Kotscho: Hatred against the PT in São Paulo is frightening.
According to columnist Ricardo Kotscho, São Paulo gubernatorial candidate Alexandre Padilha is the biggest victim of "this genuine hatred against the PT, Lula, and Dilma that is rampant and spreading throughout São Paulo, where the headquarters of two of the country's three largest newspapers are located. These newspapers have for years acted as the party's main political adversaries, while simultaneously striving to preserve and maintain the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) in the Palácio dos Bandeirantes (São Paulo state government headquarters), which they have dominated for two decades."
247 Columnist Ricardo Kotscho says that the hatred towards the PT (Workers' Party) in São Paulo is frightening and is mainly harming Alexandre Padilha's campaign for governor of the state. He links this sentiment to the fact that two of the three largest newspapers in the country are located in the city. Read more:
The hatred against the PT in São Paulo is frightening.
"I hate the PT so much that if there were an election between the PT and the PCC in São Paulo, I would vote for the PCC."
The sentence above is a literal transcription of what I heard from a taxi driver on Wednesday afternoon, at the end of a ride in which he spent the entire time badmouthing the Workers' Party mayor Fernando Haddad, and it gives a good idea of the sentiment of a large part of São Paulo voters in these few remaining days of the campaign in the region where the party registers the highest rejection rates.
The taxi driver's outburst also helps us to better understand what is happening in the polls with Alexandre Padilha, the former Minister of Health who is the PT candidate launched by Lula to run for governor of the State of São Paulo.
An unprecedented event in the history of the PT in São Paulo, the party's birthplace, since the beginning of the election campaign Padilha has failed to surpass 5% in any of the polls, remaining in a statistical tie with minor candidates.
Even after the start of the televised election campaign, interviews, and debates, the Workers' Party candidate remains stuck, making no progress. Like in plane crashes, there's never just one reason to explain the candidate's electoral disaster.
Padilha is the biggest victim of this genuine hatred against the PT, Lula, and Dilma that is rampant and spreading throughout São Paulo, where the headquarters of two of the country's three largest newspapers (Folha and Estadão) are located. These newspapers have for years acted as the party's main political adversaries, while simultaneously striving to preserve and maintain the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) in the Palácio dos Bandeirantes (São Paulo state government headquarters), which they have dominated for two decades. It is also where the sect of that weekly magazine has its most loyal followers.
This feeling of ever-increasing intolerance is constantly fueled by journalists from both old and new media, in print or electronic media, who relentlessly dedicate themselves to a fierce campaign against everything involving the PT (Workers' Party), its leaders, governments, and social movements linked to the party.
The reader might ask me, if that's the case, how is it that the PT has already elected three mayors of the capital, with Erundina, Marta, and now Haddad? One possible explanation is that the electorate in the interior of the state, which guarantees the successive victories of the PSDB, is much more conservative than that of the capital.
That's why the PT (Workers' Party) has never managed to elect the governor of São Paulo, although in recent elections it maintained a historical rate of around 30% of the vote, six times more than now. The enormous rejection of Mayor Fernando Haddad explains the rest.
The situation for the PT (Workers' Party) is so difficult in this election in São Paulo that, if there is a second round, the opponent of the favorite, Governor Geraldo Alckmin, this time will be businessman Paulo Skaf, from the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), who refuses to appear on Dilma's campaign stage, even though his party holds the vice-presidential position in the government and on the ticket, with Michel Temer. Similarly, Governor Alckmin also doesn't care at all about appearing at campaign events alongside the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) candidate Aécio Neves, especially now that Marina Silva has surged in the polls.
It is no coincidence that Geraldo Alckmin's running mate is Márcio França, from the same PSB party as Marina, in an alliance that was also orchestrated by Eduardo Campos. Meanwhile, Marina continues to refuse to appear on Alckmin's campaign stage.
Can you understand why this hodgepodge of acronyms and state-level platforms carries far less weight than the names and symbols in this election campaign?