The only sour note regarding Madeira comes from the political side. Alberto João Jardim (*1943) has dominated the island’s politics for decades. In 2011, he was reelected for the tenth time. He has been governing Madeira from May 18, 1978 until 2015!
Alberto João Jardim managed to turn the once extremely poor island into a jewel when it comes to the infrastructure, a paradise for tourists. When Dictator Salazar’s reign ended in 1968, Madeira’s GDP per capita was around 40% of the national average. In 2008, at the start of the financial crisis, Madeira had become Portugal’s second richest region, just behind the capital Lisbon. The price tag however was enormous.
In 2010 alone, Madeira presented a budget deficit of roughly a quarter of its GDP. Alberto João Jardim repeatedly lied about the island’s finances. Despite the mismanagement and the corruption, he was reelected in 2011 with an absolute majority of 25 seats in the island’s 47-seat parliament.
In 2011, the Portuguese Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar estimated the island’s public debt at 6.3 billion Euro; the island has a population of roughly a quarter of a million people.
As a tourist, enjoy the airport, the great roads, viaducts, tunnels, civic centers, swimming pools, football pitches and stadiums as well as the rest of the excellent infrastructure, partly built with EU regional development funds (some 2 billion Euro in grants over 25 years), which started to slowly dry up around the year 2000, when the European Union became more restrictive and Alberto João Jardim more creative, borrowing money on the market while hiding debts.
In May 2013, a Madeira judge decided not to prosecute the Regional Government of Madeira. The Madeira prosecutor resigned in protest. Affaire à suivre, as the French say. In 2020, I can add that Alberto João Jardim got away with it. He is still free.
This article was originally added to our old pages as part of an article about Visiting Madeira on November 1, 2013; additional details added on November 3, 2013 at 17:16 Warsaw time. It has been added separately to our newly designed pages with a new photo on November 1, 2020 at 10:03 Madeira time. All there is to say is visit the beautiful island of Madeira!
Books about Madeira from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
The photograph shows Alberto João Jardim e Irineu Barreto (cropped). Created on 18 October 2018. Alberto João Jardim na Assembleia Geral da Conferência das Regiões Periféricas Marítimas (CRPM). Funchal, Madeira, outubro de 2018. Source: CPMR – Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cpmr/45438867562/ found via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Jo%C3%A3o_Jardim#/media/File:Alberto_Jo%C3%A3o_Jardim_e_Irineu_Barreto_(cropped).jpg
Article originally added on November 1, 2013. Detail that he left office + photo + link to our new Visit Madeira article added to our newly designed pages on November 1, 2020.
