PT wing wants Lula to invite Marta to be Boulos’ vice-president – 11/23/2023 – Power

A wing of the PT, which includes deputies from the federal and state benches, began considering an invitation for former mayor Marta Suplicy, who was a member of the party for 33 years, to return to the party and be presented as an option for Guilherme Boulos’ vice-president ( PSOL) in the election for the Mayor of São Paulo in 2024.

The hypothesis circulates under reservations from different sides. Marta became persona non grata for PT members when she migrated to the MDB and voted in 2016 for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT), which made a rapprochement difficult. People familiar with the idea, however, say that a request from President Lula (PT) would be decisive in convincing her to return to the party.

Another obstacle is the fact that Marta is the municipal secretary of International Relations under Ricardo Nunes (MDB), Boulos’ main opponent, and has always expressed support for the mayor’s re-election.

She was also considered to be on the ticket with Nunes, Boulos’ main opponent. The seam had the support of the PL president, Valdemar Costa Neto, but did not have the approval of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), from whom the mayor seeks support in the election.

Marta, who was involved in the Bruno Covas (PSDB) campaign in 2020, left Solidariedade that year and has been without a party since then.

Both PT leaders and Boulos himself have stated that the discussion about vice will only take place in 2024. According to the agreement signed between the two parties, the PSOL will cede the position to the PT and the vacancy will preferably go to a woman, but there is currently no name who emerges as the favorite —Ana Estela Haddad is a well-regarded alternative, but so far she has not indicated that she wants the position.

The hypothesis of attracting Marta eight years after her disaffiliation was confirmed to Sheet by PT parliamentarians, some of them on condition of anonymity. Although the secretary has not received a formal survey, the expectation is that she can be convinced to at least listen to the proposal.

When contacted by the report, the secretary’s office stated that she would not comment on the speculation.

The thesis has already reached Marta’s interlocutors, who do not immediately rule out this possibility, although they consider that the tendency is for her to remain firm in her commitment to Nunes’ management and re-election. What would weigh against it would be precisely a personal request from Lula.

For deputies who defend the invitation, the arrangement would only have a chance of working if it were operated by the president, with whom Marta maintains a good relationship. Parliamentarians even said that, in the event of the psolist’s defeat, she could have a position in the federal government as a consolation.

The idea is for Lula to get personally involved in political articulation in the capital to help Boulos. In addition to the electoral potential, Marta’s name would act as a nod to the center — she would represent for Boulos what Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) was for Lula, giving the symbolism of a broad electoral front.

Even after the troubled departure from the PT, Marta never broke with Lula and was enthusiastic about the union of different forces to elect him in 2022. Last December, she participated with the then president-elect in an event with recyclable material collectors in the capital of São Paulo. .

In 2020, Marta was considered for PT’s vice-president when it was discussed launching the candidacy of former mayor Fernando Haddad (PT), now Minister of Finance. The previous year, Lula even said that, if she wanted, the former PT member could return to the party.

Without Haddad in the dispute, she took another direction and ended up with Covas. PT member Jilmar Tatto finished that election with 8%, the worst result in the party’s history in the city.

This time, Marta’s name began to be mentioned more as a wish by party cadres than as a concrete possibility. If, on the one hand, everyone calculates that she would add votes from the periphery to Boulos, on the other hand it is admitted that it would be unlikely for her to leave the Nunes administration.

“That [a possibilidade de ser Marta] It’s moving, but I find it difficult, practically impossible. She is rooted with Mayor Ricardo Nunes”, says state deputy Reis (PT). For him, many PT members “miss Marta” and “are exploring the issue”.

Last week, the PT municipal directory met to discuss the vice-president vacancy on Boulos’ ticket. The collegiate reinforced the guidelines defined at the congress of the capital’s zonal directorates, in August, when the party formalized its support for Boulos.

The party established that the name to compose the ticket will be chosen in the first two months of next year and that it will preferably be a woman.

Among the politicians selected for the position, however, there are more men than women — Juliana Cardoso, Rui Falcão and Eduardo Suplicy, all deputies. The president of the Lula Institute, Ivone Silva, is also remembered.

PT leaders believe that Marta’s eventual presence on the ticket would strengthen Boulos’ name and serve as a counterpoint to the radical image exploited by the federal deputy’s rivals. It will be the first time since redemocratization that the PT will be without its own candidate in the city.

Marta —an important figure in the PT over three decades, as deputy, senator and minister— has her time at city hall (2001-2004) remembered for milestones such as the construction of CEUs (Unified Educational Centers) and bus lanes, in addition to the creation of the Single Ticket. To this day, part of the population thinks it is linked to PTism.

She ran for mayor for MDB in 2016 and came in fourth place, with 10% of the valid votes.