A TV Contest Sets Off a Furor Over Portugal's Ex-Dictator
When Portuguese television viewers recently voted the former dictator António de Oliveira Salazar “the greatest Portuguese who ever lived” — passing over the most celebrated kings, poets and explorers in the nation’s thousand-year history — the broadcaster RTP braced itself for a strong reaction. But what ensued resembled a national identity crisis.
First the left howled in protest, demanding to know how a man who had sent his enemies to concentration camps in Africa could be revered by a modern European nation. Then the Socialist government spun into denial, saying the vote was unrepresentative because viewers could vote multiple times from different phone lines — as many did.
One irate viewer wrote to the channel’s Web site, saying, “Only masochists, imbeciles or the insane could have voted for this executioner.” Others said the tally was a fitting rebuke from a country lagging behind the rest of the continent.
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First the left howled in protest, demanding to know how a man who had sent his enemies to concentration camps in Africa could be revered by a modern European nation. Then the Socialist government spun into denial, saying the vote was unrepresentative because viewers could vote multiple times from different phone lines — as many did.
One irate viewer wrote to the channel’s Web site, saying, “Only masochists, imbeciles or the insane could have voted for this executioner.” Others said the tally was a fitting rebuke from a country lagging behind the rest of the continent.