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DE RUEHSO #0943/01 3311746
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P 271746Z NOV 07
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SAO PAULO 000943 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/BSC, INR/IAA, INR/R/AA 
STATE PASS USTR FOR KATE DUCKWORTH 
NSC FOR TOMASULO 
TREASURY FOR JHOEK 
USDOC FOR 4332/ITA/MAC/WH/OLAC 
USDOC ALSO FOR 3134/USFCS/OIO 
DOL FOR ILAB 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
USAID FOR LAC/AA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR BR
SUBJECT: SAO PAULO PSDB LEADERS SEEK MORE NATIONAL INFLUENCE 
 
REF: (A) SAO PAULO 882; (B) SAO PAULO 834 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (SBU) The new Sao Paulo state directorate of the Social 
Democracy Party of Brazil (PSDB) is developing a strategy to 
increase its influence at the national level and to impose party 
discipline on candidates for elective office.  As part of this 
strategy, the PSDB is focusing on municipal elections in 2008 in 
order to build a party machine capable of getting out the vote in 
the 2010 national elections.  The large population of Sao Paulo 
State and the relative success of the PSDB in Sao Paulo and the rest 
of southern Brazil must provide enough votes to overcome President 
Lula's Workers' Party's (PT) huge advantage in the populous 
Northeast for this strategy to work.  This plan should make the PSDB 
a more effective opposition party and improve its chances of 
regaining the presidency in 2010.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Poloff and Political Assistant met with state PSDB 
officials Rogelio Barchetti and Cesar Gontijo (please protect) on 
November 14 to discuss internal party politics in the run-up to the 
November 22-25 PSDB National Congress in Brasilia.  Delegates to the 
party's Sao Paulo State convention in early November chose Federal 
Deputy Antonio Carlos Mendes Thame as the new PSDB state president 
on a ticket that included Gontijo as secretary-general and 
Barchetti, president of the Sao Paulo State Union of City Council 
Members, as First Secretary.  Gontijo and Barchetti, as city council 
members from the interior of Sao Paulo State, both participated in a 
2004 International Visitors' program on governance.  (Note:  Both 
Gontijo and Barchetti are strong supporters of Sao Paulo Governor 
Jose Serra and expect him to mount a successful campaign for 
President in 2010.) 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
STATE PARTY LEADERS WANT MORE NATIONAL INFLUENCE 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The new PSDB Sao Paulo directorate has a plan to prepare 
the party for the 2010 national and state elections, the officials 
said.  New PSDB State President Mendes Thame and his team are 
putting in place a strategy to win as many municipal elections as 
possible in 2008 so as to have a large political structure to 
support the PSDB's candidates for key posts in 2010.  According to 
Gontijo, mayors are important elements in national elections because 
they are closer to the voters and have considerable influence over 
them.  Therefore the party wants to have candidates in all cities, 
and wants the local members of the party to support those 
candidates.  Gontijo is relying on "party fidelity" to convince the 
party to have as many candidates as possible. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) According to Gontijo, PSDB votes in Sao Paulo - Brazil's 
most populous state - could help offset Lula and the PT's popularity 
in the Northeast and be the deciding factor in the 2010 Presidential 
elections regardless of who runs from the PT.  The PSDB currently 
holds the mayor's office in 212 of Sao Paulo State's 645 
municipalities, and has 1195 city council members "vereadores". 
Increasing these numbers would give the PSDB greater political sway 
over voters in the 2010 presidential elections.  "Tucanos" - as PSDB 
members are called, after their party's symbol, the toucan - also 
run Sao Paulo, the world's fifth largest city with a population of 
11 million and a budget of more than USD 10 billion, through Mayor 
Gilberto Kassab of the Democratic Party (DEM), which is closely 
 
SAO PAULO 00000943  002 OF 003 
 
 
allied with the PSDB.  (Note:  Kassab was elected vice mayor in 2004 
on a ticket with PSDB former Health Minister Jos Serra and 
succeeded Serra when the latter resigned in March 2006 to run for 
governor.  In addition, most of Serra's PSDB team remains in key 
position in city hall (see ref A).  End Note.)  In addition, it was 
in Sao Paulo that PSDB former Governor Geraldo Alckmin scored his 
best electoral performance in a losing struggle against President 
Lula's re-election last year.  (Note:  Though the PT was founded in 
Sao Paulo with a strong following among industrial workers, the 
majority of Sao Paulo voters historically have strongly opposed the 
PT.  The exception was Lula's first election as president in 2002. 
End Note.) 
 
----------------------------------- 
PARTY FIDELITY AND PARTY DISCIPLINE 
----------------------------------- 
 
 ¶5.  (U) "Party fidelity" has been a major challenge to Brazilian 
politics since the 1985 restoration of democracy.  Politicians have 
promiscuously "jumped" from one party to another without suffering 
adverse consequences, and attempts to strengthen political parties 
and eliminate small parties with no reason to exist have been 
unavailing.  All this appears to be changing as a result of an 
October ruling of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which 
states that electoral mandates, even where individuals are elected 
by majority vote and not by a proportional party vote, belong not to 
the elected officials but to the party.  Henceforth, there will be 
consequences for officials who, elected under one party's banner, 
subsequently switch to another party.  These consequences include 
the possibility of forfeiture of the elective office.  Consequently, 
a reduction of party-jumping among newly elected mayors, city 
council members, and federal and state deputies is expected.  The 
PSDB is counting on the new rule to give the party hierarchy 
increased leverage over its elected officials. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) As part of the Sao Paulo Tucanos' desire to instill party 
discipline and improve the PSDB as an opposition voice to the PT 
governing coalition, during the recent PSDB National Congress the 
Sao Paulo Tucanos attempted to obtain seats on the DN and the 
National Executive Committee commensurate with their state's 
importance.  While they did not succeed in increasing the overall 
Sao Paulo composition of the DN and National Executive Committee, 
they did succeed in placing like-minded party members on the two 
committees.  In fact, Gontijo and Barchetti were both placed on the 
National Directorate (DN) and believe they will be able to create 
the necessary environment for the PSDB to become a more effective 
opposition party.  Overall, the PSDB Congress successfully renewed 
its DN for Congress as well as its political program, both key steps 
for the PSDB in rationalizing its internal politics and becoming a 
more effective political party. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
AVOIDING REPETITION OF PAST EMBARRASSMENTS 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The PSDB picked Senator Sergio Guerra of Pernambuco as its 
next national president, and several lesser leadership positions 
went to Sao Paulo representatives such as Gontijo and Barchetti. 
Gontijo highlighted a general dissatisfaction with the PSDB's 
current national president, Senator Tasso Jereissati of Ceara.  Many 
Tucanos accuse Jereissati, who took over as party president in 2005, 
of exercising no leadership.  Worse, he is accused of sometimes 
putting his own political interests ahead of his party's.  During 
the 2006 elections, for instance, Jereissati supported a Socialist, 
Ciro Gomes, for Governor of Ceara instead of the PSDB's own 
candidate. 
 
SAO PAULO 00000943  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Gontijo adds that Jereissati's case in Ceara was not the 
only example of bad practices within the party.  On a number of 
occasions, PSDB elected officials supported candidacies from outside 
the PSDB, often from the PSDB's main political opponent, the PT, or 
from another party in President Lula's governing coalition.  In 
Bahia, the local PSDB helped to elect Governor Jacques Wagner, a PT 
leader who served Lula as Minister for Political Coordination.  The 
agreement in Bahia was signed and implemented by the PSDB leader in 
the Chamber of Deputies, Federal Deputy Jutahy Magalhaes Junior.  In 
Rio de Janeiro State, Federal Deputy Eduardo Paes, also a newly 
established PSDB leader, worked to elect Sergio Cabral of the 
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) as governor.  Paes 
subsequently abandoned the PSDB and joined the PMDB in the hopes of 
becoming that party's choice to run in 2008 for mayor of the City of 
Rio de Janeiro. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The PSDB Sao Paulo leaders want to avoid cases like these 
in the future.  Barchetti and Gontijo consider this sort of 
free-lancing disastrous for the party and its image, and aim to have 
all PSDB policies and candidacies decided by the National 
Directorate.  They also want to have a clear and concrete political 
and governing program upon which the PSDB's candidates can run.  As 
Gontijo explained, future candidates need clear political guidance, 
and the party needs to speak with a single voice on such polemical 
themes as privatization and Bolsa Familia, the Lula administration's 
welfare program for the poor that is hugely popular among its 
recipients.  Bolsa Familia, Gontijo said in passing, is a large 
complicating factor in next year's municipal elections because the 
PT has attracted new voters by softening the eligibility conditions 
for what many see as Lula's signature initiative. 
 
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COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) The PSDB has disappointed many followers and earned the 
scorn of some pundits (ref B) over its weak performance in providing 
meaningful opposition to the Lula government.  For example, during 
the second round of the 2006 presidential elections, no one in the 
PSDB defended the privatizations carried out by Fernando Henrique 
Cardoso's (FHC) administration when Lula attacked them with populist 
rhetoric.  Another perennial PSDB problem is a public perception of 
elitism, which makes it difficult for the party to attract voters 
outside certain strongholds, and makes it especially difficult for 
the party in the poor and populous Northeast.  It is clear that the 
party needs to transform itself in order to mount a serious 
challenge to the PT and the governing coalition.  However, whether 
Barchetti and Gontijo will be able to implement some of their plans 
and succeed in bringing order and discipline to the PSDB is still an 
open question.  End Comment. 
 
¶11.  (U) This cable was cleared by Embassy Brasilia. 
 
WHITE