(FOLHAPRESS) - Former Finance Minister Fernando Haddad (PT) plans to launch his candidacy for the Government of São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto, 313 km from the capital, in a nod to the electorate in the interior of São Paulo, which historically rejects the PT.
With this, the party will, in an unprecedented way, hold its state convention outside the capital of São Paulo. The campaign foresees that the event, mandatory by electoral law, will be held on July 25th.
The date coincides with that chosen by Flávio Bolsonaro's (PL-RJ) pre-campaign to launch him as President of the Republic, at a convention held in São Paulo. Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) should have his re-election attempt made official on August 1st, at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium, in the capital of São Paulo.
According to members of Haddad's campaign, the former minister himself signaled interest in holding the convention in the interior and separate from the one that will formalize the re-election attempt of President Lula (PT), scheduled for August 2nd in São Paulo.
The maxim that the countryside elects the governor, always repeated among São Paulo politicians, served as an internal justification for the PT to move away from the capital. Haddad received 54.41% of the votes in the city of São Paulo, in 2022, compared to 45.59% for Tarcísio, who was elected governor.
The general result in the state, on the other hand, did not reflect the preference of the capital's electorate: Tarcísio was elected with 55.27% of the votes, against 44.73% for Haddad. In Ribeirão Preto, the PT member had 40.44% of the votes. Tarcísio, 59.56%.
SUMMARY CITY
For the PT, the electorate of Ribeirão Preto epitomizes the interior of São Paulo: the city is the 8th most populous in the state, with 698 thousand inhabitants, and is an important economic hub, the stage for the main agribusiness fair in the country, Agrishow, which ended up capitalized by right-wing politicians.
The attraction was integrated into the calendar of Bolsonaro politicians. Former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) attended the fair between 2018 and 2024 (except in 2020 and 2021, when the event did not take place due to the pandemic). His eldest son, Flávio, attended this year's Agrishow, in April, together with Tarcísio, in their first joint agenda after the governor decided that he would run for re-election, and not the president.
Represented at the fair since 2024 by vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), Lula is often the target of criticism from the opposition there. Despite this, Haddad's campaign said it had identified a reduction in Tarcísio's acceptance in the interior, as a whole, since the PT member ran as a pre-candidate.
Among the reasons pointed out by the PT's internal diagnosis are the dissatisfaction of mayors with the governor due to the lack of amendments, and of the population with issues such as health, basic sanitation and education.
In recent weeks, Haddad's team intensified his agenda across the state to, according to PT's assistants, map out the main complaints against Tarcísio and place the former Finance Minister's candidacy as necessary for Lula's re-election.
Haddad's mission is precisely to set up a strong platform to ensure that the PT member presents, in 2026, results as good as those of the last presidential election. In 2018, Haddad -who had run for President for the party- received 7.2 million votes in São Paulo. Four years later, Lula received 11.5 million.
Given the withdrawals of Paulo Serra (PSDB) and Kim Kataguiri (Missão) in the dispute, the PT is afraid that the election for the São Paulo government will anticipate the polarization between Haddad and Tarcísio and could be defined in the first round.
In the last Datafolha survey for the state government, released in March, before the other opponents withdrew, Tarcísio led with 44% of voting intentions, followed by Haddad, with 31%.
The São Paulo platform in a possible second round is seen as crucial for Lula to maintain the same level of votes as in the last election. For this reason, Haddad's campaign treats rapprochement with voters in the interior as a priority and hopes to count on Alckmin and Márcio França (PSB), who will be the PT's vice-president on the ticket, as cadres capable of curbing voter distrust.
Furthermore, Haddad's team found another reason in the numbers from the past presidential elections to try to break the resistance in the city: the difference in votes for the Presidency there since the 2018 elections.
Eight years ago, Bolsonaro received 72.27% of the votes in Ribeirão. Haddad, who was a candidate for president in place of Lula, who was in prison, received 27.73% of the votes.
In the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro's advantage was 59.62%, against Lula's 40.38%.
According to PT members, the results indicate that there is still room for the opposing candidacy to bleed.
