PT "regrets" its choices for Bahia and São Paulo.

Bahia 247 - Members of the PT's national leadership have begun to express regret about the choice of some candidates to run in state-level elections, according to... Camarotti's Blog, by political journalist Gerson Camarotti.

According to him, the main targets of lamentation are the candidates for governor of Bahia, Rui Costa; and for governor of São Paulo, the former Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha.

According to Camarotti, the PT leadership members recognized Senator Walter Pinheiro (PT) as the best option for Bahia, as he had a higher approval rating and had previously presented himself as a potential candidate for the main ticket.

After the latest Ibope poll, released two weeks ago, which showed Rui Costa with only 8% of voting intentions compared to Paulo Souto's (DEM) 42%, the PT's national executive committee "fears that the party's poor performance in Bahia," which has the fourth largest electoral college in the country, "will harm President Dilma Rousseff's vote count."

Regarding Padilha, according to Camarotti, PT leaders believe that the best option would be the Minister of the Civil House, Aloizio Mercadante, who is better known to the population and would start the campaign ahead of his opponents.

"It's not possible to launch a new name in an election with such high potential risk. More than São Paulo, what's at stake this time is the national election. Lula has great intuition. That's how it was with Dilma in 2010 and Fernando Haddad in 2012. But this time, it was a mistake," said a member of the party's national directorate.

Another option would be the Minister of Justice, José Eduardo Cardozo, to whom former President Lula would have resistance.