Time passes. The opposition may run out of material in 2014.
The first semester has ended, and the opposition group still lacks a strategic plan of action to present to the electorate. Both the veteran Iris Rezende and the newcomer José Batista Júnior are relying solely on harsh criticism of Perillo's government. One example is the highway issue, which until mid-April was the opposition's main focus against the governor. The governor began a schedule of inaugurations of renovated roads in the interior and also started roadworks in the capital. Now, the opposition no longer even mentions highways and even fears the electoral impact of the government's projects. Internal intrigues and a lack of unity also help explain the absence of a proactive discourse that shows the people of Goiás what the opposition envisions for the state.
Goiás 247_ The first semester has ended. The second month of the second semester is breaking through. And the opposition in Goiás continues without even sketching out a constructive discourse that could bother Governor Marconi Perillo (PSDB). Iris Rezende, Dona Iris, José Batista Júnior (called Júnior Friboi), Paulo Garcia, Ronaldo Caiado, Vanderlan Cardoso and company are betting their chips (votes) only on heavy criticism of the governor.
There is no unity, quite the opposite, among these opposition agents, and they prefer to rely on the governor's missteps rather than sit down together and develop a government or strategic plan to present to the people of Goiás. Two recent examples illustrate this bottleneck within the opposition.
At his party affiliation ceremony, businessman José Batista Júnior gave a long speech. He said that there are people in the government who have connections with mobsters, he also recounted his family's success story in the business world, played a bugle, and that was it. His speech was forgotten and at no point did he present any impactful action plan for Goiás that would truly resonate with the electorate.
Iris Rezende had been out of the spotlight – largely due to Batista Júnior's prominence. When he returned to the electoral scene, he and his wife said at a PMDB meeting that Perillo was the head of a criminal gang. The governor responded, and from then on they exchanged accusations about enrichment throughout his public life. No proposals or a more refined discourse. Iris simply resorted to the old attacks.
Lacking its own arguments, the opposition clings to criticism. The most popular criticism in late 2012 and mid-2013 was about the highways. Everyone in the opposition talked only about the terrible conditions of Goiás' roads and criticized the Rodovida program created by Perillo. Photos of potholes on the highways were shown, and Rodovida became a laughingstock.
After the rainy season, Perillo began a rush of inaugurations of repaired roads in the interior. In the Metropolitan Region of the Capital, he delivered the new Rodovia dos Romeiros (Pilgrims' Highway) and began the duplication of GO-020 to Bela Vista. The result was telling. The opposition stopped talking about potholed roads and the criticism cooled down. The issue practically died down.
The game has changed.
And now the opposite is happening. A note in the "Giro" column of O Popular newspaper on Tuesday says that leaders of opposition parties are concerned about the electoral impact of the projects undertaken by Perillo, especially the highways.
In addition to reforming highways in the interior of the state, the politician is focusing his efforts on the capital, where he has lower approval ratings than in the interior. Besides the duplication of GO-020, Perillo is betting on overpasses at the exits to GO-060 and GO-070.
To ensure everything is ready on time and finalized before the campaign, the governor is relying on one of his main allies, the president of Agetop, Jayme Rincón. The agency responsible for the works needs to deliver all the restored highways by 2014; otherwise, Perillo will be left without a platform.
Cachoeira and Delta Cases
The PMDB party says that during the campaign, all the skeletons in the Delta and Cachoeira case files will be brought out against Perillo. The party plans to hammer home on TV and radio everything the politician's name has been involved in, culminating in his testimony before the Senate CPI. However, these skeletons could also give the PMDB group sleepless nights.
The president of the PSDB party, Paulo Jesus, has already warned that it is the opposition that needs to fear Delta and other scandals. He recalled the Caixego, Astrográfica, and, of course, Delta episodes. The construction company, which was Carlinhos Cachoeira's right-hand man, signed one of its first contracts in Catalão when the mayor was Adib Elias, from the PMDB party.
Delta was also responsible for building the two overpasses on Avenida 85 in Goiânia during Iris Rezende's administration. And the PMDB and PT parties went to court to prevent the Assembly's CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) from investigating contracts signed between the construction company and city halls under the control of those two parties.
In other words, scandal after scandal, everything would remain more or less the same. And once again, the opposition's aggressive rhetoric would be nullified. What would be lacking is a new discourse, a plan, which the opposition hasn't even managed to draft so far.