Before his tenacious victory against Mr. Serra, Mr. Alckmin was mocked by many due to his discretion and uncharismatic nature. Revista Veja, Brazil’s leading weekly magazine, nicknamed him “the chayote popsicle”, saying that his ideas and his appeal to the electorate are as tasteless as the popular Brazilian vegetable. Journalist José Paulo Kupfer gives us a taste of the economic flavor of the Chayote Popsicle, in a review published by the Brazilian website No Mínimo.

Chayote in the economy

Like great hypothetical books such as “Sex after 80″ and “The Delicious English Cuisine”, a publication that eventually discussed the economic ideas of São Paulo state governor Geraldo Alckmin – now president Luiz Inácio da Lula’s main contestant in the presidential elections – would have to be entirely made of blank pages. At best, it would start with a foreword of self-evident statements and generalities, such as “efficiency and austerity are pivotal in order to achieve stability and growth.”

Unlike [the mayor of São Paulo city] José Serra, who had a better standing at the polls against Lula, but was beaten in an internal PSDB dispute by Geraldo Alckmin, the economy is not the governor’s stronghold. In the economic arena, he is like a “chayote popsicle”, a term used to describe his political persona. However, his victory over Mr. Serra proved that he was no political popsicle. This nickname seemed not to bother him, at least until he started his presidential campaign inside the PSDB. Mr. Alckmin always worked hard to forge an image of a competent leader and an efficient manager – a type of boss who is, if not clever enough to formulate strategies, tenacious in making them work.

Mr. Alckmin’s performance as head of São Paulo’s government does not reveal much of his thoughts on economy. Having inherited a completely reformed state from his predecessor Mario Covas, Mr. Alckmin worked hard in maintaining finances in order, without raising taxes, but also without lowering them significantly either. Coincidental or not, at the beginning of his presidential campaign, he dropped taxes on a series of basic consumption items. A rare novelty.

To cut a long story short, he did what conventional wisdom prescribed, and what the law required – although many times he could have done much more. With a degree in anesthesiology, Mr. Alckmin seems to have taken his profession’s main trait into office: that of discretion. As a politician, Mr. Alckmin achieved a remarkable feat in marketing. Many people in São Paulo think of him as a great accomplisher in office, but when asked exactly what it is that he accomplished, no one can give a straight answer.

Even after the start of his candidacy within the PSDB, in the few times that he has been called to give his opinion on economy, Mr. Alckmin evaded more meaningful questions. About inflation targets, for instance, he was reluctant to admit that, without giving up on the system, he could soften its application, extending target dates beyond the yearly basis or using different inflation rates, and not just the full rate.

Maybe this explains the financial market’s sympathy for Mr. Alckmin. A bad excuse for political analyst, the market feared Mr. Serra, who was viewed as an incorrigible interventionist, just as it did with Mr. Lula back in 2002. Mr. Alckmin is seen as the conservative man, aligned with market rules, and unsympathetic to heterodoxy in economy.

But one should not assume away such questions. The fact that, so far, Mr. Alckmin’s economic ideas are as tasteless as chayote does not mean that he has no convictions in this arena. Or that a hypothetical Alckmin government would leave theses questions to others. It would be wrong not to expect anything from his economic policy. Curiously, back in 2002, more than 50 million voters had great expectations in Lula. And, among many issues, economy was one that let down a great deal of the electorate.

Concomitant to his presidential campaign, Mr. Alckmin has been taking lessons in Brazilian economy. He has been hearing attentively to specialist such as Luiz Carlos Mendonça de Barros, Roberto Giannetti and Yoshiaki Nakano. These are highbrowed social-democrats from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), but they bear little resemblance to PUC-Rio’s economic crew that commanded the policies of president Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s government.

It is not hard to establish differences between both groups. The “carioca group” (PUC-Rio) has a financial and monetarist approach to inflation related problems. The “paulistas” (FGV), however, live in an industrial environment, and are more concerned with the expansion of the so-called “real economy”. Evidently, Mr. Alckmin is akin to the “paulistas”.

Even though both groups belong to the same party, these differences are very profound. The main item on the agenda is the interest rate and its impact in fiscal policy. Unlike Mr. Lula’s and Mr. Cardoso’s government, Mr. Alckmin’s economic advisors suggest that the monetary grip on the economy should be softened, with tightening in fiscal policy. In common folk’s language this means that they would drop interest rates to the floor and move fiscal surplus up to the skies.

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.

On a happier note, though, Google’s Brazilian office in Belo Horizonte has finally delivered its first project, and was I glad to know we finally have a version of Google News. It should help me broaden this blog’s sources (which mainly revolves around Folha de S. Paulo and NoMínimo, only because those are the ones which RSS feeds I sign) and posting smaller, to-the-point hard news.

So, for the eventual reader who checks in on this blog every once in a while, please don’t cross us off your bookmarks yet. By December it should be back in somewhat “full” motion, and I might also be able, then, to start researching the idea of hosting it on a dedicated server, as well.

Environmentalist who set himself on fire in Mato Grosso do Sul dies

The environmentalist who set himself on fire in protest yesterday at downtown Campo Grande died this morning. Francisco Anselmo Barros, president of Fuconams (Mato Grosso do Sul Nature Conservation Foundation) was hospitalized at Campo Grande’s Santa Casa and had burns on 100% of his body.

He was part of a protest against a state government project which proposes the installation of alcohol processing plants at the High Paraguai Basin, which is part of Pantanal. Amidst musical and artistic performances, Barros set two mattresses on the floor, wrapped himself around them, doused them in gasoline and set them on fire.

The environmentalist had first, second and third degree burns. He was hospitalized at the Intensive Care Center and was breathing with the aid of machines.

Francelmo’s gesture (as the environmentalist was called by his friends) surprised people next to him. Jorge Gonda, who was also at the protest, said Barros was participating regularly in the act and then handed him a briefcase and told him he would be right back.

Soon there were flames on the sidewalk drawing everybody’s attention. There was a long time before people realized there was a person inside the fire. There was panic and people used a fire extinguisher and clothes and blankets from nearby stores to try to stop the fire.

Environmentalist left letters to friends and family

Douglas Ramos, Fuconams’s juridical director, helped the man without knowing it was his friend, so bad were the wounds. Inside the briefcase he gave Gonda, the environmentalist left a series of letters to friends, family members and the press, where he spoke of giving his life for the Pantanal. In the letter to the press he left criticism against state power.

Another letter had recommendations for his wake. He asked that it happened at the May 13th Street chapel, in downtown Campo Grande. It is expected his body will be released before 3PM today and the service will happen at dusk.

The environmentalist, who was also a journalist, had positions at the Municipal Counsel for Environmental Control, was a member of the Brazilian Association of Tourism Journalists, of the War School Graduates Association, executive director of Saber publishing house, executive director of the Association for the Promotion and Support of Art and Culture in General. He was also affiliated with the Brazilian NGO Forum, to the Brazilian NGO Association and a participant of the Living Rivers Network, the Pantanal Network, the Aguapé Environmental Education Network, the Cerrado Network, the Socio-Environmental Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International and SOS Rainforest and a coordinator of the Mato Grosso do Sul Environment and Development Forum and the Pantanal Defense Forum.

With that, 66 representatives who were backing the proposition, changed their mind and withdrew their signatures. Unfortunately for the president, it wasn’t enough, and the opposition gathered all the needed signatures from congressmen. The result, according to Ricardo Noblat, the country’s most widely read political blogger, is death upon the administration.

There’s a body stretched on the ground

The balance after seven days of political crisis: one dead, 66 wounded and one diseased who sees his health deteriorating little by little. The dead is minister Antonio Palocci. His body is stretched out in the Esplanada dos Ministérios’ grass waiting for the rabecão [car used for the transportation of corpses]. It may not come. But not even then will Palocci rise from the horizontal position.

The 66 wounded are the representatives who signed the request to extend the expiration of the Postal Service’s CPI - and who, pressured by the government, withdrew their signatures in exchange for promises. They lost prestige and shame. They’ll lose votes. They’re furious and condemned to further thicken the line of those who sacrificed themselves in vain for the government’s sake.

The diseased is Lula. He maneuvered to detain the inquiry of frauds after saying he would never mess with the CPIs, and stimulated Brazilians to denounce irregularities. The maneuver was a resounding fiasco - one of the more astonishing ones ever since he’s been at the number one chair of the Republic.

Palocci died because he didn’t know or couldn’t stop from being revived his past as a municipal administrator conniving with the collection of bribes for the PT, and as a coordinator for the Lula campaign who was worried in gathering dirty money to pay for expenses. He’s not a victim of the past: he’s guilty for himself.

At this point, Lula hopes Palocci himself will sign his death certificate, just as minister José Dirceu signed his. Lula is a pragmatic politician who follows, on pure intuition, senator José Sarney’s maxim:

- In Brazil, a ruler’s main task is to survive.

It won’t be easy for him. At least, the CPIs will feed the political crisis up until april. Or maybe even june, if they don’t work during the Congress’ recess for the new year.

Fearing new revelations might compromise Lula’s dreams of reelection, which political forces will be willing, even then, to support him in the dark?

The PMDB will have its own candidate for the presidential sucession. The PFL will double team with the PSDB. Other than the PT and its eternal supporters PC do B and PSB, Lula will only be able to count on the mensalão bunch - PTB, PP and PL.

The “mensalão alliance” will be a sitting duck for adversaries.

But now, Palocci has been weakened by evidences of corruption during his term as mayor of Ribeirão Preto, that were raised in the CPIs. It was the opportunity shiites were looking for. Dilma Roussef, the Chief of Staff, has been very critical of the minister of late, never missing a chance to state her opinions in newspapers or during political meetings. Palocci, while apparently ready to step down if the president deems necessary, is also using the media to defend himself.

The situation has come to a point when Lula had to call both ministers and tell them to, basically, shut up and help the party and the government get out of the current crisis, instead of giving fodder to the opposition, which has been more than happy to help undermine Palocci’s stand. It is amazing that, after all this time, petistas still approach the government from a student politics standpoint.

Below, an op-ed by Kennedy Alencar, Folha de S. Paulo’s special reporter in Brasília, and their main political commentator.

Lula rejects “alternatives” to Palocci

Does the Treasury minister, Antonio Palloci Filho, remains the only pillar to politically and economically sustain the Lula administration or can he be replaced without a big storm? To Lula, the government ends if Palocci falls.

With this diagnosis, the president called Palocci and minister Dilma Rousseff (Chief of Staff) for a meeting thursday morning at the Granja do Torto. He reprimended both, saying he doesn’t want them discussing “economy through the newspapers”. He ordered them to avoid “tackles” through the press. He asked for “unity” in a time of crisis.

It is unbelievable that amidst the gravest political crisis of his administration, Lula still has to send these kind of messages. It proves the inability of his administration’s and even of the PT’s leadership to administer tough times and run the country.

At a time of crisis, an administration’s first rule should be to not aggravate it. Dilma, meanwhile, has been hitting hard on the Treasury minister through the press, government reunions and meetings with congressmen.

In a benevolent version, she attacks her colleague for his lack of political skils. In a more slanderous one, for feeling Palocci’s current weakness and trying to turn the economical debate in her favor. Maybe both versions are complementary.

Palocci has pondered the possibility of leaving his post. “I don’t know whether I’m helping the country anymore [by remaining on the Treasury]”, he told the president, who refused to consider his departure. To Lula, his term would be over with the Treasury minister’s fall.

Even susbtituted by a technician from the current economical team, such as Treasury executive-secretary, Murilo Portugal, or Henrique Meirelles, Central Bank’s president, Palocci would be thoroughly missed, ponders the president. Little by little, that technician would be swallowed by the PT. And along with him, the economical credibility.

If he came to be replaced by a more orthodox alternative, such as representative Delfim Netto (PMDB-SP) or the economist Afonso Celso Pastore, Palocci would be even more missed, in Lula’s opinion. There would be an open war between the new minister and the PT. Another complication: Lula would hardly hand the Treasury to someone outside his own party.

One name that’s been vented behind the curtains as a substitute for Palocci is Guido Mantega, president of the BNDES (National Social and Economical Development Bank). Despite being a petista, he doesn’t have the political density of Palocci. From the Dilma bunch, he would frighten the market. He would have to be even more orthodox than Palocci to gather confidence, believes the president.

Which is why Lula will hold on to Palocci for as long as he’s able to. If he loses him, the president believes he’ll walk toward a melancholic end of term. And will throw his reelection chances in the trash.

—

Give me some money

During a recent dinner with senators from the PMDB bench, Dilma attacked Palocci heavily. The Senate’s president, Renan Calheiros (AL), interested in broadening public spending (specially for his political base), seized the opportunity. He hit hard on the minister. He said Palocci doesn’t fulfill agreements and asked for resources - recently, he allocated millions for Alagoas mayors investigated by the Federal Police.

Congressmen who know the phisiological appettite of the Senate’s president joke that if Palocci caves in to Renan’s plead, there’s a possibility the country will go broke.

Unfortunately, I only realized that when I was two paragraphs short of translating his latest op-ed (and now I realize this link will lead to a different article next week), dealing with Lula’s alleged condemnation of reelections. I thought of waiting to put it aside, and only post it after some more things regarding the president’s interview. But translating Corrêa’s prose is not such an easy task, and to postpone posting it would seem like the time I spent translating was wasted. So, I decided to post it and let you all know what an idiot I am. But I promise I’ll go back to the interview in upcoming posts.

The plague of reelection

One of the classical lies or ingenious fibs of daily political activity is the repetitive statement, ranging from the oath to the mere proposition by the notorious candidate that he’s no more a candidate to the most desired term in the Executive Branch niche: president of the Republic, governor or mayor.

Not even president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva escapes from this not very laudable but understandable custom. Very candidate to an encore, in 2006, in full campaign, so intense as to occupy most of his disposable time, whenever provoked in the fittings of opportunity, derails through the variant that “it hasn’t yet been decided who’ll run for reelection”. To fix the stamp of verisimilitude without the guarantee of the glue of truth, decorates the misleader with the elaborate and tortuous logic that he was always against reelections, dating back to his days as union leader, and that he’s still convinced the best solution of all is a five-year term for president as well as governor and mayor, without the pendant of reelection. Pause for breath and the conclusion: the reelection was fitted in the Constitution through iron, fire and other known resources.

You can’t debate obviousness. The way is to carry on: only in the end of the year, the first trimester of the nes, after the carnaval and the Holy Week, he’ll weigh the pros and cons to announce to the world whether he’ll try his fortune at the voting booths or will consider his life mission as accomplished. He feeds the curiosity with the ration of preliminary conditions, as the popular support granted by polls and the alliances that may offer him the best possible gurantee of a parliamentary majority.

An obvious dissimilutaion. Popularity rates miles away from the elections is a sign the candidate always interprets in his favor. And agreements between disjointed parties, with splits, dissidences and the frailty of the mess on the piggyback of interests, only shout the urgent need for political reform. Later, the elected and reelected president can gather whatever majority he desires when building the government, with full distribution of tokens, from ministries to the fat slices of the cake welded to the obese administrative machine.

If the preamble won’t go past cajoling, it opens the way for a serious debate on the reelection, tested and approved, to deserve the qualification of a plague, so damaging as its twin sisters: corruption and parliamentary comforts.

For restarters, ever since the planting of the reelection at then president Fernando Henrique’s kitchen garden, there’s no example of an executive first term titleholder who doesn’t dream with reelection, sleeping and specially with bulging eyes from ambition. The sting of the retired fly maddens the candidate even before the election, as soon asthe possibilities of victory are foreseen or haunt the illusions of those who lose their senses and fall into paranoia.

Reelection destroys terms spliced by delusions of power’s ropes. It becomes an obsession. The titleholder can’t think of anything else, he conditions all decisions throughout his term to calculations and tactical reasonings, from the most hare-brained to the vale-tudo plots, to the advantages and disadvantages of their candidate braids.

It is evident the reelection is drained. It survives thanks to the apathy of parties off the hinges and to Congress abulia.

Lula tends to look things at a glance without settling his eyes to see a picture in its clearness of traces and colors.

Right now he seems to be the last, when he should be the first to worry about the open fight for the second post in the hierarchy of power between minister Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff - former post of representative José Dirceu, a cast away looking for salvation -, and minister Antonio Palloci, the economy’s big shot. Former post of representative José Dirceu, a cast away looking for salvation.

Lula condemns the reelection.

Damn it, the body is weak and ambition clever and cunning.

The return of the demi-God

The mensalão doesn’t exist. End of story. It was president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who said that, during his interview to the “Roda Viva” show. And Lula’s truths, possibly due to some divine gift, have the power to hover over facts, intact, indisputable. You can’t, therefore, argue with such a guy. Lula has won.

It doesn’t matter that an account from Marcos Valério’s SMP&B agency at the Banco Rural has supplied politicians from several parties, including the PT, with withdrawals throughout various months in a sum that totals over 20 million reais, all verified, even leading to some congressmen’s resignations, inclunding PT’s former leader Paulo Rocha, and the opening of some others’ impeachment processes, including former president of the Chamber, João Paulo Cunha, also from the PT. Lula has the mysterious gift of keeping at large from confronting the facts. If he speaks, it is said and done. The mensalão doesn’t exist, end of story.

This and other evidences that Delúbio Soares, José Dirceu’s right arm and man of trust for the federal government, irrigated the government’s parliamentary base, notedly the PL and PP, with resources provided by the lobbyist Marcos Valério, in operations that are known, confessed to and exhaustively mentioned in the news, mysteriously disappear when Lula starts an interview. He’s convinced there’s no mensalão, and the avalanche of evidences seems to shrink in shame before the presidential certainty.

Undeclared money for Lula’s campaign is also an evidence that dissolves itself in air one of these times. Duda Mendonça confessed he was paid by the PT through an offshore company, apart from any accounting. But never mind that. Lula said at TV Cultura that that’s a problem for Duda Mendonça. But wouldn’t it also be a problem for the PT, that proposed for the lobbyist to be paid on the side, and fulfilled the illegal operation? Money that flows at large from the law isn’t the famous caixa dois? It was, until the moment when the president declares he’s convinced it isn’t. Then his truth is olimpically imposed, safe from the contradictory.

Lula’s magic power of releasing his truths above the facts was proved, also, in the president’s references to Roberto Jefferson. Lula decreed: in truth I tell you, Jefferson was impeached because he couldn’t prove the existence of the mensalão. Even the lapel microphones should know Jefferson wasn’t impeached for that reason. Jefferson was impeached because he confessed to tráfico de influência [literally “influence trafficking”, which is to use your standing to illicitly force someone to change his/her opinion on something] and receiving illegal funding for electoral campaigns. But Lula’s theory sustained itself, undaunted, under the spotlights of “Roda Viva”: Jefferson was impeached because he didn’t prove the existence of the mensalão. Therefore, the mensalão doesn’t exist. Amen, president.

The invisible magnetic field that protects Lula from the unpleasantness of life also saved him from having to give explanations about Luiz Gushiken. The super-minister that fell in disgrace, charged by the Tribunal de Contas [the Accounting Court] of interfering in public biddings in favor of Marcos Valério’s agency, wouldn’t show up to pull the president’s feet. But if the former minister’s ghost were to stubbornly appear, there wouldn’t be a problem. Lula would say he was convinced that companheiro Gushiken is innocent. And the talk would be over.

The same way when the subject was José Dirceu. He’s a holy man. At the slightest sign of distrust, Lula releases his definitive and absolute motto: there are no evidences against him. And in a magical pass, there’s nothing else to raise against Dirceu, since the president has decreed the evidences – just like the mensalão - do not exist. Obviously, the fact that Delúbio and Sílvio Pereira, the men who provenly triangulated with Valério in distributing dirty money, also fully documented and confessed to, were chosen men, directed and protected by José Dirceu is of no importance. Also of no importance are all testimonial evidences by secretaries, ex-wives and Valério himself, to the extent that they all answered to José Dirceu. Lula said there’s nothing against Dirceu. End of story.

It would even be tiresome to insist in the episode of financial supply from Telemar to Lula’s son’s company. It is another magical subject, which mysteriously orbits the focal point, without touching it. The president says it’s about a private company, therefore a private matter. Of course, what really matters, in this case, is the fact the aforesaid private company is a concessionaire of a public service, i.e., directly subordinate to gubernatorial decisions – from the tariffs they have the right to practice, to the market they have the right to explore. But these details fall apart before the presidential magic.

Lula even said he didn’t understand the criticism to his unwillingness to attend the press, arguing he makes daily pronouncements. The country is forced to concur. It is now clear that a Lula interview and a Lula pronouncement are, practically, the same thing.

So it was with much anticipation that every one turned their attention to the show Roda Viva, at TV Cultura (the public TV network), this monday. It would be the president’s first interview after the beggining of the whole political crisis, way back when an aide to then chief-of-staff José Dirceu was charged with negotiating public tenders with bicheiros [those involved with the jogo do bicho - or “animal game”, an illegal form of lottery], in exchange of bribes and contribution to electoral campaigns, which eventually led to the CPI [Parliamentary Inquiry Comission] dos Bingos.

Roda Viva is a one hour long live interview show, where about 15 reporters and pundits from different backgrounds sit on two round benches, surrounding the interviewee, who sits on a rotating chair. Questions tend to come in waves, which is usually bad news for someone trying to make some story up on the fly, since they’ll most often than not be caught in contradiction. Being literally surrounded with people asking questions, above you, also doesn’t seem to help those interviewed.

It seemed unusual then that the president, so wary of journalists and interviews, would decide to break his silence at such an inhospitable environment. But it turned out things were not so inhospitable after all. First, the president wasn’t interviewed in the usual set, but at the Palácio do Planalto [the federal government’s office]. He didn’t have to sit in an uncomfortable rotating chair, surrounded by journalists, but rather could feel like he was heading a reunion with supporters. Also, there were less interviewers, and they all seemed a little intimidated by the situation, or at least were less agressive than usual.

So, the next couple of posts will be translations of two articles, written by Guilherme Fiuza and Villas-Bôas Corrêa, both from NoMínimo, discussing how the interview went. I’ll also try to post some of the interview’s repercussion in political blogs, like Ricardo Noblat’s and even [Roda Viva’s director and host] Paulo Markun’s.