Living in a democracy means taking responsibility for respecting the truth. Freedom of choice does not legitimize lying or manipulation. At a decisive electoral moment, what is not at stake is the old dichotomy between left and right, but the defense of integrity against speeches that distort facts and weaken public trust. Democracy requires leaders who honor it, not exploit it. It requires leaders capable of being calm in times of turbulence, capable of acting discreetly.
A healthy democracy does not just live from the act of voting, it lives, above all, from what happens between elections: respect for pluralism, the demand for scrutiny and the culture of verification. When lying becomes normalized, when manipulation becomes an instrument for gaining or maintaining power, what breaks is not just the political debate, but the civic commitment that sustains trust between people and institutions.
Truth, in democracy, is not a moral adornment. It is the invisible infrastructure that allows productive disagreement: we may differ in values and preferences, but we start from legible facts. Without this common ground, public conversation becomes noise, and noise is the breeding ground for manipulation. It is not, therefore, a question of choosing an ideological field, but of protecting the space where differences can exist without falsehood capturing the collective decision.
There are those who confuse freedom of expression with a license to deceive. It is not. Freedom holds accountability: it demands sources, context, accountability. In economic life, we call this transparency; in political life, we call it public integrity; In social life, we call it trust. In any of these dimensions, lying has concrete costs: it distorts choices, aligns resources with the wrong priorities and generates frustration that turns into hatred, which can lead to social turmoil and police enforcement.
In an electoral cycle, the temptation to simplify complex problems is great. Slogans simplify the promises that seduce the population, with many of these slogans being unrealistic and lacking any truth.
Democratic maturity is measured by the ability to resist the comfort of illusion, the comfort of wanting to believe in an attractive but false slogan.
Leaders who honor democracy are those who tell the truth about limits, who recognize the costs and time that changes take, in order to guarantee respect for human beings and the common public cause. These leaders do not promise immediate worlds; build shared paths. And, at this time when hatred, envy, frustration and manipulation constitute narratives used by various parties and politicians, it is essential that the next President of the Republic is moderate and aims to build a more up-to-date democracy, but one that continues to respect human beings, their freedom and protection.
Integrity does not eliminate political conflict – it gives shape to it. It forces the opponent to be seen as an interlocutor, not as an enemy. This difference is decisive: where there are enemies, there is fear and symbolic violence; where there are interlocutors, there are rules and a future. This is why lying, although effective in the short term, is always self-destructive, and can lead to illusions that create frustration, which can lead to social turmoil, with consequences for the most disadvantaged, for those who are the most frustrated.
Living in a democracy also means accepting the humility of the process: changing your ideas in the face of good arguments, correcting errors, recognizing ambiguities. Democratic truth is not dogma; it’s method. And the method requires strong institutions, a free press, active citizens with rights and duties, and leaders capable of transforming power into a practice of service.
Once here, the choice that matters is not between ideological labels, but between two ways of being: honoring democracy or exploring democracy. Honoring her means speaking clearly, being accountable and respecting limits. Exploiting it is using the vote as a shield to distort facts and divide society.
In a global and European context of rupture, of imminent war, all of us, the approximately 10 million Portuguese, must do everything we can to prevent our society from being divided, to avoid the hatred that only amplifies problems and never brings a solution. This international context requires that small countries, like us, be intelligent to maintain cohesion and a democratic spirit of social support.
Faced with the two candidates who are now presenting themselves to have the responsibility of being the next President of the Portuguese Republic, it seems to me to be unquestionable that António Seguro defends democracy. Therefore, I appeal to those who are attached to the dogma of the “left vs. right” extremes to be able to overcome this bias, and to understand that what is at stake is much more than this dichotomy: what is at stake is democracy itself.
We also never thought there would be a Trump as president of the USA, and now he is there. Never assume that the unthinkable does not happen. History has told us that the unthinkable can happen. And I will do everything to make the unthinkable also impossible.
*PhD, CEO da Systemic
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