Brazil's Opposition Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Larry Rohter writes today about the opposition in Brazil trying to mount a realistic candidate against Lula in this year's election.

The problem lies not with any overwhelming strength of Lula, but with a rather lacklustre opposition. José Serra may have handily defeated Marta Suplicy in her reëlection bid for mayor of São Paulo, but that had much more to do with an electorate completely fed up with Suplicy. When I was in Brazil in the summer of 2002, I remember Serra's campaign. Trust me, being on the stump didn't seem like his strong suit.

As for Geraldo Alckmin, I confess ignorance about him:

Mr. Alckmin, 53, a physician, is the governor of the state of São Paulo, home to nearly a quarter of Brazil's 180 million people. He is enormously popular here, but largely unknown in the rest of the country. Party leaders say that is not necessarily a fatal handicap.

"When I left the cabinet I had, what, a 6 or 8 percent level of support?" former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said during an interview here, referring to a race in 1994. "And I ended up defeating Lula in the first round, with 54 percent of the vote. With the exception of this last time, Lula always starts high and always falls."

What Rohter fails to mention about Cardoso is that Cardoso was the creator of the Plano Real, which has, for all intents and purposes made the three and four digit inflationary past but a distant memory.

There is one name mentioned in the article that would probably be a formidable opponent to Lula. Unfortunately, he's not running:

"The sooner we choose, the better," said Senator Tasso Jereisatti, the president of the Social Democratic Party. "While we are in this state of indecision the president and his machinery are occupying all of the space, without us being able to provide any counterpoint."

Jereisatti was governor of the northeast state of Ceará. He is given a great deal of credit for making Ceará the most developed state in the region. Why not draft him?

Comments

[Justin]

There are certainly reasons to be critical of Lula's government and to support other potential candidates, but Larry Rohter dislikes Lula for all the wrong reasons. Rohter dislikes left-of-center Mercosur governments --including Argentina's-- because they don't just bow down to Uncle Sam.

[Anna Fagundes]

The case against Jereisatti, it seems, is that the major voting areas in Brazil are on the Southeast (São Paulo, Rio and Minas Gerais). Thus, in theory any candidate for a major party in Brazil has to have a good acceptance in these areas - a thinkg that Jereisatti unfortunatelly lacks...

[Randy Paul]

Justin,

while I agree with you about Rohter and it's something I've touched on numerous times, that's not the issue here.

Anna,

I tend to agree with you (witness the Cafe com Leite years in the early 20th Century). I also might be inclined to add that after Collor, Sarney (father and daughter) and Antônio Carlos Magalhães, whatever nordestino candidate - no matter how well qualified - may come up against this prejudice. In Jereissati's case tha's a pity. He's a good man.

Interesting fact: one of Brazil's most powerful presidents and one of their weakest came from the same small town in Rio Grande do Sul. Can you name them and the town, Anna?

[Justin]

"while I agree with you about Rohter and it's something I've touched on numerous times, that's not the issue here."

If you use an article by Rohter as your reference point for a discussion, Rohter becomes part of the issue. The issue is being presented through Rohter's tilted lens.

[Randy Paul]

No it's not. He's writing about the opposition, not Lula.

[Justin]

Try making sense, Randy. I know it's not your strong suit, but just think about the absurdity of what you say above. One can't logically separate Rohter's assessment of the opposition from that of his assessment of Lula. His assessment of Lula naturally influences his treatment of the opposition. This is elementary.

[Randy Paul]

Justin,

This is your first and only warning. I will ban you from commenting if you keep this up.

Reasonable people may disagree about subjects without hurling insults. Think about what that says about you that you don’t appear to be able to do so.

As for Rohter, his comments were critical of the opposition. As someone who has spent a great deal of time in brazil over the past several years, I have to agree with his assessment of José Serra.

Last week Rohter wrote a very fair and praiseworthy profile of Judge Juan Guzmán who started the prosecution of Pinochet in Chile. Am I assume because Rohter wrote that there is a secret agenda behind it? I have been critical of Rohter in the past and will be critical of him in the future. When I feel he’s right I’ll also acknowledge it. Unlike you, I won’t simply react.

One more insult Justin and you’re gone. I pay for the bandwidth and server space here. I don’t go to your site and insult you. If you can’t afford me the same courtesy, take your special brand of bile and go pollute someone else’s site.

Let's see if you can employ some self-control here, Justin. You've been warned. Govern yourself accordingly.

[Justin Delacour]

"I don't go to your site and insult you."

That's because you know I would whup your ass upside and down on any debate concerning Latin America. That's why Cooper bans me from his site too. He gets tired of me embarrassing him so thoroughly. That's why you threaten to ban me too. It's a very poor reflection upon you, Randy.

The fact that Marc Cooper is extremely rude in his interchanges with people doesn't stop you from routinely kissing his ass. The fact that you're so cozy with Cooper just goes to show that all this rhetoric about etiquette is just subterfuge to disguise the fact that you lack basic debating skills.

[Randy Paul]

Justin,

Thanks for demonstrating to the world that you lack self-control. Your ranting is textbook overcompensation. What's next? Your dad can kick my dad's ass?

The only "poor reflection" here is on you regarding your puerile need to insult people. It speaks of an emotional neediness, Justin; like so many bellicose bullies you feel a need to add insulting swagger where you cannot back up your case with reasoned discourse.

The only ass I kiss, by the way is my wife's.

The reason why I don't go to your site and insult you is because I've grown up and left that sort of behavior behind in high school.

While you may have graduated from high school academically, your comments have a high school level of emotional maturity.

They are also not welcome here. You're always welcome to come back should you grow up. I won't hold my breath.

Warm regards

[Alves]

Randy, the choice of the presidential candidate from PSDB, I think, rings a lot more on which one is polling better against Lula than anything else. To that we (maybe) could add the fact that PSDB is a party strongly based on Sao Paulo.

About Serra, sure the people of Sao Paulo was sick and tired of Suplicy, but they like Serra a lot there too (he was not the only other option in the ballots).

Anyway, I think that this presidential campaign will be a lot more about honesty than anything else (or at least that is what PSDB hopes for). The two main parties follow the same basic economic policy and the social policy of Lula did not make much of an impact to differentiate itself from the past PSDB administration.

PS: Getúlio Vargas (powerful), João Goulart (weakest) and São Borja (city).