BRAVA: Debate between Francisco Tavares (MPD) and Clóvis Silva (Paicv).

It was a balanced debate and both candidates performed well and made good arguments. After all, in my opinion, both Clóvis Silva and Francisco Tavares are good cadres and talented politicians.

Throughout the debate there were moments to highlight. Each candidate presented their vision of development for Brava.

Clóvis insisted that fishing should be the priority investment sector, with the construction of a fish factory, to export to the USA.

For Francisco Tavares, without denying the role of fishing, the priority must be investment in agriculture, with the introduction of water desalination projects for irrigation.

It is evident that the extent of agricultural activity on Brava covers a significant part of the population and its income is incomparable with that of a fishing factory. In this chapter, there are different views, which I believe voters will know how to assess with weight and wisdom.

We highlight Clovis's use of some political trick in the debate. He tried to use the health sector -which is the responsibility of the Government- to attack the performance of the Chamber of Brava. He used the same trick with employment and the issue of poverty, which are sectors, by nature, the responsibility of the government and not of the Municipal Councils.

I think Clóvis did this to try to get rid of the responsibility of the 15 years of his party's governance, which effectively left Brava in a situation considered of little development.

In this regard, Francisco Tavares replied to his opponent:

if you want to impute the delays that you refer to the Brava Chamber, you will be mistaken, because for the time of Brava's governance, your party has 75% of that responsibility and the MPD can only have 25% of that responsibility.

There were moments in the debate when Clóvis Silva tried to be a little more aggressive and arrogant and tried to present more curriculum and competence than Francisco Tavares, even showing his experience as a consultant to the United Nations (???).

Francisco Tavares, a politician with his feet firmly planted on the ground, much more pragmatic than Clóvis, calm and calm throughout the debate, with a good ability to argue, replied to Clóvis “we are here debating experience and capacity to manage the Municipality of Brava. You say you love Brava, but you live in S. Filipe do Fogo; instead of investing in Brava, it made three investments in S. Filipe do Fogo. You live off Brava and have never invested in Brava, how can you say you love this island?”.

“You are a political tourist on Brava”, said Francisco Tavares to Clóvis.

With this answer, for me, with all due respect, the meaning of the debate was defined.

But Clóvis, intelligent as he is, did not give up and tried to retort and demonstrate Brava's delays in various sectors, namely livestock, fishing, unemployment and poverty, and gave the example of stones for decorating the sidewalks that were imported from other islands, when they were supposed to be manufactured on the island.

Francisco Tavares’ response was prompt and calm: “you talk about the autonomy of Brava, that the Chamber should intervene more, instead of waiting for the Government, but you voted against Regionalization, which would provide greater resources and conditions for the Chamber of Brava ( ...)”. “And you, for nine years, never visited the Chamber of Brava”.

Clóvis replied saying that he always defended Brava...

On the other topics, each of the candidates tried to make their arguments with the intelligence that characterizes them. It was a good debate.

There is no doubt that the fact that Clóvis does not reside in Brava and has his investments in Fogo, I think that these facts can weigh heavily in the evaluation of candidates.

In any case, the polls give victory with an absolute majority to Francisco Tavares, to the MPD.