Brazilian Municipal Elections 2012

[batmacumba]

Well, I was away for a while, due a myriad of awful mishappens, but as things are getting better, so Brazilian politics start getting hotter. Campaining already started and It will be awfully noisy in the next three months.

For those who are not aware, local administrations here have heavily devolved powers and mayoralties, specially on capitals and big cities, are fiercily disputed - for their visibility, machines and, as ever at this country, pork.

Big news are the slow tearing of PT and PSB apart, due a lot of local and national reasons, after 23 years being together or playing the same game with different candidates; the investigation on mobster Carlinhos Cachoeira activities, which is hurting politicians on pratically the whole political spectrum; the even receding of right-wing parties to São Paulo, as the centre-left ones become more centrist and, thus, the reinforcement of the once inane left.

I'll try to post, daily, overview and analisys of the disputes, city by city, and relevance to national politics, starting tomorrow. Comments and info are wellcomed.

[batmacumba]

How are Dilma and the PT faring in polls these times ? Last time I heard of it, she was still very popular.

She is very popular, even more than Lula was on his second year of administration, but more with middle class voters who probably voted Serra. She is appeasing to the only true opposition in the country, our ultra right press, doing some right wing policies and, at the same time, pretending to be harsh with those crooks around her.

Her developmentist policies are more in the way of the military regime than on the social policies Lula had implemented. I feel that the traditional base of progressive educated middle classers are a bit suspicious, but this is a personal evaluation, It doesn't appear on polls. Public Universities are on strike and the government refused initially to talk, menaced supending wages, and used some anti-union expressions that were kinda odd, coming from a party that started with unionized workers. Since then, many areas in the public administration went on strike, too, but the press handles It in the most fascist fashion, protecting harsh measures from the government and attacking the strikers, and, at the same time, using some of the claims against the government. Kinda surreal, I don't know how this is going to affect her. Probably, It will deepen her appeal to conservative middle classers and alienate progressives. If these ones will stay with her due a lack of alternatives or if they'll turn left is something that only time will tell.

The PT, on the other hand, is going downwards, as the press successfully presents them as backwards authoritarian, corrupted commies, even if the very truth is that they never were nearer to third way policies than now. Also the toucans are presented as competent administrators who saved the country, even if they had completely broke It in the turn of the millennium.

But local elections are usually very personalized and political machines play a strong role. So, national trends and struggles must be heavily tempered with local flavour. There are initial polls, which I'll post and try to explain and analyse.

[batmacumba]

just lost my post. only tomorrow, now.

[batmacumba]

I'm supporting Patrus Ananias in BH. My whole family will vote for Lacerda...

Initially, I'll support him, too, but I'm waiting to see PT's urban policies (which were the same crap Lacerda's doing, during Pimentel's tenure, only less harsh). I was invited to colaborate with the 'political platform' (sorry, I don't know the proper term for that, in english, and I'm in some hurry to Google It), but I'll only make my mind thursday, after a meeting with a group of Architects and Engineers who are discussing the policies. If they maintain that crap, I'll be between nil or PSOL. Probably nil.
The fun part is that the ones supporting citizenship-oriented policies are the populists of PMDB. They have the only city counselor (vereador) who doesn't suck, but, in the other hand, He's son of one of the crookiest vereadores ever.
So, nothing enjoyable for someone who support citizen oriented policies.

Any chance of a PT primary challenge to Dilma in 2014?

Only from Lula himself. Very unprobable.

The name to be observed is Eduardo Campos, Pernambuco's PSB governor. Specially if He elects his nobody in Recife and Lamerda in BH.

[batmacumba]

I've been a bad parent to this thread. I promise nurturing It today yet.

Not today...
Social service will end taking It from me.

[batmacumba]

Well, sorry for starting then abandoning the thread. Not having too much time to the forum, lately.
Some thoughts...

In party of victory in Recife, Campos (PSB) is together with his former foe Jarbas Vasconcellos (PMDB).

Vasconcellos' problems were never with him, exactly... And the new generation of PE oligarchs loves him, once He's not doing his grandpa's policies.

13- One rumour that has been gaining strength refers to a PSDB-PSB super Aecio Neves-Eduardo Campos or Eduardo-Campos-Aecio Neves ticket in 2014. Aecio Neves and Eduardo Campos are good friends. PSDB's strength in the South-East is equaled by PSB's strength in the North-east. That would be a VERY competitive ticket. Plus, both parties have similar platforms (PSB has moved to the center-left over the last few years, the came center-left PSDB inhabits). 

The PSDB doesn't inhabit the center-left at all. Their self stiling of a social-democratic party, initially, was much more a matter of sinistrisme than anything, and It was gone soon. Pimenta da Veiga/Azeredo's administration (the first the party has), was somewhat focused on the city elites and real estate speculator's interests (despite, thankfully, not to the same extant Lacerda's is). Covas was calling for policies focused on financial markets since his first gubernatorial attempt. During FHC first tenure, what remained of social-democrats fled or got irrelevant, except for small pockets in the NE. Placing them on the center-left is only a talking point of internet-based ultra-reactionary pundits.

As for Campos-Neves alliance, this is their original project. It was devised by Arraes in order to counterbalance SP elite's control over national affairs. But, in the form It is shaping now, It's becoming more of a way for that group to retain power. It will depend more on the evolution of Dilma's compromise with banks than on the two heirs individual wishes.

Campos, anyway, is clearly the most wise politician around. He managed his candidates to appeal to the new middle-class, suspicious of the PSDB's neoliberal policies while pissed off with PT's scandals.

Marcio Lacerda used the support of righties to win, but he's a centre-left mayor. He's not bad at all, but I think Patrus was better for BH.

Well, Julio, if you consider:

- dismantling successful social programs;
- campaining against tips to street children;
- attacking buskers and beggars, closing facilities for homeless;
- militarising the municipal guard;
- putting sharp stones under viaducts in order to avoid homeless seeking a place to rest;
- curbing the budget for culture, dismantling traditional cultural events;
- expelling shantytown dwellers from areas they've been occupying for two decades, using brutal police force, to allow its use by the real state market, once those areas are regaining value;
- altering the city's zoning in order to facilitate real estate developing, but with the same existant infrastructure;
- facilitating the demolition of built cultural heritage;
- spending heavily in viaducts, avenues widening and other car-focused solutions;
- ignoring environment studies in order to facilitate construction;
- allowing verticalization on protected areas and previously house-only neighbourhoods;
- selling streets in consolidated neighbourhoods to entrepreneurs in order to facilitate megaprojects (which in turn will have negative impacts on the neighbourhood);
- solemnly ignoring the city's masterplan, once It has directions that doesn't satisfy the real estate market;
- curbing public servants wages, even when the city finances are doing good;
- ignoring education and public health infrastructure;
- governing essentially for the elite, with policies focused exclusively on giving profits to that elite;

as being center-left, then I guess you're right.