PML: Marina will only not enter the race if she doesn't want to.

247 – Paulo Moreira Leite, from Istoé magazine, says the debate about Marina Silva is on the wrong track. The decision expected today from the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) regarding Rede Sustentabilidade (Sustainability Network) is not about whether or not to run in 2014, but rather which party she will represent; read more:

Marina will only not run if she doesn't want to.

All Marina needs to do is accept one of the invitations she received to join another political party. That's more important than it seems.
The opinion of Deputy Electoral Prosecutor Eugênio Aragão took me by surprise. He told me, in an interview published in Istoé magazine, that there was a favorable trend towards approving the registration of Rede Sustentabilidade.
Yesterday, in his opinion, Eugênio Aragão voted against accepting the registration. I contacted the deputy prosecutor to understand what is happening.

He explained that in giving the interview he made it clear that his position was not definitive. He recalled that Marina had presented new signatures and that a new assessment would be made. Aragão stressed a week ago: “The problem is the insufficient number of supporters, which did not reach the minimum required. But she has already said that she sent new lists of supporters. Now a new assessment will be made.” The deputy electoral prosecutor concluded: “The outlook is for a favorable opinion.”

Asked yesterday, Aragão explained that, according to the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) secretariat responsible for verifying support, the assessment showed that just over 50,000 voter signatures are still missing. In this situation, he clarified, he could not accept the party's registration, even while acknowledging, as he wrote, that "unlike others recently presented to this court [he refers to Pros and Solidariedade], it contains no indication of fraud, and the procedure, as can be seen from the records, was marked by integrity." In short: Aragão would even be in favor of registering Rede, but believes it cannot be done now.

The debate about the future of Marina's candidacy in 2014 should take some points into consideration, however. It is fundamental, in any case, to remember that the debate at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) is not intended to prevent or allow her presidential candidacy. It is limited to legalizing or not the Rede Solidariedade party, which is a different matter.

Marina herself has a 100% chance of running. She just needs to accept one of the numerous invitations she has already received to join another party. This is more important than it seems.

Despite Eugênio Aragão's opinion, the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) predicts a close vote. The issue, of course, has several geological layers of political dispute. When Congress began debating a law that could harm new parties, directly impacting Rede (Sustainability Network), Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes signed an injunction favorable to Marina. Later, the injunction was overturned in plenary session.

With Dilma holding a significant lead in the polls, and Marina as the only competitive opponent so far, the pressure in favor of forming her party will be considerable.

Today Dilma is leading all her competitors with 38% of the voting intentions against 32% for all her opponents, which would allow her to win the election in the first round if the elections were held today.

From the perspective of the government's opponents, no one dares to predict what will happen if the opposition bloc is left without Marina, an ambiguous candidate who avoids direct confrontations, with a popular past and ties to the PT (Workers' Party). If Marina is out of the race, many of her voters may feel free to support Dilma, as happened in the second round of 2010, which would leave the opposition in even greater difficulties.

Considering how easy it is to form a political party in the country – so much so that we already have 32 other recognized groups – this stumble by the candidate at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) can only be explained as a demonstration of political weakness. It is unthinkable that a candidate with 20 million votes in 2010, in second place in absolutely all electoral polls for 2014, would be incapable of fulfilling the minimum conditions – valid for all interested parties – to register a political party.

It's clear that this situation reveals a specific problem. It's like someone going to the airport to travel abroad without a valid passport. It will be difficult to board, even if they've been invited to give a lecture at the UN.

Of course, one could say that the legislation is too bureaucratic, that it requires too many formalities, and so on. But all parties, those that are purely business ventures, and also those with a clearer political proposal, have had to comply with these requirements to function. To imagine that they can now be ignored, for the benefit of Marina, or any other opponent, is a form of casuistry. This concern, in reality, explains Eugênio Aragão's opinion. He does not want to directly contradict what the documentation gathered by the party says.

My assessment is that Marina and her allies lacked the humility to recognize the magnitude of the task they needed to accomplish. Trusting in the charisma of their potential candidate, they launched the party in April, confident that they would be able to get it up and running in five months. They certainly underestimated the inherent difficulties of such a task. Has anyone ever seen a political party founded in less than six months?

It is true that Marina's candidacy has always had support among celebrities in Rio de Janeiro's South Zone and the Jardins neighborhood in São Paulo, not to mention the upper echelons of the civil service in Brasília. She also has considerable support among prominent figures in the financial market, many of whom wear medals from Fernando Henrique Cardoso's PSDB party on their lapels, reflecting a belief that Marina Silva could be a kind of Queen of England, focusing on environmental and similar issues and leaving the tough economic matters to others.

One of the heirs to Banco Itaú has already presented herself as the main supporter of his candidacy.

As if he had emerged from a séance at our law schools, one columnist even went so far as to claim that the "spirit of the law" of the parties should guarantee Marina Silva the right to run under her own party's banner.

Interested in ensuring, by any means necessary, a second round in the 2014 presidential elections, the opponents of the Dilma Rousseff government are working day and night to guarantee their presence in the campaign.

It is this force, now, that can benefit Marina's party. We must prepare our ears for voices willing to question the "legitimacy" of the campaign without a candidate with her popularity ratings and other arguments. We will hear talk of the manipulation of the Electoral Court, "of the streets."

Determined, in any way possible, to ensure Dilma Rousseff's defeat, her opponents may even try to fabricate a small crisis to create an artificial shadow over an election that currently presents unfavorable prospects.

We know very well what this will serve later on, in the work of those who do not accept the idea of ​​a fourth consecutive defeat in presidential elections for the Lula-Dilma bloc.

This is the point.

Anything goes. Or almost.

However, it's important not to forget that the law will reserve for Marina, until the very last minute of the legal deadline, the right to join a fully legalized party and run for president in 2014.

Compared to other countries, those that our conservatives like to call "serious," where "real parties" exist, it would be quite a privilege, let's be honest.

In practice, it's worth noting the following: whatever the TSE's decision may be, Marina will only not be in the race if she doesn't want to be.