PSD in Minas Gerais is headed for its first election divided.
Members in Minas Gerais reject the decision of the party's founder and national president, Gilberto Kassab, and decide to maintain their support for Senator Aécio Neves' candidate. "We reject any interference in the decisions of Minas Gerais," says the secretary-general of the PSD in Minas Gerais, Alexandre Silveira.
Minas 247 - Members of the PSD in Minas Gerais did not accept the orders of the party's founder and national president, Gilberto Kassab, and decided to maintain their support for the candidate backed by Senator and former Governor Aécio Neves (PSDB). Therefore, Mayor Marcio Lacerda (PSB) will, in theory, continue to have the 2 minutes and 2 seconds of airtime that the PSD is entitled to in free TV and radio election advertising.
In theory, only. In practice, everything indicates that the party created last year by São Paulo mayor Kassab will face its first election in Minas Gerais fractured. On Wednesday, Kassab participated in negotiations in Brasília and decided to change the direction decided by the PSD in Minas Gerais, switching to the campaign of former minister Patrus Ananias, of the PT. The act was interpreted as yet another subordination of the São Paulo mayor to the interests of former governor José Serra, who is fighting with Aécio Neves for control of the PSDB.
Despite Kassab's willingness, the PSD holds positions in the state government of Antonio Anastasia, who is also a member of the PSDB like Aécio. "We vehemently reject any interference from other states in Minas Gerais' decisions," says, for example, the extraordinary state secretary for Metropolitan Management, federal deputy Alexandre Silveira, who is also the secretary-general of the Minas Gerais and Belo Horizonte PSD directorates.
There is a strong possibility of intervention by the national executive, headed by Kassab, in the Minas Gerais state directory. To avoid this, the state president of the party, Paulo Simão, says that the party would deliver a new document to the Minas Gerais Regional Electoral Court (TRE-MG) by 19 pm this Thursday. This would nullify the decision taken at the convention on June 23rd, to support Lacerda's reelection.
However, the PSD's caucus of six federal and eight state deputies in the state disagrees with the new directive. And so, in its electoral debut, the party in Minas Gerais is already fractured.