voters know who most of the candidates are.
This view is not unknown in other European countries. In Britain, for instance, where turnout has fallen
from just over 32 per cent in 1979 to 24 per cent five years ago, politicians also struggle to inspire
much interest in pan-European issues.
In this climate, Mr Saramago's suggestion that casting blank votes would be a new and effective way
for western electorates to express dissatisfaction with the democratic system is provoking heated
debate.
The 81-year-old novelist says he would like to see low turnouts turn into blank protest votes, adding
that it would give him "infinite pleasure" if 20 per cent of Portuguese voters cast blank votes. His ideas
are proving all the more provocative, given that he is himself a candidate to become one of Portugal's
24 MEPs. This, he acknowledges, represents a "formal contradiction" with his blank vote philosophy.
But he says he is standing only out of loyalty to Portugal's hardline Communist party, of which he is a
veteran member.
"I want to provoke people into examining whether or not we live in genuine democracies," he says of
his novel. "The real power today is economic power. Voters are limited to electing one party or
another. We have no influence over the strategic decisions made by those with economic power."
Western governments are little more than the "political commissaries" of big business.
Most Portuguese politicians reject Mr Saramago's blank protest vote as a dangerous suggestion that
would undermine the democratic system. But some of his ideas have found an echo among
mainstream politicians. Mario Scares, a former Socialist prime minister and Portugal's best known
MEP, agrees that "democracy is in crisis", threatened by the influence of global businesses over
national governments and a growing lack of differentiation among party policies.
In Mr Saramago's novel, the electorate casts blank votes as a "howl of protest" against the system,
provoking a violent and repressive government reaction. In Portugal, less drastic action is being
considered to combat voter apathy.
Politicians want polling booths kept open longer so that voters can spend more time at the beach.
Torrential rain might prove even more effective.