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- Mariana Schreiber – @marischreiber
- BBC News Brazil in Brasilia
Credit, Marcos Corrêa / PR
The two main political forces in the 2018 presidential elections, Bolsonarismo and the PT, arrive at the 2020 elections with little chance of winning the country’s main city councils.
In an unusual situation, President Jair Bolsonaro participates in the election supporting independent candidates from different parties, since he himself has been left without a caption since he left the PSL, after an internal power struggle with the president of the acronym, the federal deputy Luciano Bivar (PSL -PHYSICAL EDUCATION).
In the two largest capitals of the country, Bolsonaro decided to support the candidacies of the Republican party (a legend linked to the Universal Church): federal deputy Celso Russomano in São Paulo and Mayor Marcelo Crivella in Rio de Janeiro, who is seeking reelection. However, polls indicate that the two run the risk of not reaching the second round. And, if they succeed, they will have a hard time winning over the leaders of the disputes: the current mayor of São Paulo, Bruno Covas (PSDB), and the former mayor of Rio Eduardo Paes (DEM).
The PT, on the other hand, already has a poor electoral performance in 2016, a year in which the party was severely worn out by the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff and by the corruption charges of the Lava Jato operation. Four years ago, the acronym lost 60% of the municipalities it had won in 2012 (from 630 to 256), winning in a single capital, Rio Branco (AC). This time, the PT has a good chance of reaching the second round in only two capitals (Vitória and Recife), but, for now, polls indicate that the candidates would lose in the second round.
The dispute that most symbolically illustrates the weakness of the PT in this election is that of São Paulo, a city that has been governed by the party three times since the re-democratization (1988). After former mayor Fernando Haddad lost in 2016 in the first round to current São Paulo governor João Dória (PSDB), the party is on track to take fifth place in this year’s elections. His candidate, Jilmar Tatto, so far has not been able to add more than 6% of voting intentions in the Datafolha and Ibope polls.
The one who won the leadership of the left in the election of the largest city in the country was the PSOL candidate, Guilherme Boulos, who appears in second place in the polls, but technically tied with Russomano and Márcio França (PSB).
PT can start recovery outside capitals
For the political scientist Esther Solano, a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), the PT still suffers from the consequences of Lava Jato, which gave the party the image of being corrupt. But this is not the only factor keeping voters away from the acronym, according to a field survey he conducts with people who have stopped voting for PT candidates.
“The lack of renewal of the leaders and of the bureaucratic leadership of the party is a criticism that we hear a lot, as well as the departure of the PT from the territories, from the most daily contact with the population. There is a feeling of abandonment in the interviews with former PT voters, “says Solano.
“The big capitals, which are symbolically a stage, a stage of visibility for the parties, will be a failure for the PT in these elections. But we must see how the performance will be in medium and small cities, it may be that the match”. better, “he reflects.
According to the political scientist Antonio Lavareda, president of the scientific council of the Institute for Social and Political and Economic Research (Ipespe), the party should recover in large and medium-sized cities outside the capitals.
He, who monitors electoral polls in dozens of cities, projects that the party should win in at least seven counties out of 95 with more than 200,000 voters (there are polls for 88 of them).
Credit, Nelson Jr./ ASICS / TSE
For the political scientist Antonio Lavareda, the PT must show a recovery in large and medium-sized cities, outside the capitals.
Of this group, the PT leads (not necessarily with great advantage) in nine: Santarém (PA), Vitória da Conquista (BA), Anápolis (GO), Contagem (MG), Juiz de Fora (MG), Caxias do Sul, São Gonçalo (RJ), Guarulhos (SP) and Diadema (SP) – and ranks second in eight others, including the capitals Recife and Vitória.
In 2012, PT won in 17 of the cities with more than 200 thousand voters (those in which there may be a second round), a result that plummeted 94% to just one victory in 2016, when it took Rio Branco.
“I think the PT is going to start a recovery process. As it comes from a very low level, it will necessarily grow ”, says Lavareda.
This year’s dispute, however, tends to be primarily a “maintainers’ pick,” he says. In his assessment, the pandemic favored a more pragmatic debate and could lead to the reelection of up to 80% of the mayors trying to run for a second term in the 95 most important polling stations. The “new politics” names, with rare exceptions, perform poorly in polls.
“The covid-19 gave prominence to mayors, aimed at reflection, emptied passions and called for politics. PSDB, DEM and MDB are leaders in the majority of capitals ”, analyzes Lavareda.
“Opportunity wasted by Bolsonaro”
In Bolsonaro’s case, Lavareda considers that, by leaving the PSL, the president “lost the opportunity” to continue the growth that the party achieved in 2016 (when he elected the second largest group of federal deputies) and, thus, consolidate a robust acronym. for the 2022 dispute.
He points out that, historically, the party that arrives at the Planalto Palace tends to take a great leap in the number of municipalities in the subsequent municipal dispute.
Credit, Agricultural Senate
Bolsonaro fought with Luciano Bivar, president of the PSL, and is currently without a party
“The PSDB, which came to power in 1994 (with the election of Fernando Henrique Cardoso), almost tripled the number of mayors in 1996. The PT, in turn, doubled its number of mayors in 2004, after electing Lula in 2002) ”, he highlighted.
“The PSL, which in 2016 elected only 0.25% of the country’s mayors, was supposed to be the party that would grow the most this year. Only the president left the PSL and the party lost an important part of its meaning and narrative. It became the former party of the president, that is not a motivator to vote, “he adds.
For Lavareda, another problem for Bolsonarism in this election is “the lack of coordination” of the candidates from his base. “Bolsonarismo is dispersed among several parties and there are capital cities in which several candidates dispute this mark. The consequence of this is the weakening of the brand ”.
In Recife, four candidates claimed to be aligned with the president, until Bolsonaro in the last week expressed his support for Delegate Patrícia (candidate for the Pode in fourth place in the polls, with 14%), but the dispute with the other candidates continues saying yes the most faithful to the president ”, he exemplifies.
Lavareda also cites the case of São Paulo, in which Bolsonaro supports Russomano, but there are other candidates who are from the Bolsonarista side or from government parties, such as Arthur do Val (Patriota), Joice Hasselmann (PSL) and Andrea Matarazzo (PSD ). ).
“If he added all these candidates, he would have a very reasonable vote pool to try to reach the second round,” he analyzes.
However, although Bolsonaro is proving to be an electoral cable and a limited political coordinator in municipal disputes, professor Esther Solano (Unifesp) believes that Bolsonarismo can show a good performance in the elections of councilors.
“If it is true that the candidates supported by Bolsonaro in the big capitals are being a failure at the polls, there are Bolsonarist agendas, for example the denial of politics and the mobilization of punitive discourse, which remain strong,” he says.
“It will be important to see the bullet positions (such as former police officers) who will be elected. Or how many will be elected with religious discourse, if they present themselves as pastors,” he also said.
The municipal election is not decisive for the 2022 dispute
For the parties, electing many mayors and councilors across the country means having greater capillarity for the presidential campaign and state elections in 2022. But this is not decisive for the results, as evidenced by Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018. For analysts heard by BBC News Brazil, Bolsonarism and the PT will continue to be important political forces within two years.
Credit, Reuters
The acronym commanded by Lula will continue to play a decisive role in 2022, estimates an expert
“Bolsonaro only became president because he had an anti-establishment rhetoric. I don’t think he depends so much on the results of local allies,” says historian Lincoln Secco, a professor at the University of São Paulo (USP).
“The Brazilian press tends to view politics with the glasses of the past, Bolsonaro does not. Look (Donald) Trump: everyone said he would lose easily and he surprised in the final stretch (of the US elections, which he lost to Joe Biden, but with better performance than projected in the polls.) In São Paulo, Bolsonaro will probably not have an elected ally, but Lula, as president, never elected the mayor of São Paulo ”, he reinforced.
In the field of the left, Lincoln Secco, a researcher on the history of the PT, believes that the party will continue to be “indispensable in 2022, whether or not it has its own candidate.”
He says that smaller parties, such as PSOL and PCdoB, are unlikely to win more city councils than Lula’s party. Although the legend of Boulos goes well in the investigation in São Paulo, the USP professor recalls that in 2016 the party elected only 5 mayors in the 5,564 Brazilian municipalities. PDT and PSB, in Secco’s opinion, are not subtitles with a strong left identity, but rather “pragmatic” parties.
“Municipal disputes do not necessarily affect the national scene. Haddad had 47 million votes in the second round of 2018 after being the PT with the worst historical performance in the city of São Paulo two years earlier, ”he recalls.
“It is too early to know if Boulos will become a national figure. But, if the left does not have a political force that adds votes as the PT has until now, the dispute will remain between the traditional right and Bolsonarismo. Therefore, the question is not whether the PT will be replaced, but whether the left will be viable in 2022, “he said.
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