WORKERS PARTY ELECTIONS FIRST ROUND RESULTS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SAO PAULO 001110

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PINR PGOV ELAB BR
SUBJECT: WORKERS PARTY ELECTIONS FIRST ROUND RESULTS
RELEASED; DEFECTIONS BEGIN

REF: (A) SAO PAULO 1076; (B) SAO PAULO 1071; (C) BRASILIA

2539 AND PREVIOUS


1. (U) Summary: On September 27, the Workers Party
(Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT) released the final results
of its September 18 internal election. In the race for
national party president, Ricardo Berzoini, candidate of
President Lula's moderate majority faction (Campo
Majoritario - CM) garnered 42 percent of votes cast for
national president, requiring a second round to be held
October 9. Two leftists, Valter Pomar and Raul Pont,
battled for a place on the second-round ballot, with Pont
edging out Pomar by a mere 279 votes. In the balloting for
"chapas" or leadership slates, which will determine the
composition of the National Directorate and other party
committees, the CM slate received 41.9 percent. Though it
will no longer control a majority of the 81-member
Directorate, the CM is expected to ally with a smaller
moderate faction and thus continue to control most party
decision-making. A number of leftists, including five
federal deputies, have concluded that their bid to expand
their influence within the party has failed and have
announced their intention to leave the PT. Most intend to
join the leftist Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL),a
new party founded by earlier PT defectors. End Summary.


2. (U) According to the official results published by the
PT, 314,926 PT members went to the polls to elect national,
state, and local presidents and leadership slates. A fierce
race for second place, and a place on the second-round
ballot, was fought between two leftists, Valter Pomar of the
Axis of the Left faction and former Porto Alegre Mayor Raul
Pont of the Social Democracy current. Pont squeaked in by a
margin of 279 votes over Pomar, finishing with 14.7 percent
of the total vote to Pomar's 14.6. Ultra-radical Plinio de
Arruda Sampaio finished fourth with 13.4 percent, and
moderate Maria do Rosario was fifth with 13.3 percent. Both
Pomar and Rosario have announced their support for Pont in
the second round, leading to the possibility that that he
may defeat Berzoini. Pont has called for the PT to force a
change in the Lula government's policy, especially in the
economic sphere.


3. (U) Even before the results were announced, leftists
and radicals had begun to express displeasure with the
outcome. On September 25, some 400 dissidents affiliated
with labor unions and leftist factions held a meeting in Sao
Paulo to announce their defection from the party. On
Monday, fourth-place finisher Plinio de Arruda Sampaio held
a press conference to announce his own defection. Sampaio,
a 75-year-old former federal deputy who helped found the PT
in 1980 and was later Lula's running mate in two
unsuccessful presidential bids, claimed that the PT's
governing centrist majority had abdicated the party's role
as an instrument of social change. Since the election had
left this faction in control of the National Directorate, he
chose to continue his own social struggle under the banner
of the PSOL. In a press release, he said that, had he
chosen to stay in the PT, he would have supported Raul Pont,
and that several leftist groups remaining in the party would
vote for Pont in the second round.

4. (U) Sampaio was joined in his defection by Federal
Deputy Ivan Valente of Sao Paulo. Four other federal
deputies -- Joao Alfredo (Ceara),Orlando Fantazzini (Sao
Paulo),Chico Alencar (Rio de Janeiro) and Maria Jose
Maninha (Federal District) - have announced in recent days
their intention to depart the PT and join the PSOL. The
defections reduce the PT's strength in the lower chamber to
84 members and deprive them of their plurality. The
centrist (and highly fragmented) PMDB now has 87 seats. It
may gain several more before September 30, the deadline to
change party affiliation for anyone who wants to run for
office in next year's national and state elections. The
PSOL, founded in 2004 by deputies and senators who were
expelled from the PT for their refusal to vote the party
line, now has two senators and seven federal deputies.


5. (U) Another highly publicized defection was that of 83-
year-old Helio Bicudo, a renowned human rights activist who
served most recently as Deputy Mayor of Sao Paulo under
Marta Suplicy (2001-04). Bicudo claimed that the party had
strayed down a wrong path beyond the possibility of
correction. The criticism of Bicudo and other defectors
revolves around the CM's continued support for Lula's neo-
liberal macroeconomic policies, and what they describe as a
loss of ideals and ethics that led the party into the
current political scandal (ref C).


6. (U) One major source of frustration of leftists and
independent moderates was the presence on the CM's "chapa"
or leadership slate of Lula's former Chief of Staff, Jose
Dirceu, and other party members and government figures
implicated in the scandal. The CM's slate received 41.9
percent of the vote and will thus control 34 of the 81 seats
on the party's National Directorate. Slates supported by
Pont and Pomar each had about 12 percent of the vote and
will each control 10 seats. By reaching out to Maria do
Rosario's independent moderate faction (nine seats) and
other small centrist groups, the CM should be able to pull
together a majority for important party policy decisions.
In addition, CM candidates won 15 state presidencies
outright, with independents and leftists winning in four
states and eight other races going to a second round.


7. (U) Comment: A great deal of politicking and horse-
trading will take place between now and October 9, and
Berzoini may be able to fend off the challenge from the left
and win the election. The CM's continuing dominant position
on the National Directorate leaves the party mechanism in
the moderates' hands. However, the defections offer a clear
sign of the degree of disaffection within the party. The PT
enters into the 2006 campaign both divided against itself
and badly damaged in the eyes of the electorate. End
Comment.


8. (U) This message was cleared/coordinated with Embassy
Brasilia.

McMullen