The mayor of Ribeirão Preto is expected to switch from DEM to PSD.
With seven days left until the deadline for candidates to register with political parties in the 2012 elections, Mayor Drcy Vera has decided to join the party of her friend and political mentor, Kassab.
With seven days left until the deadline for party affiliation for candidates in the 2012 municipal elections, the mayor of Ribeirão Preto (SP), Dárcy Vera, is determined to switch from the DEM party to the PSD party, led by her friend and political mentor Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo. "She said she is really willing to go to the PSD, which surprised me," Mandrison de Almeida, the mayor's husband, told Agência Estado.
Besides the constant pressure from Kassab, the crisis between the mayor and the PSDB and Governor Geraldo Alckmin helped Dárcy change her mind about remaining in the DEM. Today, on her Twitter profile, Dárcy shared a link to an article in which Senator Aloysio Nunes Ferreira (PSDB-SP) criticizes the treatment given by the PSDB directory in São Paulo to him and former Governor José Serra. "Aloysio Nunes says that PSDB-SP ignores him and Serra. Imagine what they do to me in Ribeirão," criticized the mayor. "The senator's outburst shows his discomfort in his own house, which is the PSDB," she added.
Dárcy's discontent with Alckmin allegedly stems from a supposed promise of support from the governor for the mayor's reelection in 2012, which will certainly not materialize. Alckmin is supporting the candidacy of one of his closest political allies, federal deputy and PSDB leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Duarte Nogueira. The PSDB in Ribeirão Preto also has former mayor and state deputy Welson Gasparini as a possible candidate, who was defeated by Dárcy in 2008.
According to the mayor's husband, Dárcy's move to the PSD would further improve her good relationship with the federal government and the PT, which still holds influence in the city through former mayor and former Minister of Finance and Chief of Staff, Antonio Palocci. "A coalition with the PT in the PSD would be difficult, but it would certainly prevent attacks on her in 2012," said Almeida. "If she is re-elected, then the governor will treat her as he should," he concluded.