PT and PSDB head to 1st election without candidates in SP – 07/23/2023 – Power

The articulations for the municipal election in São Paulo showed similar obstacles for PT and PSDB, parties that were strong in the race for mayor and today, immersed in crises and internal disputes, are at risk of being without their own candidate in the city for the first time in 36 years.

Petistas discuss supporting Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) and toucans tend to maintain their alliance with the candidate for re-election, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), in the face of the absence of obvious names of their cadres to be released, in a sign of emptying and low renewal of leadership.

Meetings that the two captions have scheduled for the next few days should heat up the fight between the favorable and contrary wings to the adhesion to external names. Discussions involve consequences for councilor campaigns and the future of parties that were once protagonists in the elections.

The PT has been head of the list in all elections in the city of São Paulo since 1985, when direct voting was resumed, and has emerged victorious three times: with Luiza Erundina (1988), Marta Suplicy (2000) and Fernando Haddad (2012).

In 2020, with Jilmar Tatto, the acronym had the worst result of a PT candidate in the city, finishing in sixth place, with 8.6% of the votes. Tatto, today a federal deputy, is the main voice questioning the automatic alignment with Boulos, as foreseen in an agreement reached by the PT last year.

In the PSDB, which also won in the capital three times —with José Serra (2004), João Doria (2016) and Bruno Covas (2020)—, the reissue of the commitment to Nunes is treated as natural by the segment that sees the mayor as successor to Covas, who died of cancer in 2021.

Toucans worried about the breakdown of the party complain about the capitulation to Nunes without an in-depth debate about the space in the candidacy and use as an argument the effort for repositioning led by the national president of the party, Eduardo Leite (RS).

To make matters worse, the PSDB suffered in 2022 the blow of losing the Government of São Paulo after almost 30 years.

Conversations about the 2024 election in São Paulo have narrowed around Nunes and Boulos, who are already rivals in the pre-campaign. The current mayor approached former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), while the federal deputy relies on the support promised by President Lula (PT).

In recent days, both Lula and the national president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, have sent messages to the PT militancy that the agreement with Boulos is maintained. He gave up running for governor of São Paulo last year and announced support for Haddad, in an effort to unite the left.

The psolista makes gestures to the PT to try to pacify the climate and agrees with the idea of ​​opening the post of deputy to the party. His expectation is that the support decision advances in the congress of zonal directories of the capital that the PT members will make on the 4th and 5th of August. Boulos talks about consolidating the alliance at the base.

“I don’t want to stretch the rope,” says Tatto. “I have no problem with Boulos’ moves, but we have to have our strategy and debate without haste, without a hasty attitude”, continues the petista, repudiating pressures so that in August the position is defined.

The loser in the 2020 São Paulo election also denies behind-the-scenes insinuations that he was supporting Nunes. The thesis goes along the lines of what part of the PT could be soft on the Boulos campaign. For Tatto, such speculations lower the level of debate.

The municipal president of the PT, Laércio Ribeiro, estimates that 80% of the base support the name of the PSOL, but reinforces that the theme will still go through deliberation of the party instances. “The PT and the progressive camp need unity against Bolsonarism”, he says.

One of the concerns reported by Senival Moura, PT leader in the City Council, is with the election of councilors in case the party is left without a holder in the race for the Executive. In 2020, despite Tatto’s meager result, the acronym elected eight representatives in the Legislative, one less than in 2016.

Boulos has said that he will work for PT councilors and for the growth of the progressive field. Tatto remains on the back foot with the idea that everyone will win, fearing losses in the metropolitan area as well and asks: “Are we going to hand over our assets on a platter to another party?”

The scenario is similar in the PSDB, which will also hold zonal conventions in August to renew the presidencies and also discuss the party’s directions. A militancy feijoada to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the acronym, on the last 15th, was already a preview of the favorable climate for the arrangement with Nunes.

At the event, in which the mayor was enthroned with an ovation, the municipal president of the PSDB, Fernando Alfredo, said that only 5% of his supporters are against the double. The flag of his own candidacy is encouraged by allies of Leite, such as Orlando Faria, former secretary of Housing in the capital.

Even this group admits that the task is inglorious, due to the absence of an obvious name to compete. The national summit issued a note to say that it was evaluating the scenario and that staying with Nunes “is an option”.

“Look to the side and see that we are alive, that we still have a lot of firewood to burn, a lot of coffee in the pot, that the PSDB is still big, that the PSDB is still giant,” said councilor João Jorge (PSDB), leader of the bench, at the feijoada that brought together, according to the organization, about a thousand people.

Dika Vidal, who is the party’s municipal vice-president and holds a position in the city hall, as assistant secretary for Persons with Disabilities, said that “it may be that [o PSDB] be without leaders”, but “has militancy”.

And it is this militancy that, according to Alfredo, will help stop Boulos. “Having your own candidate is not the meaning of political construction at this moment. The city cries out for a leader who does not let this reactionary left assume command.”

The leader affirms that those affiliated against Nunes are the same minority that in 2008 “made hell” by launching the candidacy of the then toucan Geraldo Alckmin for mayor, instead of consolidating support for Gilberto Kassab, as was expected at the time. Alckmin (today in the PSB) was defeated.

Political scientist Carlos Melo sees the current situation of toucans in the capital more difficult than that of the PT. “The big problem is that the PSDB, after the Doria effect, lost its identity, while the PT kept it. What they have in common is the fragility of cadres”, he says.

For the Insper professor, while the PSDB “has become a cabinet party” and tends to remain with Nunes to secure positions, the PT faces the drama of “letting Boulos take over the space of the left in São Paulo” and ending up shadowing figures like Lula and Haddad.