Singer sees opposition in trouble in the country.
According to the journalist, who was Lula's spokesperson, Marina will have to constantly explain her own ambition, and within the PSDB party, Aécio Neves will be sabotaged by José Serra; besides that, there is also the difficulty in constructing a popular discourse.
247 - Journalist André Singer, former spokesperson for Lula, points to a difficult scenario for the opposition in 2014 and the likelihood of President Dilma Rousseff being re-elected in the first round. Check it out:
Difficulties of the opposition
Only today will we know if Marina Silva will join a party in time to be able to run in the 2014 election.
Regardless, seeing the registration of the Rede party blocked by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) on Thursday night, the former senator's group showed an inexplicable organizational weakness. Even if there were registry office boycotts, as the dreamers claim, if the signature collection had started earlier—the years 2011 and 2012 were lost for no apparent reason—the former senator's party would not be at any risk today.
The two remaining options for what I've been calling the "new center" are bad from the point of view of structuring a third force in national politics. The first is to stay out of next year's race. Nothing prevents, of course, Marina Silva from being a competitive candidate in 2018, once the Rede party is registered, which will certainly happen in the coming months. However, as Lula's experience showed, presidential candidacies in Brazil are powerful levers for organizing parties. With that, four years would be wasted.
If Marina chooses to join any political party, she will pay the price of constantly having to explain whether she has succumbed to ambition, since she intends to regenerate Brazilian political habits and ended up using a kind of rented party just to be a candidate. Because of this, a more engaged segment (even if a minority) of her electorate will distance itself, reinforcing disillusionment with institutions.
On the other hand, the way José Serra conducted the process that ultimately led him to remain in the PSDB indicates the state of disunity among the PSDB members. Serra's long flirtation with the PPS showed how uncomfortable the former governor of São Paulo is with Aécio Neves's prevalence within the PSDB.
Upon being elected party president last May, the former governor of Minas Gerais gained control over the party machine, making any Serra-led presidential candidacy virtually impossible. In return, the chances of effective support for the Minas Gerais politician from the São Paulo politician are close to zero.
Despite the organizational and unity problems within the opposition that became clear this week, its fundamental difficulty remains finding a way to become popular. If it fails to reach the so-called "common people"—for which it will need to demonstrate some commitment to the material needs of the lower-income segments of the population—it will be left solely dependent on a worsening economy, with repercussions on inflation, employment, and income.