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Sao Paulo governor named leader of PSDB and most likely presidential candidate

Monday, December 11th 2017 - 19:51 UTC
Full article 19 comments
Alckmin said former president Lula da Silva, a likely rival in the 2018 race, had led Brazil into its worst recession and biggest corruption scandal. (Pic Reuters) Alckmin said former president Lula da Silva, a likely rival in the 2018 race, had led Brazil into its worst recession and biggest corruption scandal. (Pic Reuters)

The centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, PSDB, elected four-time Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin as its leader on Saturday, making him its most likely presidential nominee in next year’s elections. Alckmin threw the party’s weight behind a social security overhaul that is currently before Congress and would cut generous pensions for public-sector employees.

 “Pension reform is necessary so that we do not have two classes of Brazilian citizens,” he told the convention, which elected him by a 470-3 vote.

Alckmin said former president Lula da Silva, a likely rival in the 2018 race, had led Brazil into its worst recession and biggest corruption scandal. “Lula wants to return to the scene of the crime,” he told cheering supporters. “Be sure, we will defeat him at the polls.”

Alckmin was picked to unite a divided party, with both supporters and opponents of Brazil’s unpopular President Michel Temer. He plans to complete the PSDB’s withdrawal from the governing coalition.

But Alckmin made it clear the PSDB would back Temer’s pension proposal, which investors consider crucial for closing a huge budget deficit that cost Latin America’s largest economy its investment-grade credit rating.

With elections less than a year away, PSDB lawmakers want to distance themselves from Temer. Half of its 46 congressmen did not back him when the lower house voted in August to block corruption charges against him.

Alckmin must overcome the party’s own brush with Brazil’s ongoing political corruption scandal. He succeeds Senator Aecio Neves, the party’s defeated 2014 presidential candidate who is under investigation for allegedly asking jailed Joesley Batista, owner of meatpacker JBS SA for 2 million reais (US$ 607,500) in illegal funding. Neves was booed and quickly left the convention after casting his vote.

The PSDB’s disengagement from the Temer administration was almost completed on Friday with the resignation of Antonio Imbassahy, the president’s minister of political affairs.

Alckmin, 65, was governor of Brazil’s richest and most populous state from 2001-2006 and again from 2011 to now. He ran for president in 2006 but lost to Lula, who is still Brazil’s most popular politician despite a corruption conviction that could bar him from running or even land him in prison.

Categories: Politics, Brazil.

Top Comments

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  • cryptojane

    The PSDB is not a “centrist party”. It is a far right party whose members have oly one aim; to increase their personal wealth at the expense of the citizen.

    Dec 12th, 2017 - 09:41 am 0
  • Jack Bauer

    PSDB, a far right party ? don't think so....they are centre left , and quite frankly not much different to all the other parties....all in it for the money. The only party to the right of centre is the one Bolsonaro belongs to.

    Dec 13th, 2017 - 02:06 pm 0
  • :o))

    @JB:

    It's a FACT that ALL the Political Parties:
    - freely admit a corrupt politician as a member,
    - once admitted, never expel him/her and
    - permit him/her to remain politically active.
    Is it EVER possible, that such parties be LEGALLY charged with “Encouraging Corruption” AND ban them permanently?

    Dec 15th, 2017 - 01:37 pm 0
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