DEMise | The Kassab Defection and the Sambodian Machine

Kassab's highly effective media blitz in he 2006 mayoral race -- the mayor's reputation for truculence and crudity was addressed by the use of a family values-friendly animated character (above) -- must have cost a fortune.

The Estado de S. Paulo reports what we already know: São Paulo is run by a political machine, although the case in point is something of a trivial one.

São Paulo, 15 – Appointed civil servants of the city of São Paulo are collecting voter signatures for the creation of the new political party of Mayor Gilberto Kassab, the Social Democrats (PSD). This newspaper had access to an e-mail sent out by an aide to a subprefect which says the subprefecture has been assigned a “mission” by the mayor to collect “as many names as possible.”

The message was forwarded to friends of the aide last Sunday. “My big boss [Kassab] has sent us poor mortals on a mission , dependent as we are on political appointments for our jobs ha ha ha ha… I have to collect the most names,” the text, send from a person e-mail account, reads. “I will tell you why:  Kassab founded a new party  … the  PSD … and he needs the largest possible number of people to endorse it.”

This newspaper contacted the aide, who has worked in a subprefecture in the Southern Zone of São Paulo for a year. “It was a friend with ties to the subprefecture who asked me to do it,”she said. As of yesterday, the aide had collected five signatures.”It is hard collecting more than that.”

The party needs 482,000 signatures to qualify for the next ballot. The DEM-PFL, of which the mayor was once a leading member, is facing extinction in the face of a corruption scandal to beat all corruption scandals involving its poster child and VP candidate of choice, the governor of the federal district, a steely eyed champion of the New Public Management who showed up on national TV engaging in the Good Old Garbage Contract Kickback scheme.

The breakaway party could even join the alliance supporting the federal situation.

In the meantime, the mayor’s former party, the hard hard-right tea party wannabes DEM-PFL, is not having it.

The DEM are preparing a legal blitzkrieg against the PSD, the party being created by Mayor Gilberto Kassab. Party lawyers have been told to question the collection of signatures for registration of the new party and to denounce any apparent irregularities to the elections prosecutors.

Well, it does seem that the Estado is helping them with that, running a merely anecdotal tale suggesting wider spread shennanigans.

Sambodian Politics | Green Spleen

I thought the Brazilian Greens were the most interesting factor in last year’s elections. I am married, after all, to a PT supporter with strong Green sympathies who served as a living laboratory of the cognitivie dissonance the Green Party candidacy represented.

In the end, however, the party wound up splitting into “authentic” Greens like presidential candidate Marina Silva,the charismatic former federal environment minister, and “greenwashers,” like the oily CEO of a major natural cosmetics company who shared the platform with Marina and tried to steer the party toward the opposition as a block vote during the runoff.

In an apparent victory, the Marina Silva Movement faction outvoted the green right on the question of whether PV voters could vote their conscience during the runoff.

Greens captured 9% of the vote in the first round of the elections. The “greenwasher” faction tended to be elements of the center and extreme right with ties to the latifúndio with a line of patter that goes something like “only big agribusiness can manage the environment responsibly.”

Valor Online reports.

The Green Party’s (PV) national president, federal deputy José Luiz Penna, has fired the  state party director in São Paulo, Maurício Brusadin .

An ally of  Marina Silva (PV), who is disputing control of the party with the federal legislator, Brusadin had his two-year mandate cut short after completing one year and three months..

“I left because we are commencing a democratic reform of the PV, but Penna wants to maintain the system of provisional committees in order to hold onto power”, said Brusadin, who published a letter criticizing the national president and said he does not know yet whether he will remain in the party — allies of Marina have discussed forming a new party. .

This newspaper has not yet had a chance to speak with Penna, who was reportedly meeting in Brasília on Tuesday night to discuss the future of the São Paulo party.