Attention, PMDB allies: Dilma is not a lame duck.

247 - "Lame duck" is one of the funniest and most politically definitive slang terms in diplomatic jargon. It represents the head of the Executive branch at the end of his term, ineligible for reelection and with little influence over his successor due to declining popularity. In the pre-Barack Obama United States, the all-powerful George W. Bush, on the eve of securing his second term, became a lame duck four years later, when he barely had any influence over his Republican party.

In Brazil, some people are confusing the figures. The PMDB, for example. The second largest party in Congress, with fewer parliamentarians than the PT, and without the strength of the past -- in 1986, for example, when José Sarney led the nation, the party elected no less than 22 of the 23 governors that year, but today it governs only five states, including Rondônia and Rio de Janeiro, governed by former PSDB member Sergio Cabral -- even so, the PMDB, presided over by Senator Valdir Raupp (RO) during the leave of absence of Vice President Michel Temer, sees President Dilma differently from who she really is.

On Friday the 10th, after orchestrating a real uproar in the Chamber's plenary session, resulting in the suspension of the session discussing the Ports Provisional Measure, of direct interest to the president, the leader of the PMDB, Eduardo Cunha, still came out speaking harshly. Approached by the newspaper Valor Econômico, he, who has always been economical in interviews, maintaining a wide distance from the press, found himself in the position of firing off messages. He said that the president leads a government that doesn't engage in politics, is dominated by technocracy, and doesn't give positions to the party in public administration. Like a master of the arts, Cunha pontificated that, given the current state of relations, for 2014 the PMDB must rethink its position as an ally of the PT and Dilma.

Since she is not, politically, who Cunha is thinking, the president is ready to play a trick, unless there is a retraction. And she has every opportunity to do so. A former member of the PMDB party in Rio de Janeiro, whose leadership is formed by Governor Sergio Cabral and the mayor of the capital, Eduardo Paes, formerly of the PSDB, Cunha has not learned a recent lesson. A letter signed by the president of the local PMDB, Jorge Picciani, read without repercussion at the party's national convention two months ago, falls into the void of provocations without political basis. In collusion with Cabral and Vice-Governor Luiz Fernando Pezão, Picciani tried to simultaneously corner the president and the PT, threatening to reject the candidacy of Senator Lindbergh Farias, of the PT, for governor of the state, under penalty of breaking an alliance that, until now, has only favored the PMDB in Rio de Janeiro.

In practice, Picciani's letter was torn up as soon as it became public. The first to say that the PT (Workers' Party) would not change its position in Rio by even a millimeter was the national president of the PT, Rui Falcão. Then, former president Lula confirmed that the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) in Rio doesn't have the clout to dictate behavioral standards for his party. And finally, President Dilma made it clear that, in the name of good relations, she would accept analyzing the chances of having a so-called "double platform" in Rio, supporting the senator from her party without undermining her ally, the vice-governor, even though Lindbergh is one of the favorites in the polls and Pezão is lagging behind.

Eduardo Cunha, close to Vice-President Michel Temer and the Speaker of the House, Henrique Eduardo Alves, either didn't understand or dismissed that initial moment of tension. As if he himself weren't one of the most important pillars for maintaining that alliance, Cunha attacked the government as if he were an opposition figure without any responsibility for the organic structure of Dilma's support base. In plenary sessions and on a full page of the Valor Econômico newspaper, Cunha seemed to jump from the PMDB to the most radical of parties. Which one would it be? The PSTU, the PCO – Workers' Cause Party – or the conservative DEM?

It matters little, in truth, what Cunha believes himself to be, but it is worth remembering what he really is: the leader of a group of parliamentarians who, due to previous commitments, fulfilled and developed throughout the presidential term, to the extent possible and with due regard for the proper conduct of the relationship, support, let it be repeated, support the government. Not a party that is part of the base, and has a presence in the ministries, that betrays, blackmails, and undermines the government.

Reasoning, it seems, moment by moment, according to his personal interests, even above the party mission entrusted to him, Cunha is wrong in his assessment of President Dilma. Given her immense popularity, and all the political and administrative gestures the president has been making towards Rio de Janeiro, it is the PMDB party in Rio de Janeiro, and not Dilma, that stands to lose from the president's loss of patience with this type of behavior. If Dilma says goodbye, it's goodbye to the party's power in Rio. Because Sergio Cabral, despite his popularity, is indeed a lame duck, insofar as he no longer has the right to reelection.

As a leader, when speaking, Cunha knows he is not only voicing himself. His voice will always carry the tones of powerful figures like Vice President Michel Temer, President Alves, Senate President Renan Calheiros, Cabral, Paes, Pezão, and dozens of other deputies. Either these leaders will give him a good dressing-down, the kind whose terms are too harsh to repeat even to his wife when he gets home, or he will have spoken for everyone. And the president's disappointment, due to a misjudgment that led to arrogance, will no longer be resolved solely through a regional, but national, restoration of authority.

Dilma, who is more like a swan in the splendor of the firmament, due to, let it be repeated, her popularity light years ahead of her opponents, the full employment regime she sustains in the economy, the global prominence she is giving to Brazil, among other qualities, could make the PMDB pay for Cunha's words. The president is not willing to tolerate insults tailored to extract political and administrative favors from her. To bow down like that, one must be a lame duck.