PMDB tries to convince Sarney to remain in political life.
José Sarney's office in Brasília does not confirm the information that the parliamentarian has given up on running for re-election in October and only says that he confirmed his presence at the PMDB convention in Amapá scheduled for Friday (27), when he should officially position himself on the matter; until then, important names in the PMDB will try to convince him to continue in the electoral race; "I will give him enough rope to go into the fight," said the party leader in the Senate, Eunício Oliveira
Carolina Gonçalves and Karine Melo - Reporters for Agência Brasil
The leader of the PMDB in the Senate, Eunício Oliveira (CE), said today (24) that Senator José Sarney's (PMDB-AP) intention to leave the political race and not run for re-election is nothing new. "He has been saying for some time that he is tired. Sometimes he is enthusiastic, sometimes he is discouraged. His family wants him to take a break. He also has a health problem, an arrhythmia. There was talk that, if he left, [former senator] Gilvam Borges [president of the PMDB in Amapá] would take his place, but he did not communicate anything to the party, nor to Renan [Calheiros, president of the Senate], nor to me," he said.
According to Eunício Oliveira, besides family pressure and his wife Marly's fragile health, other factors may influence the decision: her age, 84, and the new format of regional alliances defined by the Supreme Federal Court (STF). "When the STF broke the verticalization [of party alliances in the states], it wasn't a good thing for Brazilian politics. My party has an alliance with Dilma, but in the states it can form alliances with the DEM and PSDB, which are opposition parties. This decision is very bad."
Yesterday (23) Sarney's press office in Amapá released a statement about the senator's decision not to seek re-election. According to the text, Sarney wants to slow down a bit with this pace of public life that has consumed almost 60 years of his life, distancing him from family life. The parliamentarian is in the last year of his term in the Senate.
The senator has faced several health problems in recent years. In April 2012, he was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Sírio-Libanês Hospital in São Paulo and underwent a catheterization. In July of last year, the parliamentarian was hospitalized again, at UDI Hospital in São Luís, Maranhão, after feeling unwell at the wedding of one of his granddaughters, experiencing chills and fever.
Despite the note published by the press office in Amapá and friends and advisors close to the senator confirming his intention not to run for elections again, Sarney's office in Brasília does not confirm the information. It only says that the parliamentarian confirmed his presence at the PMDB convention in Amapá scheduled for Friday (27), when he should officially position himself on the matter. Until then, important names in the PMDB will try to convince him to continue in the electoral race. "I'll give him enough rope to go into the fight," said Eunício Oliveira.