Alckmin says that if he wins, he will make changes to his retirement plan.

SÃO PAULO (Reuters) - PSDB presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin said on Monday that, if elected in October, he will send four reform proposals to the National Congress on January 1, 2019 — tax, political, social security and state reforms.

In a speech at an event of the Sugarcane Industry Union (Unica) in São Paulo, the politician from the PSDB party said that the winner of the October election will receive around 60 million votes and, if he wins, he promised to use this political capital to approve these four reforms in the first six months of his term.

“My proposal is that all reforms be passed in the National Congress on January 1st,” said Alckmin, former governor of São Paulo and national president of the PSDB party. “Whoever wins the election will have almost 60 million votes. (We will) use this popular support to approve the reforms in the first six months,” he argued.

The candidate, who is still struggling in the polls for the presidency, once again downplayed the importance of opinion polls at this time, and reaffirmed his belief that he will be in the second round of the election, with a strong chance of being elected.

"Don't be impressed by out-of-season election polls. That's what campaigns are for," the politician advised the audience.

Alckmin reiterated that the PSDB has an alliance in place with four parties, but told reporters after the speech that he would leave it to the parties to announce the agreement when they deem it appropriate. The politician said he expects the alliances to be formalized in July.

"No candidate has any alliances yet. We already have five parties, but that won't be the case until July," he said.

Former governor of Goiás, Marconi Perillo, political coordinator of Alckmin's pre-campaign, who was also present at the event, said that there are talks with PTB, PV, PSD, and PPS. He said he is seeking to articulate a movement to support Alckmin's candidacy, independent of the manifesto of unity of the so-called political center, sponsored by various leaders, such as former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

"It's still in its early stages. The idea is that we have a movement that brings together ideas, that brings together people, civil society movements in favor of Geraldo's candidacy. It's different from the movement launched by Fernando Henrique and other leaders of the democratic center," said Perillo.

FUELS

Regarding Petrobras' pricing policy, Alckmin argued that fuel price adjustments should be made every 30 days, instead of almost daily as the state-owned company has been doing, with the exception of diesel, due to the truckers' strike that recently paralyzed the country.

The politician also defended what he called a "tax cushion" to cope with fluctuations in international oil prices. Under this mechanism, taxes would be reduced to compensate for a sharp upward fluctuation, and the opposite would happen when the sharp fluctuation was downward.

"The adjustment cannot be daily," he argued. "You adjust it every 30 days," he added.