T.D.
The right wing – both its parties and its media – already has a candidate for 2014: T – D. Everyone except Dilma. Everyone against Dilma.
* Originally published in Major Card
The right wing – both its parties and its media – already has a candidate for 2014: T – D. Everyone except Dilma. Everyone against Dilma.
The goal that the right wing has set for itself is to try to prevent Dilma from winning in the first round and, if possible, to try to defeat her in the second round.
To that end, the search for votes of all shades has resumed: right, far-right, center, center-left, far-left. Anything goes, as long as it adds up to a few votes that might eventually prevent Dilma's predicted victory in the first round – as her own columnists have announced.
Even with a stagnant economy, as happened in 2012, support for the government continued to grow because the government's priority is social policies, which were preserved from the crisis and continue to grow. Even wage increases and the creation of formal jobs continued. Higher growth levels are projected for this year, and therefore, this should not lead to further erosion of support for the government.
In short, the Lula-Dilma duo is unbeatable electorally. Hence the desperation of the right wing, which seeks to avoid the worst: another defeat – the fourth in a row – this time in the first round.
Hence the encouragement and speculation about possible candidacies – Aécio, Marina, Eduardo Campos, whoever comes from the far left, as long as they add up in the T-D. The PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) sadly fulfills its obligatory destiny of having a candidate in whom nobody believes – even more so under the fire of the ultimate political objective that Serra has set for himself: torpedo Aécio's candidacy.
Marina resumes her show, as if the world didn't exist, much less the concrete reality of Brazil and Latin America, as if she "had" 20 million votes under her arm.
The media is encouraging Eduardo Campos, who faces a difficult dilemma: if he runs, he will have to confront the government, lose to Dilma in his own region, and risk alienating himself from the government, preventing him from asking for its support in 2018. Therefore, it is likely that he is launching his candidacy now only to withdraw it later, asking for support in 2018 instead.
Anything goes in T-D. Anyone coming from the far left – although I'm sure they won't have more than 1% of Plínio's support – can also help in this difficult endeavor.
For this purpose, all the political commentators from the old media are deployed, doing nothing but encouraging and speculating about the T-D candidacies.
In any case, the right wing is facing a defeat worse than the others, and this is causing them despair. Not even T-D will be enough for them.