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SÃO PAULO – Surprised by the start of the São Paulo elections, the PSOL candidate, Guilherme Boulos, runs the risk of facing the same problem experienced in 2012 and 2016 by his party colleague in Rio, Marcelo Freixo. The Ibope poll released on Sunday showed that the leader of the homeless ranks among the highest-income voters, but hardly among the poorest.
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Despite emphasizing in his speech that, in a possible PSOL government, the periphery will be a priority, Boulos has only 2% of voting intentions among voters who earn up to a minimum wage and only 1% among those who they have basic education. Among the population that receives more than five salaries and has completed higher education, Boulos adds 17% and 15%, respectively. It is in the neighborhoods furthest from the center of São Paulo where the largest low-income population in the city lives.
When he ran for mayor of Rio in 2012 and 2016, Freixo experienced a similar situation. Despite giving a speech aimed at the poorest population of the Rio suburbs, the then PSOL candidate had a worse performance in these regions and ended up losing the elections. In 2012, Freixo won only one electoral zone in the city: Laranjeiras, in the South Zone.
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Four years later, when he faced current mayor Marcelo Crivella (Republicans) in the second round, Freixo won in 26 of the 97 electoral zones, all in the South Zone and in the neighborhoods of the North Zone closest to the center. He obtained 67% of the valid votes in Laranjeiras, but only 22% in the Cosmos, Paciência and Santa Cruz neighborhoods, in the West Zone.
– The PSOL resembles the PT in many ways in its “adolescence.” On the one hand, that is his charm, but on the other hand, the lack of experience and the perception that he would govern by principles and not by the ability to solve problems may weigh on the voter – says Claudio Couto, political scientist and professor at the FGV .
The president of PSOL, Juliano Medeiros, attributes the phenomenon to the short history of the party, which has just turned 15 years old.
– The PSOL is better known in sectors close to politics. We are a party linked to university students, civil servants, feminist movements.
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Members of Boulos’s campaign acknowledge that the candidate will need to expand his constituency in the periphery to be successful. He is third in the race, with 8% of the voting intentions, behind Russomanno (Republicans), with 24% and Bruno Covas, (PSDB), with 18%.
