Daniel Gallas: While the nation is getting ready for the sizzling carnival season, beginning next week, and a gigantic Rolling Stones concert (more than 1.5 million fans are expected in the sands of Copacabana beach), politicians are laying down the blueprint for October’s elections.
Up until now, Mr. Lula’s chances of reelection were a national conundrum. His party has been damaged by an unprecedented corruption scandal. His approval rates hit rock bottom last November. However, a new poll announced today, indicates that Mr. Lula is back in the lead. The unexpected results shift all pressure from president Lula’s shoulder to the opposition party, that has to pick a contestant between São Paulo’s mayor José Serra and São Paulo state governor Geraldo Alckmin.
Josias de Souza, one of Brazil’s leading political journalists, analyzes the numbers and the new scenario in his blog.
Poll rushes PSDB to choose the anti-Lula
Still under the impact of the latest Sensus Institute poll, that indicates president Lula’s victory (47.6%) over the mayor of São Paulo José Serra (37.6%) in the second round of presidential elections, high-ranking members of the social-democrat party (Mr. Serra’s PSDB) now face the challenge of defining it’s official candidate. All indicates that the decision must be taken no later than March 10th.
The tucanos, as are called the social-democrats, believe that the current dispute between São Paulo state governor Geraldo Alckmin and Mayor Serra oblige Lula, who is considered to be already in full campaign. PSDB officials say that although Lula still has not yet recognized officially his intentions to run for a second term, the Brazilian president’s aspirations are quite clear. Lula’s PT party has no real alternative to him.
Meanwhile, PSDB is lost in a vicious dispute between Alckmin and Serra that must be halted. Time is not in Geraldo’s side. It is unlikely that his request for a caucus to decide PSDB’s presidential candidate will be heard at all. A petit comité vote is more likely to take place. In this case, ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have the decisive call.
To soothe Mr. Alckmin, PSDB officials argue that, albeit in an informal fashion, the party’s main sects are all being heard - from governors to Congress members. In other words, the party is trying to sustain the false notion that poll numbers are not the sole issue at stake.
Except for PSDB’s president Tasso Jereissati, who admits privately that he is still in doubt, all other party executives favor the Serra candidacy. Mr. Cardoso says that the party cannot afford any outcome other than victory. “I want a candidate who can beat Lula”, he said, insinuating that mayor Serra would be the right man.
What startled the tucanos in the latest poll, sponsored by the National Transports Confederation, is that Mr. Alckmin would not even have a chance at second round elections if he were chosen candidate, and that Mr. Lula would be reelected still in the first round. If Mr. Serra seems to be in a bad spot in the polls, Mr. Alckmin’s situation is something of a certain failure, in today’s numbers.
In a scenario with Mr. Alckmin as the anti-Lula, Brazil’s current president would receive 42.2% of the votes. Adding up all other candidates – Alckmin (17.4%), Antony Garotinho (14.4%) and Heloísa Helena (5.1%) – the oppositions’ polls amount to 36.9%. Since blank votes do not count, Lula would have more that the 50% plus one margin to guarantee a first round victory.
All numbers support Mayor Serra’s candidacy. But there is still one decisive problem. Mr. Serra says that he will only leave office if acclaimed by his party colleagues. That would require even Mr. Alckmin’s support. That much, so far, seems rather unlikely.
