Datena’s affiliation with her 11th party does not limit PSDB – 04/04/2024 – Power

The affiliation of presenter José Luiz Datena (PSB) to the PSDB, this Thursday (4), will have the blessing of federal deputy Tabata Amaral (PSB), pre-candidate for Mayor of São Paulo, who continues to count on him to be the vice on his ticket, but in a different party.

The deadline for those who want to run in the municipal election to join a party ends on Saturday (6), with the end of the party migration window.

For the Tucanos, however, Datena’s membership does not limit the party to this single possibility — on the contrary, it postpones any definitive decision on launching its own candidacy or joining a coalition until July, the time of party conventions.

The agreement with Datena, however, buried other name bets, such as federal deputy Kim Kataguiri (União Brasil), who was invited by the PSDB to run for mayor for the party.

In a note this Thursday, he stated that he will remain in União Brasil and invited the tucanos to be his vice president. “I am grateful for the receptiveness of the PSDB leaders and I affirm that the doors are open for us to form a coalition and for the party to nominate my vice-president”, he says.

In any case, the alliance between Tabata and the PSDB is the option that has been gaining more defined contours, as shown by Sheet. The implementation of the ticket, however, depends on Datena, who will join his 11th party and has already given up running four times.

On the 22nd, the municipal PSDB, led by former senator José Aníbal, voted against the coalition with mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB). Aníbal opposes the alliance between Nunes and former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In practice, however, a good part of the tucanos, in addition to councilors and deputies, will campaign for Nunes, whom they prefer because he continued the administration of Bruno Covas (PSDB) and because they are sheltered in positions in the municipal machine.

Despite the division in militancy, the expectation is that Datena will give the PSDB visibility and flexibility, in the words of a toucan who worked to attract the presenter. The PSDB wants to have a platform in São Paulo for presidential candidate Eduardo Leite, governor of Rio Grande do Sul.

The PSB-PSDB agreement in São Paulo has as a side effect the dissatisfaction of governor Raquel Lyra (PSDB-PE), who threatens to leave the party. In her state, she faces opposition from the PSB of João Campos, mayor of Recife and Tabata’s boyfriend.

Orlando Faria, former municipal president of the PSDB who left his post to join Tabata’s pre-campaign, says that Datena’s departure from the PSB was discussed with the deputy and the aim is for him to be a candidate for vice-mayor.

Tabata will even be present at the tucano affiliation event, which would rule out the idea that Datena will be a candidate for mayor. For her, who has only counted on the PSB so far, attracting another party reinforces her campaign and increases her advertising time on TV.

In 2020, Tabata overruled Covas’ PSDB by declaring support, in the second round, for Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), who is running again this year. A Sheet the deputy declared that there was no contradiction with the current alliance, since in the past election her choice was based on her opposition to Nunes, who was Covas’ vice-president.

When contacted by the report, Datena stated that his move to the PSDB “didn’t change anything” in relation to his candidacy.

Faria also states that the PSB is helping the PSDB to complete its list of candidates for councilor. “Around 10 to 15 PSB pre-candidates, with Datena’s move to the PSDB, are also willing to run for the PSDB,” said Tabata’s ally.

Diminished and fragmented, the PSDB is experiencing a crisis in São Paulo and is expected to lose all eight of its councilors to other parties by Saturday, which worsens the difficulty of attracting names to run for City Council for the party.

In the last days of the party window, the PSDB looked for a series of options in São Paulo, in addition to Datena.

Considering its own candidacy, the party invited names like Kim, Andrea Matarazzo (PSD) and Mario Covas Neto (Podemos).

Kim is a pre-candidate for mayor and has the support of national leaders of União Brasil, but, in São Paulo, the party is led by the president of the City Council, Milton Leite, who defends the alliance with Nunes, of whom he intends to be vice-president.

The migration window only applies to councilors and, therefore, by leaving União Brasil for the PSDB, Kim would risk losing his mandate in the Chamber of Deputies.

On another front, as Datena’s membership does not close the PSDB’s options, Nunes’ allies are still talking about trying a new dialogue with tucanos to formally attract them to the mayor’s coalition, a hypothesis that the party’s municipal leadership rules out, but which finds echoes in the direction of the PSDB-Cidadania federation.

For the tucanos who support Nunes, who have the endorsement of Tomás Covas and released a manifesto in favor of the mayor, the alliance with Bolsonaro has been used as an excuse by the PSDB leadership and the choice of Tabata represents, after all, a choose Boulos, something that would not make sense for the PSDB, which seeks to reaffirm itself as an opposition to Lula (PT).

On the other hand, toucans who see an advantage in supporting Tabata point out that the PSDB would have influence in the government, space in propaganda and would have the position of deputy — a vacancy that, in the Nunes alliance, should remain with the PL and be nominated by Bolsonaro or the governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans).

Datena’s Retreats

Datena’s trajectory in politics has been marked since 2015 by setbacks at the right time, comings and goings and transiting through the most different ideological currents. Last December, he joined the PSB to be Tabata’s deputy.

In 2015, after leaving the PT, a party she had been with since 1992, Datena joined Paulo Maluf’s PP and considered running for mayor of São Paulo the following year, 2016. In 2018, after joining the PRP (now PRD , result of the merger of PTB and Patriota), threatened to run for the Senate through DEM (today União Brasil), but also withdrew at the last minute.

Two years later, in 2020, he joined the MDB and considered running again for mayor of the capital of São Paulo or being vice-president of Covas. He didn’t work out either.

After that, he joined the PSL (now União Brasil) in 2021, when he was tipped to run for Presidency of the Republic the following year, but in 2022 he migrated to Gilberto Kassab’s PSD and, shortly afterwards, to the PSC.

At the time, he aimed to run for the Senate on Tarcísio’s ticket, in an agreement reached with then-president Bolsonaro. But he also had his name mentioned as vice-president on the presidential ticket of Ciro Gomes (PDT), in addition to having flirted with the presidential pre-candidacy of João Doria (PSDB), who also ended up giving up. As on other occasions, Datena announced the retreat at the last minute.

In 2023, the presenter changed parties again and joined the PDT, which at the time considered his candidacy for mayor as certain. Last year, he even suggested the formation of a ticket with Boulos.