Dilma reveals her hand and will run for Senate in Minas Gerais.

Finally, former President Dilma Rousseff spoke. And she said what the PT (Workers' Party) in Minas Gerais wanted to hear. It was on Thursday night, the 28th, that Dilma spoke for the first time about her candidacy for the Senate in Minas Gerais. Until then, the former president, who transferred her electoral domicile to Belo Horizonte, where she was born, in April, had not spoken about the possibility of running for the Senate or any other office. Dilma followed the advice of Lula and other PT leaders to transfer her voter registration to Belo Horizonte and not comment on what she would do, something she followed to the letter.

In fact, this was a strategy of Governor Fernando Pimentel, who intended to attract Deputy Adalcléver Lopes, president of the Minas Gerais Legislative Assembly, as a candidate for the Senate. Adalcléver, however, suspected that his position as the sole candidate for the Senate on Pimentel's ticket was threatened and went to Brasília to speak with the president of the PT (Workers' Party), Gleisi Hoffmann, who denied the possibility of Dilma running for the Senate. The president of the Assembly didn't even believe the statement released by the senator and, from then on, decided to move in two directions: firstly, he began to advocate for the MDB's (Brazilian Democratic Movement) own candidacy for the Palácio da Liberdade (Governor's Palace); and secondly, more forcefully, Adalcléver accepted the impeachment request against Governor Fernando Pimentel, filed by an unknown lawyer, thus creating an unprecedented crisis between the Minas Gerais Executive and Legislative branches – the MDB, which had practically condoned all of Pimentel's actions in the Assembly. The impeachment request, due to its unusual nature, did not move forward, but it is in Adalcléver's hands like the metaphor of the sword in the hands of Damocles – the character from Ovid.

Adalcléver's departure forced Governor Pimentel, a candidate for reelection, into a series of maneuvers to compensate for the inexplicable absence of his former partner. One of these was the rapprochement with the PCdoB, which had been in talks with other parties; another is an attempt to make former mayor Márcio Lacerda (PSB), also a candidate for governor, the vice-presidential candidate on Ciro Gomes' (PDT) ticket, withdrawing him from the Minas Gerais race in exchange for the withdrawal in Pernambuco of the threatening candidacy of Marília Arraes, granddaughter of the legendary sertanejo singer, who threatens Governor Paulo Câmara's (PSB) reelection plans. This week, the PSB finally announced that it will support Ciro, which could shake up Minas Gerais politics, as Pimentel desires, polarizing the race in Minas Gerais again between the PT and PSDB, as it has been for over 16 years.

While awaiting Adalcléver's decision, who has yet to say anything other than to put his name forward as one of the three MDB candidates for governor – the others being Vice-Governor Antônio Andrade and Federal Deputy Leonardo Quintão – Pimentel ended up wasting precious time in assembling his ticket. This was exploited by Senator Antônio Anastasia, author of the report that brought down Dilma and a sort of Siamese twin of the still-Senator Aécio Neves, to put together his team with Deputy Marcos Montes, from the rural caucus in the Federal Chamber, as his running mate, and this week with the former president of the Assembly, Dinis Pinheiro, for the Senate. Anastasia is still awaiting the decision of Congressman Rodrigo Pacheco, DEM, and pre-candidate for governor, to know whether or not he can count on him for the Senate, thus formalizing the PSDB ticket – if Pacheco, who depends on Rodrigo Maia's candidacy, does not decide soon, he will launch radio host Carlos Viana in Pacheco's place and present the electorate with a completely new name in politics.

In her first interview announcing her candidacy for the Senate, Dilma Rousseff chose to cheerfully address a snub she received that same morning from her opponent, Dinis Pinheiro. Pinheiro, the Senate candidate on Anastasia's ticket, argued that people from Minas Gerais vote for people from Minas Gerais, and that Dilma arrived in Minas Gerais by chance, transferring her voter registration to Belo Horizonte, where she was born and attended the prestigious Colégio Estadual, where she met and befriended Governor Fernando Pimentel, whose ticket she will now join. However, when asked about Pinheiro's snub on Thursday, Dilma didn't hesitate: "I'm from the world, I'm from Minas Gerais," evoking a song immortalized by Milton Nascimento. And she left the room to applause from the crowd! Not before promising to contrast, during the campaign, her project of social inclusion with that of her opponents, which is essentially neoliberal. Will Senator Aécio Neves also be a candidate for the Senate? If it depends on the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party), no. This leaves the people of Minas Gerais without a repeat of the 2014 campaign in which Dilma defeated Aécio and gave power in Minas Gerais to the PT (Workers' Party).