Ricardo Nunes and Ricardo Salles dispute the support of the PL in SP – 03/26/2023 – Politics

In dispute for the right-wing electorate, mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) and federal deputy Ricardo Salles (PL) depend on the support of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) and the PL itself to consolidate their candidacies for City Hall of São Paulo in the 2024 election.

At the other end, the competitors on the left are Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), who already has an agreement with the PT, and Tabata Amaral (PSB), who is also rehearsing a candidacy.

The PL is divided over the split that marks the centrão legend since the affiliation of the now ex-president – ​​the physiological PL sees advantages (and positions) in supporting the mayor, while the “Bolsonaro above all” wing wants a candidate who follows their booklet, like the former Minister of the Environment.

The PL is the party with the largest bench in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Assembly of São Paulo, which makes deputies from São Paulo — not only Salles, but also Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP) — aim at their own candidacy in the capital of São Paulo.

Who would not like to have to make that choice is Governor Tarcísio, who since his own campaign has sought to break the ideological bubble without losing his support among Bolsonaristas. He has been getting closer to Nunes, including working on joint projects in cracolândia.

A consensus solution would therefore be for a candidate linked to Bolsonaro to occupy Nunes’ vice-president, something advocated by some politicians and vetoed by Salles. Allies claim that the deputy would not accept the vice chair, but would withdraw his candidacy if another Bolsonarist occupies that place.

However, if the PL indicates a centrão name for vice or even takes that vacancy in the Nunes coalition, Salles considers leaving the party and running for a dwarf acronym. The plan, however, would depend on Bolsonaro’s endorsement.

Bolsonaristas say that, in the worst case scenario, it would be preferable to lose by marking a position in a dwarf candidacy than to lose after negotiating the support of the PL for Nunes.

Mayoral interlocutors minimize competition with Salles – as long as Nunes keeps the PL in the coalition and Bolsonarista supports the mayor in an eventual second round. One of the advantages of having Salles’ support since the first round would be to prevent him, as a competitor, from criticizing the emedebist’s management.

Bolsonaro has been advised to support a viable candidate in São Paulo, to avoid associating himself with new defeats – the shipwreck in 2020 with Celso Russomanno (Republicans) was a learning experience.

In this sense, Nunes takes the lead with the design of a numerous alliance, with resources and TV time, in addition to stopping the city hall machine. All of this may be of no use, as Bolsonaristas remember, when mentioning former governor Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB), defeated in 2022.

For supporters and opponents of Nunes, its viability is linked to the success of the administration, which has been criticized for its neglect of cleanliness and the homeless. It is no wonder that the City Hall will significantly increase spending on janitorial services, in search of results in a year and six months.

Nunes articulates a broad center-right alliance, with MDB, PSDB, PSD, Podemos, PP, União Brasil, Republicans and PL – captions represented at a dinner hosted by the mayor at the end of last month.

In the same way, in relation to his electoral speech, Nunes’ allies say behind the scenes that he should seek the middle way. That is, to focus on city issues, without radicalizing, nationalizing or entering into the polarization between left and right.

This was the formula that re-elected Bruno Covas (PSDB) in 2020, of whom Nunes was vice-president and inherited the chair after the toucan’s death in May 2021. The coalition had 11 parties, and Covas presented himself as a centrist candidate.

In that election, with Bolsonaro on the side of Russomanno and the left represented by Boulos, Covas was free to position himself between one and the other.

Although his umbilical connection with Bolsonaro does not allow him to claim the center, Salles also aims to expand his electorate beyond the root Bolsonarism, which is necessary to become competitive.

Interlocutors of the deputy assess that there is no way he can disassociate himself from the former president and that is not his intention, on the contrary, but Salles will also have a speech aimed at the city – denouncing alleged schemes that hinder the services of the population.

The calculations of the Nunes and Salles teams in relation to Bolsonaro take into account the adverse scenario for the right in São Paulo, where Lula (PT) defeated Bolsonaro by 53.5% to 46.5% and Fernando Haddad, candidate for governor, defeated the elected Tarcísio (54.4% to 45.5%).

Even so, right-wing politicians recall, the city elected João Doria in the first round in 2016 – in the context of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT). Therefore, in the assessment of strategists of both Ricardos, the situation of the Lula government and the involvement of the PT in the Boulos campaign will weigh on the 2024 election.

Nunes and Salles have been making their moves towards Bolsonarism, starting with the choice of their marketers.

Duda Lima, who was responsible for Bolsonaro’s campaign in 2022 by appointment of the PL, should lead the mayor’s campaign. And Salles hired Pablo Nobel, who campaigned for Tarcísio.

In recent days, as shown by the Panel, the two candidates met with Bolsonarists. Salles received federal and state deputies from the PL loyal to Bolsonaro at his home. The former minister also followed the inauguration of state deputies, posed for photos and was treated as a candidate by Bolsonaristas.

Nunes, on the other hand, met with Eduardo Bolsonaro and Osmar Terra (MDB-RS) at the city hall. According to close politicians, the conversation between the mayor and the former president’s son sealed a first approximation – they dealt with city affairs and a possible candidacy for Eduardo was briefly mentioned.

Salles has no option but to embrace the Bolsonarist tag, but Nunes’ allies ponder the advantages and disadvantages of being the representative of the ideological right in the capital dispute.

On the one hand, the votes of the former president’s supporters are crucial for the second round, and there is a bet that the election will not be so nationalized, that is, that toxic themes such as coup d’état and denialism will be secondary.

However, if he bears the stamp of a Bolsonarist, Nunes may experience an ambiguous relationship with the ex-president’s audience, as happened with Russomanno, the target of friendly fire from the right in the campaign.

Neither Nunes nor Russomanno are root Bolsonaristas. It is precisely to avoid this nuisance seen in 2020 that the core of the ideological right defends Salles’ candidacy.

The mayor is sympathetic to the former president, who closed a R$ 25 billion agreement to extinguish the city hall’s debt with the Union in exchange for the transfer of Campo de Marte – which saved the municipality’s cash.

However, it has maintained a protocol distance. In the second round of 2022, for example, Nunes explicitly declared support for Tarcísio, which he avoided doing with Bolsonaro.