Aécio seeks to divide the union base through Paulinho.
Increasingly a candidate to succeed Dilma in 2014, the senator from Minas Gerais is sponsoring the creation of the Solidarity Party, which will house union leaders such as Paulinho da Força and leaders of Nova Central and UGT. With this, the PSDB member hopes to divide a sector currently allied with the federal government, provoke an exodus from Kassab's PSD, and further reduce the "elitist" reputation that the PSDB carries.
Minas 247 - Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB) from Minas Gerais is using his latest strategy to politically divide Brazilian trade unionism, which is currently largely allied with the government of Dilma Rousseff (PT). Increasingly a presidential candidate in 2014, Aécio is sponsoring the creation of the Solidarity Party, which will bring together union leaders and directors from Força Sindical, Nova Central, and the General Union of Workers (UGT). One sign of this was the request the senator made to Congressman Fernando Francischini (PEN-PR) to join the new party.
The new party already has the support of Congressman Paulinho da Força (PDT) and hopes to gather almost 40 federal deputies, which would already give it a reasonable strength in Congress. But the encouragement from the PSDB senator to the Solidarity Party goes beyond that. If he gains the sympathy of the union leaders, Aécio could achieve several victories, albeit partial ones.
One of them, and probably the main one, is dividing a sector that, today, is mostly linked to President Dilma Rousseff's support base. This division would weaken a discourse consistently used by members of the Workers' Party (PT) in recent presidential elections: that they are the party that defends the interests of workers.
Furthermore, Aécio is attempting, through the Solidarity Party, to provoke a mass exodus from the PSD of former São Paulo mayor Gilberto Kassab. Currently aligned with Dilma, the PSD, although relatively new to politics, suffers from frequent divisions within its ranks. Therefore, further dividing it is not a bad scenario for the senator from Minas Gerais.
Finally, the support of the labor unions would help to somewhat reduce the "elitist" image that the PSDB still has among voters. In the last presidential elections, its candidates (José Serra, Geraldo Alckmin, and Serra again), even if they denied it, were accused of defending proposals considered unappealing to the poorest segment of the population, such as privatizations. Not that Aécio will deny the sales of state-owned companies made during Fernando Henrique Cardoso's PSDB government—recent signs, on the contrary, show that he will defend the eight years of the FHC era—but the support of unions would help to reduce potential harm to the more politically aware segment of the working class.