Brazil & Southern Cone - February 2014 (ISSN 1741-4431)

On 3 January in Rio de Janeiro, the president of the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), Carlos Lupi, announced his support for the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB)’s 2014 gubernatorial pre-candidate, Fernando Pezão.

The Rio 2014 contest is heating up fast. Lupi’s support came just a week since Rio’s PMDB state governor, Sérgio Cabral, announced the formal dissolution of a seven-year alliance in the state with the nationally ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) over the PT’s insistence on fielding its own candidate to the governor’s office this year, Lindbergh Farias. Cabral, who aims to get his deputy Pezão elected as his successor in October, is pulling out all the stops to isolate Farias, who at this (very) early stage is leading in the polls.

Getting the PDT’s backing ensures that Pezão will have double the amount of free political advertising minutes on TV and radio (allotted to election candidates from August). That, and the fact that Pezão is due to replace Cabral in April (Cabral is stepping aside early) means that Pezão will be the highest profile candidate in Rio by far. That may not be enough to get him elected - his association with the discredited and unpopular Cabral may be a handicap – but it should certainly be enough to see him through the first round.

Cabral had already offered some of the state government posts being vacated by the PT (some 400 in all) to the Partido Social Democrático (PSD) and Solidaridade, which confirmed that it’s local deputy Pedro Fernandes will take up the position of state secretary for social welfare and human rights (replacing the PT’s Zaqueu Teixeira).

Solidariedade, led by the trade union leader Deputy Paulo ‘Paulinho’ Pereira da Silva, in late January announced his support for the main opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB). On 24 January Paulinho threw his weight behind the PSDB’s presumptive 2014 presidential candidate, Senator Aecio Neves, declaring that he would do "everything" to oust the PT from power. Paulinho, whose Força Sindical positions itself as a rival to the main PT-aligned union, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), has been very critical of the PT administration led by President Dilma Rousseff. Ironically, Rousseff herself started out in the PDT before joining the PT in 2000; Paulinho is also formerly of the PDT.

Lupi, whose PDT remains among the dozen-plus parties in the PT-led federal government coalition (which includes the PMDB as the senior partner), had been gearing up to back Farias, who likewise had offered the PDT the number two slot on the PT slate. However, announcing his change of heart, Lupi said Cabral had played “check mate” by offering the PDT the chance to accompany Pezão on the PMDB slate with a candidate for vice-governor. “We are [already] in government, we have two secretariats, and he gave us the chance of a seat on the majority slate. It’s difficult, after four years in government, to say, ‘Tchau, I’m off now’”, Lupi said, adding that he would consult with his party before finalising the deal.

Part of the PDT’s falling out with the Rousseff administration dates back to 2011, when Lupi was forced to quit as labour minister under suspicion of corruption as part of Rousseff’s ‘faxina’ (houseclean). Rousseff initially put her own man in the ministry, and though she eventually (in March 2013) gave the ministry back to the PDT (under the party secretary general Manoel Dias), the relationship has never fully recovered.

The PT for its part, is said to be in talks in Rio with the likes of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (Pcdob) and the Partido Republicano Brasileiro (PRB), both allies at the federal level, but also with less obvious bedfellows like the Partido Republicano da Ordem Social (Pros) and even the Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB), which last year quit the federal coalition to field its party president and Pernambuco state governor Eduardo Campos as its own presidential candidate against Rousseff in October. However, all is fair in love and war and in Brazil, federal state and municipal electoral coalitions regularly take strange and mutant forms.

Nonetheless, even with all the above parties onboard, the PT and Farias would still have three minutes less of precious advertising minutes than Pezão. The other pre-candidates in Rio include the current federal fisheries minister and evangelical leader, Marcelo Crivella (of the PRB); the federal deputy and former Rio governor (1999-2002), Anthony ‘Garotinho’ Matheus de Oliveira (of the Partido da República), who is also linked to the evangelical church; and the thrice former Rio mayor, Cesar Maia (of the conservative Demócratas).

• Pizzolato

Henrique Pizzolato, former marketing director at the state-controlled Banco do Brasil, was arrested in Italy on 5 February. Pizzolato fled Brazil in September 2013 to avoid a prison sentence of 12 years and 7 months for his involvement in the ‘mensalão’ congressional bribery scheme. While Brazil will seek Pizzolato’s extradition, it’s unlikely to be granted: Pizzolato has dual Brazilian and Italian citizenship and under the terms of a 1989 bilateral extradition treaty, Italy is not obliged to extradite its own citizens. Moreover there has been bad blood between the two countries after former president Lula da Silva, before leaving office in late 2010, issued a stay on a supreme court-approved extradition order for an Italian citizen, Cesare Battisti, wanted in Italy for terrorist activities dating to the 1970s. Upon his release Battisti was given residency in Brazil, to outrage in Rome.