Portuguese President Cavaco Silva (right) receives (former) Prime Minister Passos Coelho after elections to talk about the new government. Gonçalo Silva/Demotix. All rights reserved.
Portugal is heading to the polls on the 24 of January to elect its new president. However, the actual important question is not who will but if anyone should be elected. After two consecutive terms in office, Anibal Cavaco Silva has led many to believe that Portugal would be better off with a different system of government.
Constitutional engineering is an incredible difficult endeavour. Establishing a blueprint for democracy is far more difficult than constructing a cathedral. Historical, social and political conditions are determinant to build a proper system of government and assure its capability to withstand the full weight of democratic institutions. A failure to identify and comprehensively encompass such factors might have calamitous consequences.
