Boulos-Marta: differences and parallels with Lula-Alckmin – 01/14/2024 – Power

A surprising, unusual and symbolic ticket, uniting candidate and vice-president who until recently were opponents at the polls and exchanged criticisms with each other, but decided to play on the same team with a standardized speech: leaving differences in the past to unite in defense of values democratic elections during a polarized election.

Boulos-Marta is, in a way, the repetition of the Lula-Alckmin formula at the local level, according to the opinion of politicians, marketers and analysts, who, although they consider the comparison inevitable, highlight a series of differences.

President Lula’s interlocutors claim that, by inviting Marta Suplicy back to the PT and offering her the post of candidate for vice-mayor on Guilherme Boulos’ (PSOL) ticket in São Paulo, the PT member intended to replicate the model that beat Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in 2022.

Boulos has sought to incorporate the broad-front spirit of the PT’s presidential campaign and is guided by pragmatism in movements that target supporters beyond the left — the alliance with Marta is the main one so far.

Therefore, among Boulos enthusiasts in the PT, the PSOL ticket with Marta is seen under the same logic as that formed by Lula with the former tucano Geraldo Alckmin (PSB). The objective is to bring together all those who oppose Bolsonaro, today seen as an ally by Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB), running for re-election.

According to a marketer who observes the São Paulo election from the outside, Boulos and Nunes anchor their strategies in the reproduction of national polarization, something that Marta’s presence reinforces. It would push the mayor to the right and reposition the psolist more to the center. What is in dispute is not just São Paulo, but the 2026 presidential succession.

In addition to tactical similarities, there are coincidences that mark both teams.

When marketer Felipe Soutello suggested to Fernando Haddad (PT), in May 2021, that Alckmin be Lula’s deputy, the conversation took place precisely during dinner at Marta Suplicy’s apartment, in Jardins, where she and Boulos met at this Saturday (13).

The Lula-Alckmin ticket unlocked the emergence of unlikely tickets and began to be mentioned as a response to skepticism regarding the union of Boulos and Marta since this plan came to light, anticipated by Sheet in November.

Lawyer Marco Aurélio Carvalho, who participated in meetings that designed both slates, states that Boulos-Marta repeats the 2022 plot, but sees an emotional addendum in the case of the former mayor.

“It’s a reconciliation, it’s the recomposition of our team. Marta returning to the PT is consistent with her biography. It’s the return of those who weren’t there, she left the PT, but the PT didn’t leave her”, he says.

In the opposing pre-campaigns, however, Nunes’ interlocutors, Tabata Amaral (PSB) and Ricardo Salles (PL) reject the idea that Boulos-Marta represents a broad front as they see both as members of the left, which was not true in the Lula-Alckmin case.

The assessment that Boulos and Marta are in the same ideological camp and overlap also appears among PT members and members of the PSOL pre-campaign — it would be a one-two punch, they say. To imitate Lula-Alckmin and truly pierce the bubble, the vice president would have to nod more to the center-right and conservative sectors.

Mainly among Bolsonarian politicians, Marta is seen as someone who has always been left-wing, despite having broken with the PT and voted in favor of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT), for example.

Alckmin was not a PT member who returned to his origins. The initial estrangement of the PT militancy towards him was motivated by his right-wing positions. Marta must face resistance as she is seen as a traitor by some on the left.

Marketers remember that Marta migrated directly from the rival camp — she was Secretary of International Relations under the Nunes administration until Tuesday (9). Alckmin, in turn, was not an ally of Bolsonaro and had been away from politics since his defeat in the 2018 presidential election.

Even though they share progressive thinking, Marta and Boulos’ allies have a history of exchanged barbs, just as the former mayor accumulates a series of criticisms of the PT, episodes that have come to be remembered. The same happened with Lula and Alckmin, who had to explain their jabs in the past.

But one aspect that brings the two sides together, according to strategists on all sides, is the gain that Marta brings to Boulos by improving acceptance of him and softening his image as a radical, in an effect similar to that of Alckmin for Lula. In other words, the plate gains another size and relevance.

Furthermore, the former mayor works as a vaccine against Boulos’ lack of administrative experience and gives him the opportunity to present showcases, such as the CEUs and Bilhete Único. At this point, however, there is no parallel with Lula-Alckmin, as the PT member had his own achievements in two presidential terms to explore.

In the words of a PT member, both tickets are symbolic, but Alckmin added breadth, while Marta, experience. The two vice-presidents would serve as guarantors of the candidates before the suspicious voters.

The potential to contribute to the voting of candidates was questioned in relation to Alckmin and is also doubtful in relation to Marta, as both suffered defeats at the polls in the last elections. In the PT, parliamentarians believe that Marta’s voters are those that the party would already have, but others believe that she has her own vote.

Politicians interviewed by the report state that, in the same way as Alckmin, Marta has dialogue and connections with sectors that Boulos cannot reach alone, from the poor population on the outskirts to the elites, including the private sector.

The construction of the Lula-Alckmin and Boulos-Marta tickets would also highlight the articulation ability of the PT president, considered the architect of the two seams. Here, however, there are distinctions, because the rapprochement between Lula and the then toucan was thought out over months, kept secret and had planned stages of public exposure, starting with a dinner.

The way in which Marta left Nunes’ management to join Boulos, without informing the mayor about her meeting with Lula and within a few weeks, was harshly criticized among the Emedebista’s allies.

Finally, those who know Marta say that she has a different profile to Alckmin, who is discreet and content with behind the scenes, in addition to having shown himself to be a loyal and submissive vice to the president until now. The former mayor is described as a protagonist and proactive, someone who will seek to influence the direction of the campaign and a possible government.