When the votes were counted, eighty-three percent of the voters had submitted blank votes. Large numbers of voters turned out, though every voting queue had a police spy in it to determine why so many blank votes had been submitted. The government feels that it has no choice but to order another election, which duly takes place. Seventy percent have submitted blank votes. However, when the votes are counted in the capital, only twenty-five percent of the voters have voted for one of three parties. The government has to allow extra time for voting. The weather does clear up somewhat, later in the day, and more people do turn up. No-one turns up to vote, so that the polling officers phone their families to urge them to vote. It is pouring with rain and even the polling officers are delayed. At the beginning we follow the story from polling station fourteen. There are three parties – the right wing, centre and left wing parties. It is set in the same fictitious country and the events in this novel take place four years after the events in Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness). This novel follows on, to a certain degree, from Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness). A singular novel from the author of Blindness.Home » Portugal » José Saramago » Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Seeing) José Saramago: Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Seeing)

What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. Could she be behind the blank ballots? Is she the organizer of a conspiracy against the state? A police superintendent is put on the case. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that had hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. The president proposes that a wall be built around the city to contain the revolution.

But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear. What's going on? Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote.

Seeing saramago