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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 SAO PAULO 000465 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR CRONIN 
STATE PASS USTR FOR SULLIVAN/LEZNY 
DEPT OF TREASURY OASIA, DAS LEE AND FPARODI 
USDOC FOR 4332/ITA/MAC/WH/OLAC/SHUPKA 
USDOC ALSO FOR 3134/USFCS/OIO/EOLSON/DANDERSON 
STATE PASS EXIMBANK 
STATE PASS OPIC FOR DMORONESE, NRIVERA, CMERVENNE 
DOL FOR ILAB MMITTELHAUSER 
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD 
AID/W FOR LAC/AA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR BR
SUBJECT: 2006 ELECTIONS: A "RENT-A-PARTY" (PTB) POLITICIAN'S 
PERSPECTIVE 
 
REF: A) BRASILIA 496; B) SAO PAULO 215; C) SAO PAULO 102; 
 
D) 05 BRASILIA 2601; E) 05 BRASILIA 2457 AND PREVIOUS; F) 05 
BRASILIA 1602 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Sao Paulo former Governor Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho, now a 
Federal Deputy representing the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), shared 
his views with Poloff on the upcoming national and state elections. 
DPO subsequently attended an event at AMCHAM where Fleury talked 
about his ideas for political reform.  Fleury thinks his party will 
obtain the required five percent vote in the Chamber of Deputies 
election required to keep its privileges and thus survive, but he 
admits it will be rough sledding, especially in light of the damage 
to the party's image caused by the expulsion from the Chamber of the 
PTB's national president, Roberto Jefferson (ref E), and the party's 
association with the political corruption scandal.  In other 
election-related comments, Fleury said the Brazilian Social 
Democracy Party (PSDB) had made a big mistake in nominating Sao 
Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin as its presidential candidate, and 
that Sao Paulo Mayor Jose Serra had likewise made a mistake in 
resigning his office to run for Governor.  He was skeptical that 
either one could win.  Fleury indicated that the PTB was still 
deciding whether or not to run its own candidate for Sao Paulo 
Governor.  END SUMMARY. 
 
-------------------- 
PTB FACES CHALLENGES 
-------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Two-term Federal Deputy Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho (PTB-SP) 
met with Poloff and Political Assistant April 24 to discuss the 
current electoral scene.  He indicated that his party's strategy 
will be dictated by the need to obtain a minimum of five percent of 
the nationwide vote for the Chamber of Deputies, and two percent in 
at least nine states.  Per ref C, the "Barrier Clause" of the 1995 
Law on Political Parties, in force for the first time in this year's 
elections, stipulates that parties whose vote totals fall below 
these percentages lose the privilege of having party leaders in the 
Chamber and the Senate; of having their members serve as Committee 
chairs or as officers of either Chamber; of receiving the bulk of 
government subsidies provided to political parties (the "Fundo 
Partidario"); and of receiving free television and radio time.  Any 
party placed in such a position will almost certainly be unable to 
survive. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Fleury, who joined the PTB in 1995 and serves as its 
Executive Director and its First Vice-Leader in the Chamber of 
Deputies, noted that his party's prospects are further impacted by 
the negative publicity it received when its national president, 
Federal Deputy Roberto Jefferson (RJ), was implicated in bribery 
last year and denounced the governing Workers Party (Partido dos 
Trabalhadores - PT) and others for a systematic bribery scheme 
involving monthly payoffs to Deputies in return for votes on 
government-sponsored legislation (the "mensalao" - see ref F). 
Jefferson was eventually expelled from the Chamber and deprived for 
eight years of his political rights, and the PTB was irrevocably 
associated in the public mind with the "mensalao" and corruption. 
Founded in 1945 by then-President Getulio Vargas as a labor party, 
the PTB emerged in 1985 from the military dictatorship with a more 
 
SAO PAULO 00000465  002 OF 005 
 
 
rightist orientation, but its political identity is ill-defined, and 
most commentators consider it a "legenda a alugar" or rent-a-party 
that serves no other purpose than to advance the ambitions of its 
members. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Fleury listed nine states (Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, 
Minas Gerais, and Goias among them) where he was reasonably 
confident the PTB could garner more than the required two percent. 
He also thought the party could get more than five percent of the 
vote nationwide, though this would depend in part on alliances with 
larger, stronger parties at the state level.  (NOTE: In 2002, the 
PTB got 5.1 percent of the nationwide vote, winning 26 seats out of 
513 in the Chamber.  It did well in the never-ending party-switching 
game, and by the time the Chamber was seated in February 2003, it 
had 41 seats.  It currently holds 43.  END NOTE.) 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
THE VERTICALIZATION RULE AND ELECTORAL ALLIANCES 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The alliance picture remains complicated by uncertainty 
over what the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) will do in 
the presidential election.  If it runs its own candidate - Rio de 
Janeiro ex-Governor Anthony Garotinho and former President Itamar 
Franco have both accounced their pre-candidacies - or allies with 
another party at the national level, the "verticalization" rule will 
limit its options for state alliances.  Fleury's only comment on 
Garotinho was, "When he defected from the Socialists, he wanted to 
join the PTB, but we wouldn't take him."  The PTB would like to ally 
with the PMDB in certain states - for example, Rio Grande do Sul - 
to increase its vote totals.  In 2002, the PTB was part of the 
coalition that helped elect Lula, and has remained part of the 
governing coalition, but Fleury said it would avoid national 
alliances this year in order to retain flexibility at the state 
level.  He believes the verticalization rule has played a positive 
role by requiring political parties establish national identity, and 
lamented the recent Constitutional amendment that abolishes the rule 
beginning with the 2010 elections. 
 
------------------------------------ 
IMPLICATIONS OF THE "BARRIER CLAUSE" 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU) As things stand now, there are seventeen parties 
represented in the Chamber of Deputies.  With the entry into force 
of the "Barrier Clause," Fleury estimated that eight parties will 
achieve the thresholds necessary to survive these elections.  These 
are the four major parties - the PT, PMDB, PSDB, and the Liberal 
Front Party (PFL) -  along with the PTB and several formulations 
created by the merger of smaller parties.  Asked about the 
possibility of the PTB's merging with another party to enhance its 
chances, Fleury noted that the Liberal Party (PL) has a chance to 
survive, but not much of one, and the Progressivist Party (PP) is 
almost certainly doomed.  These two groups, also part of the 
governing coalition, might be natural merger partners for the PTB, 
but both are heavily implicated in the "mensalao" scandal, and any 
combination mixing the PTB with either or both of them would be 
perceived and dismissed as a "Party of Mensaleiros" (Party on the 
Take) and thus not a likely vote-getter.  The scandal exposed the 
fact that these medium-sized parties lack identity and ideology, 
Fleury noted, and will need to be restructured if they hope to 
survive.  Over on the left wing, some combination or elements of the 
Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), 
Democratic Labor Party (PDT), and Popular Socialist Party (PPS) 
 
SAO PAULO 00000465  003 OF 005 
 
 
might merge into one or two viable parties (or the PCdoB might be 
folded into Lula's PT), but the PTB would have no interest in 
joining them.  A number of smaller parties - the Green Party (PV) 
and Senator Heloisa Helena's Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) on 
the left, the centrist Social Christian Party (PSC), and the 
Brazilian Republican Party (PRB) of Vice-President Alencar and the 
Party for the Re-edification of the National Order (PRONA) on the 
right - will likely disappear, and few will miss them, Fleury said. 
 
 
------------------------------- 
ALCKMIN: THE PERFECT SON-IN-LAW 
------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Asked for his views on the presidential election, Fleury, 
in contrast to post's other interlocutors, opined that the PSDB had 
made a big mistake in choosing Sao Paulo then-Governor Geraldo 
Alckmin as its candidate.  The problem with Alckmin, he said, is 
that he is "the perfect son-in-law," intelligent, polite, serious, 
hard-working, reserved, and ultimately boring.  You want him to 
marry your daughter because he can be trusted to treat her well, but 
you don't want him to run the country.  You want someone who can 
capture the people's imagination, the way Lula has done.  He's going 
to have a very hard time developing a message that will resonate, 
especially when competing with a politician of Lula's charisma. 
Fleury also implied that Alckmin is simply not tough or ruthless 
enough to win the election.  A further problem, in his view, is that 
Alckmin makes too easy a target for those who want to turn this 
election into a referendum on economic class, one that the poor 
would inevitably win by dint of sheer numbers.  Lula will appeal to 
the poor, especially in the northeast, by pegging Alckmin as the 
rich people's candidate.  Already the media have stirred up 
controversy over reports that the candidate's wife, Maria Lucia 
("Dona Lu") Alckmin, accepted 400 dresses and outfits from her 
world-class designer, and how his daughter worked at Daslu, the 
upscale Sao Paulo department store for Brazil's super-rich whose 
owners are under investigation for tax evasion.  But Fleury 
discounted any scenario involving the PSDB's withdrawing Alckmin as 
its candidate and replacing him with former Sao Paulo Mayor Jose 
Serra.  "It's too risky all around; they could end up with nothing, 
and besides, it would look like an admission of defeat or error." 
Fleury also thought Serra had made a mistake by resigning to run for 
Governor of Sao Paulo state; his poll numbers look good now, but 
he's likely to run into trouble along the way.  He doesn't have to 
lose many points to throw the election into a second round, and "a 
second round is a whole new election, where anything can happen." 
 
-------------------- 
FLEURY FOR GOVERNOR? 
-------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Fleury, who as a PMDB member served from 1991 through 1994 
as Governor of Sao Paulo, said the PTB was currently conducting 
surveys to determine whether to run its own candidate for Governor. 
If they do, Fleury said, "it will almost certainly be me," and he 
will abandon his bid for re-election to the Chamber.   He noted that 
a critical issue for the electorate, and a vulnerability for other 
candidates, is public security.  Fleury, a former state policeman 
and prosecutor who later served as State Secretary for Public 
Security, promised a strong law-and-order platform if his party 
decides to run him.  Asked what role former Governor and PMDB state 
chairman Orestes Quercia would play in the election, Fleury laughed 
and said, "How should I know? I haven't spoken to Quercia since 
1993," but went on to predict that his former political mentor would 
 
SAO PAULO 00000465  004 OF 005 
 
 
continue to seek a way to run for the Senate seat currently occupied 
by Eduardo Suplicy (PT).  Quercia didn't want to run for Governor, 
Fleury was sure, and his family must certainly be opposed, just as 
Fleury's own family opposed his candidacy.  Running for Governor 
makes you too much of a target, he complained. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
POLITICAL REFORM: MULTIPLE, DICORDANT VOICES 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) In his April 28 presentation at AMCHAM, Fleury stressed the 
critical need for reform and overhaul of Brazil's political system, 
but noted that it would be difficult to accomplish because each of 
the 513 Deputies had his or her own views on what the priorities 
should be, and each was determined to defend parochial interests. 
Brazil, he suggested, is not yet mature enough to adopt a system of 
public financing of political campaigns, though such a measure would 
in theory reduce corruption and the influence of special interests. 
He believes Brazil is "vice-ridden," with too many Vice-Presidents, 
Vice-Governors, and Vice-Mayors who add nothing to the government's 
operational capacity but rather tend to gum up the works.  He also 
advocated reducing the size of Congress, adopting a pure party-list 
voting system (the current system awards seats based on both party 
and individual votes) as a means strengthening political parties, 
and merging municipalities that are too small to be administratively 
viable on their own and tend to be rife with corruption. 
 
--------------------------- 
COMMENT AND BIOGRAPHIC NOTE 
--------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Fleury's term as Governor was blighted by the 1992 
Carandiru prison massacre (refs A-B), in which 111 prisoners were 
killed when military police were sent into a prison to quell a riot. 
 Legal fallout from the case continues to this day, and Fleury never 
fully recovered his popularity.  In 1994, when he handed the 
governor's office over to Mario Covas (PSDB), it was reported that 
state spending had increased fourfold during his administration and 
state finances were "in a shambles."  He was considered for a 
position in the incoming administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso 
(PSDB), but was discarded reportedly because his appointment would 
have been seen as a slap in the face of Covas, who by all accounts 
was not amused by the mess he inherited.  There were also 
allegations against Fleury of campaign finance violations and other 
financial irregularities.  Though many believe it was not Fleury, 
but rather his predecessor and mentor, Quercia, who was to blame for 
problems in the state administration, a new Fleury candidacy for 
Governor, twelve years later, would nonetheless be perceived by most 
as improbably quixotic, and the PTB is likely to realize that.  He 
is respected in the Chamber of Deputies, where he is working to 
restore his party's reputation in the aftermath of the Roberto 
Jefferson debacle.  He vocally led a successful effort late last 
year to defeat a PT-proposed referendum to ban sales of firearms. 
Following the September resignation in disgrace of Chamber President 
Severino Cavalcanti, Fleury's name was one of several mentioned as a 
possible successor, but he disavowed any such ambitions when the 
Lula administration threw its weight behind its erstwhile political 
coordinator, Aldo Rebelo (PCdoB-SP), who ultimately prevailed (ref 
D).  More recently, with public indignation mounting over the full 
Chamber's acquittal of Members denounced by the Ethics Committee for 
their role in the mensalao scandal, Fleury has lobbied vigorously to 
change the rules to require a public vote on all matters, including 
dismissal of Members.    END COMMENT AND BIOGRAPHIC NOTE. 
 
 
SAO PAULO 00000465  005 OF 005 
 
 
¶10.  (U) This cable has been coordinated/cleared with Embassy 
Brasilia. 
 
MCMULLEN