What went wrong in the Lula-Campos alliance?
Apparently, everything. Luiza Erundina, from the PSB party, who was supposed to be Haddad's running mate (PT), dropped out. The two parties, which were supposed to be together in Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, and Recife, broke ties; could it be that now, despite the smiles, it's war?
247 - For many political analysts, former president Lula and the governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, had everything it needed to forge a lasting political alliance. This alliance could even have resulted in a presidential ticket in 2014, should President Dilma Rousseff decide not to run for re-election. Lula would be the candidate; Campos, the vice-presidential candidate. Another possibility would be to work towards having Campos replace Michel Temer on Dilma's ticket in 2014.
Eduardo Campos worked hard in this direction. The first move took place in São Paulo, when the national leadership of the PSB intervened in the municipal directory and imposed support for Fernando Haddad's candidacy – the main local leader, federal deputy Marcio França, advocated supporting José Serra.
Following this, the PSB nominated former mayor Luiza Erundina as Haddad's running mate, and then came the famous photo with Paulo Maluf. From then on, everything went downhill. Erundina withdrew from the vice-presidential race, and the PSB found itself relegated to a secondary role in São Paulo – losing the vice-presidential nomination to the PCdoB, which nominated Nádia Campeão in her place.
After that, the PT and PSB broke apart in two important capitals: Recife and Belo Horizonte. In the Pernambuco capital, it all began with the confusion orchestrated by the PT itself, which vetoed João da Costa's reelection. Since there was no longer cohesion in the Popular Front, Campos launched his secretary Geraldo Júlio as a candidate and secured the support even of Jarbas Vasconcelos' PMDB, Lula's arch-rival.
Lula went to Recife and met with the governor of Pernambuco, but Campos stood firm and maintained the PSB's own candidacy. Outraged, the president of the PT, Rui Falcão, incited PT militants to rise up against the PSB in Recife. While this hasn't yet happened in Pernambuco, the revolt was seen in Minas Gerais this Saturday, when PT members decided to break with the current mayor, Márcio Lacerda, who is from the PSB.
As if that weren't enough, after an eight-year alliance, PSB and PT also broke up in Fortaleza, where the socialists endorsed the candidacy of the president of the Legislative Assembly, Roberto Cláudio. Governor Cid Gomes' party disagreed with the candidacy of Elmano de Freitas, from the PT, and relinquished all the secretariats it held in the PT-led city hall of Luizianne Lins.
After all this, the question is: what will the repercussions be for 2014? Will the PT and PSB be together? For a long time, PT leaders, such as José Dirceu, have shown concern about Eduardo Campos' presidential ambitions. And if the two parties were unable to forge an alliance at the municipal level, it will not be easy to heal the wounds by 2014.