The Economist – from the print edition, 03/03/2012
Jose Serra. (World Bulletin)
IT IS lucky for José Serra that in Brazil a flip-flop is just a popular item of footwear. Otherwise that is what many might call his decision, made public on February 27th, to seek his party’s nomination for mayor of São Paulo, after months of declaring that he had no interest in the job. His change of heart came just a week before a primary arranged by his Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). Two of the four would-be candidates have now stepped aside to make way for Mr Serra, a former mayor, state governor and twice a losing presidential candidate. The vote has been delayed until March 25th to give him time to set out his stall. Though many party activists are furious at the casual treatment they have received, he is likely to win.
São Paulo is Brazil’s biggest municipality, with 11m residents, and the country’s beating business heart. Its mayor matters. But the result of this election will now be especially important. It will affect the future of the PSDB, which at federal level is the main opposition to President Dilma Rousseff. It also has implications for the governing Workers’ Party (PT) and the next presidential election, in 2014.
When the current governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, steps down in 2014, the state will have been in the PSDB’s hands for 20 years. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former president and the PT’s powerbroker, has been plotting to end that hegemony. The plan was to win the mayoralty as a stepping stone to taking the state two years later. Lula arm-twisted the PT’s local bigwigs into dropping their preferred mayoral candidate, Marta Suplicy, a former mayor popular with poor paulistanos but loathed by better-off ones.
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Posted by Brazil Institute 
São Paulo’s mayoral race: The big beast
March 1, 2012The Economist – from the print edition, 03/03/2012
Jose Serra. (World Bulletin)
IT IS lucky for José Serra that in Brazil a flip-flop is just a popular item of footwear. Otherwise that is what many might call his decision, made public on February 27th, to seek his party’s nomination for mayor of São Paulo, after months of declaring that he had no interest in the job. His change of heart came just a week before a primary arranged by his Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). Two of the four would-be candidates have now stepped aside to make way for Mr Serra, a former mayor, state governor and twice a losing presidential candidate. The vote has been delayed until March 25th to give him time to set out his stall. Though many party activists are furious at the casual treatment they have received, he is likely to win.
São Paulo is Brazil’s biggest municipality, with 11m residents, and the country’s beating business heart. Its mayor matters. But the result of this election will now be especially important. It will affect the future of the PSDB, which at federal level is the main opposition to President Dilma Rousseff. It also has implications for the governing Workers’ Party (PT) and the next presidential election, in 2014.
When the current governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, steps down in 2014, the state will have been in the PSDB’s hands for 20 years. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former president and the PT’s powerbroker, has been plotting to end that hegemony. The plan was to win the mayoralty as a stepping stone to taking the state two years later. Lula arm-twisted the PT’s local bigwigs into dropping their preferred mayoral candidate, Marta Suplicy, a former mayor popular with poor paulistanos but loathed by better-off ones.
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