"We're heading into another PT vs. PSDB contest," says analyst.

247 Political scientist Fernando Bizzarro, from Harvard University and associate researcher at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at the same university, predicts a new contest between the PT and PSDB parties in the presidential election in October.

"I never believed that bipolarity was over because there is an institutional arrangement that protects the main parties in such a way that, when the campaign arrives, they can have an easy time. This has to do with how resources and TV time are distributed, the accumulated popularity...", the scholar stated. El País.

"People don't need much information about the PT and PSDB; they know what they represent. It's becoming increasingly clear that we're going to have a repeat of the dispute between them. It might seem surprising given the level of turmoil in the last four years, but it's not so surprising if you consider that the rules favoring the main parties and campaigns have not only remained but have increased. Since the ban on corporate donations, all resources have become public and linked to the size of the parties," he added.

Asked which party has the best chance, the analyst says that "it's impossible to say for sure which one is the winner." "If Lula were a candidate, I would probably say he would be that person, because of his name recognition and the political strength of his image. But since he's not, the second round will be very open," he said.

The researcher emphasized that, on the other hand, the PSDB presidential candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, "will have more resources in the first round, but these resources come from the Centrão (center-right bloc) and he will have to deal with the accusation that he allied himself with all these parties." "The advantage of Lula being such a large political figure is accompanied by the disadvantage that he is also polarizing. A second round with Haddad will generate the feeling that once again it is Lula in the race. If it were Ciro, the part of the population that dislikes the PT (Workers' Party) would be more willing to consider voting for him."

The scholar states that the PDT candidate "would have a better chance of winning the second round than Lula, but for the PT not to field a presidential candidate would be complete political suicide." "Some polls show that voters, for various reasons, vote for the party when choosing a representative because of their presidential vote. For the PT and PSDB, this means more than a million votes. This is important for the PT, which has lost mayors in recent years and is under tremendous stress because of the corruption scandals and the analysis of the Dilma government. If it were to forgo a candidacy, it probably wouldn't recover."