Two strong women confront the PT's mistakes.
Former mayor Luiza Erundina and senator Marta Suplicy, each in their own way, warn of the PT's gross political blunders; the expansion to the right, first in the pursuit of Gilberto Kassab and, this Monday the 18th, through the agreement with Paulo Maluf, crumbled in their sincerity.
Marco Damiani _247 – It backfired... The PT's logic of opening its so-called right-wing alliance, in the long attempt, practiced until two months ago, to obtain the support of Mayor Gilberto Kassab and, now, even further to the right, in the agreement closed this Monday the 18th with former governor Paulo Maluf, in the gardens of his mansion, didn't work. It took two women, both former mayors elected by the party, in the only two times the party governed the largest capital in the country, to warn, albeit in vain, the party about the magnitude of the mistake.
The first to say it wouldn't work was Senator Marta Suplicy, who refused to receive Kassab at the event celebrating the PT's 32nd anniversary in February. Since then, no one has convinced Marta to participate in activities alongside the candidate, nor is there any known statement from her encouraging her supporters to join him. Today, it was the turn of the respected voice of former mayor Luiza Erundina to say an open and irrefutable no. "I don't accept," she summarized, undoubtedly reflecting the opinion of countless voters at this moment. Polls will show what percentage of them they represent – and the ballot boxes on October 7th, in the first round, will show exactly the extent of the damage.
Led by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who imposed Haddad on the party in the name of newness and excluded Marta with her 30% of the vote, the PT's strategy is embarrassing and confusing even the party's most experienced leaders, and even more so, the grassroots activists. Haddad has only been able to count on Lula, since, so far, no effective pronouncements in his favor have been heard from party leaders and representatives of the zonal directorates, with the exception of the national and municipal presidents of the party. The party's silent protest against Lula's maneuvers was only broken by the stance of the two women.
As a price for her honesty, Marta is already seeing her environment within the PT become increasingly restricted. Erundina, suspended from the party for a year after accepting the position of Minister of Administration in the government of then-President Itamar Franco in 1992, left the party the following year. Now, interested in her typically leftist expression, the PT members sought her out in the PSB to join Haddad's ticket – but today it was her turn to refuse the party's company, in a revenge she did not seek.