Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06SAOPAULO465
2006-05-03 14:10:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Consulate Sao Paulo
Cable title:  

2006 ELECTIONS: A "RENT-A-PARTY" (PTB) POLITICIAN'S

Tags:  PGOV PINR BR 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO2649
PP RUEHRG
DE RUEHSO #0465/01 1231410
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 031410Z MAY 06
FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4967
INFO RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 6110
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2196
RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 2538
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 0265
RUEHPE/AMEMBASSY LIMA 0948
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 1947
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 2747
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 1687
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7053
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 2888
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC 2402
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
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
-------

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