by John Fitzpatrick

The contest to see who will be the next President of Brazil has already started and is focusing not on President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva but the rival potential candidates from the opposition PSDB party, Jose Serra and Geraldo Alckmin. A battle is raging between the opposing camps, with the Alckmin forces on the defensive as opinion polls show that Serra is the stronger candidate and could even unseat Lula. The PSDB’s big guns – former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the governor of Minas Gerais, Aecio Neves, and the party president, Tasso Jereissati – are believed to favor Serra. Serra has not even said he will stand but Alckmin has jumped the gun, like the hare in the fable, and made it clear that he wants the PSDB nomination. By doing so, Alckmin has given Serra time to watch Alckmin´s performance before making up his mind whether to enter the race. Alckmin has also given Lula the happy prospect of being able to sit back and watch the PSDB become enmeshed in an internal wrangle.

About six months ago everything seemed to be going the PSDB’s way as the country reeled from a constant barrage of revelations about the PT’s involvement in the “bribes for votes” scandal in the House of Representatives. The crisis overthrew the PT’s high command, including Jose Dirceu who had acted as Lula’s “prime minister”, and destroyed its image as an honest, ethical party. However, the ongoing Congressional investigations have brought little concrete results and done nothing to improve Congress’s image. On the other hand, Lula’s personal ratings, which fell in the aftermath of the scandal, have started rising. Things are going his way again. The economy is improving, the government is embarking on high profile spending projects and Lula has gained a new confidence. He is expected to announce in June that he will stand again. If things continue as they are at the moment then only a major catastrophe will stop Lula seeking re-election.

As we have said in previous comments, the scandal may have lost Lula much support among middle class people who voted for him in the last election but he still enjoys mass support among his natural constituency in the poorer sections of society and organized labor. At the same time, Lula is betting on having a running mate from the PMDB, the party with the largest contingent in Congress. This is not a foregone conclusion since the PMDB is split over the issue but there are strong chances that Lula’s vice presidential candidate will be from the PMDB.

Governor Pushes His Luck...
The PSDB is the only party with a credible opposition candidate if the PMDB lines up with Lula. It has two good candidates in Serra, the mayor of São Paulo, and Alckmin, the governor of São Paulo state. Ironically, this wealth of riches could be the party’s downfall since, at the moment, neither potential candidate is prepared to back down and leave the road free for the other. I believe Alckmin is taking a big risk with his current aggressive stance and is deluded if he thinks the Brazilian people will vote for him instead of Lula. Alckmin would be better giving the nomination to Serra and looking ahead to the 2010 election. He is still only in his early 50s and has plenty of time to make his presence felt on the national stage.

Alckmin´s record is far from solid. He rose to his present position not by his own efforts but by default when he took over from the late São Paulo governor Mario Covas who became ill in office. Previously Alckmin had been Covas’s anonymous deputy. It is true that he was eventually elected in his own stead but, without the Covas link, the chances are that he would still be just a local politician. He lacks charisma, is not well known outside São Paulo and has little popular appeal. To offset this, he has a photogenic wife with a dazzling smile who is regularly featured in the media. However, it will take more than a Brazilian version of Jackie Kennedy to get Alckmin elected especially as Alckmin (like Dan Quayle) is certainly no Jack Kennedy.

By contrast, Serra is a heavyweight with an imposing record. He was a student activist and exile during the military dictatorship and a founding member of the PSDB. He was elected to the Senate when democracy was restored and was planning and health minister during the Cardoso administration. At the same time, he has suffered several major setbacks. He lost his first attempt to become mayor of São Paulo in 1996 and, of course, he was well beaten by Lula in the last presidential election. However, it would be wrong to blame Serra for this defeat. Voters chose Lula because they had had eight years of PSDB government which was running out of steam and its candidate would have been defeated regardless of who he was. Just as Serra bounced back and won the São Paulo mayoral election against the PT incumbent, Marta Suplicy, he is capable of doing the same against Lula.

... While Mayor Faces Moral Issue
If Serra does decide to stand then he will have to make a public apology of sorts to the people of São Paulo who voted for him in 2004. During the campaign Serra ruled out standing for the presidency and some people actually believed him. If, as expected, he announces in March or April that he will be a candidate he will have to step down from office. He will obviously face a barrage of criticism but I do not believe the São Paulo electorate will hold this against him. I have only heard one Serra voter complain about this possibility and he was a “mineiro” from Minas Gerais state. In any case, the São Paulo press has been preparing the population for the possibility of Serra standing down by presenting profiles and features on the deputy mayor, Gilberto Kassab of the PFL party. (Ironically, Kassab was planning secretary in the team of Celso Pitta who beat Serra in the 1996 contest. Such are the vagaries of Brazilian policies that few people find this odd.)

Since the São Paulo media is mainly anti-Lula, it will defend any local candidate. Whether this support will be as strong for Serra as for Alckmin is not sure. Serra has a reputation as being headstrong and centralizing power whereas Alckmin is more prepared to delegate. This accounts for the strong support Alckmin is said to have among businessmen who would prefer the more steady state governor to the somewhat erratic  mayor.

Serra gave an example of his unpredictable style recently when he proposed a law to allow greater control of the exchange rate since the current depreciation of the dollar against the Real is harming some of Brazil’s exporters. Since Serra is an economist, he should know that such an idea makes no sense in a system whereby the Real is floated on the market and trades accordingly. One of the biggest mistakes the first Cardoso administration made was to let the Real trade against the dollar within a narrow range at an unrealistic rate for too long a time. The result was the sudden devaluation in January 1999 when the Brazilian currency collapsed and caused a crisis. Serra later gave lengthy explanations of what he had “really” meant by his latest comment but no-one was interested in his ideas and the damage was done.

The next two months will be crucial for the PSDB. Will it choose Alckmin the hare or Serra the tortoise? If so, will the tortoise turn round and win as it does in the fable? One thing is clear. The party will need to pick its strongest candidate, one who can take on Lula and fight the campaign in a positive way. If the PSDB tries to focus on corruption as an issue then it could find the mud flying back in its face.

© John Fitzpatrick 2006