Presenting himself as an airplane with good take-off capacity, the former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, displays a scraped fuselage since the newspaper Folha de São Paulo published, on March 26, that the state bank Nossa Caixa, by order of the state governor himself, awarded media companies owned by political allies with official publicity.

Presenting himself as an airplane with good take-off capacity, the former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, displays a scraped fuselage since the newspaper Folha de São Paulo published, on March 26, that the state bank Nossa Caixa, by order of the state governor himself, awarded media companies owned by political allies with official publicity.

Against Geraldo Alckmin are still pending in the Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo 69 petitions to set up a Legislative Investigative Committee to look into his administration. Even though all these petitions contain the number of signatures required, the ex-governor’s political base has since 2003 systematically filibustered the setting up of such a committee.

One of the Investigative Committees that the PSDB obstructed calls for the investigation of Febem, the state’s agency responsible for the well being of young offenders, a major problem for the state’s toucan, i.e. social-democratic, administration. Over the last three years 27 deaths of under age detainees were reported in the Febem units. Reports of torture and abuse are constant and involve thousands of victims. The absence of adequate legal responses to punish those incriminated collaborates to a situation of widespread systematic institutional violence.

It should also be noted that, since the announcement of Geraldo Alckmin’s nomination to this date, much has been said. Yet one episode had the greatest media coverage. The 40 something pieces of clothing, that some say are actually 400, donated by a fashion designer to the former first lady, Lu Alckmin. Comparison with Imelda Marcos was inevitable. First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, Imelda became known for her collection of three thousand pairs of shoes.

The ex-governor has spent considerable time of his recently-launched campaign on explanations which are considered by many analysts as incomplete and feeble. Geraldo Alckmin’s performance has generated rumors that in the toucan headquarters there is already pressure for the former mayor of São Paulo, José Serra (PSDB) to swap his state candidacy for a presidential one, an outcome which at the moment seems very unlikely to happen.

Weekly magazine Época revealed Geraldo Alckmin’s close ties with ultra-conservative Catholic prelacy Opus Dei. The ex-governor, who proclaims himself an administrator and a pragmatist of much action and little rhetoric, is supported by PSDB economists, who advocate the need for “a capitalism shock” in the country, supposedly to put in practice the principles of efficiency and of combating the state’s waste, with tighter public accounts. In the international arena, the election of Alckmin might represent a reversal of the cycle of victories of the leftist and progressive forces in Latin America and a restart for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).