After this year, when he won 273 city halls, what remains is the fight to keep 2 of the 3 state governors he still has.
The most consolidated case is that of Pernambuco, where it has two feet in the boat. She and the party became very close in the electoral campaign, with Raquel supporting candidates from the party of .
The governor says this is not the time to talk about exchange. “My mandate is for Pernambuco.” She declares that she has a good relationship with the government () in the name of partnerships for her state. “I’ve been to Brasília 58 times,” he said, by phone, from the federal capital on Wednesday (13).
Despite the public discourse, his dissatisfaction with the toucans’ automatic opposition to Lula is notorious.
She also knows that the shrinking of the PSDB means little resources to try to run for re-election in 2026, a contest in which João Campos (PSB) emerges as a strong candidate.
The PSD, with the strength in number of city halls (887) and expanding its space in Congress, appears as the ideal home for Raquel, who was also surveyed by the MDB. As one leader of the party says, the governor’s membership form is ready.
Marconi Perillo, says that “there is a lot of speculation” about the acronym.
He called Raquel a “great picture” and recalled that the PSDB, under the governor’s leadership, became the party with the most city halls in the state, 32, compared to 31 for the PSB in Campos. Raquel aims to maintain this support with a negotiated exit.
In the governor’s accounts, 126 of the 184 cities in Pernambuco are in the hands of her allies. “She never mentioned her desire to leave the party”, says Perillo, given the reality.
According to the toucan’s allies, an alternative to keeping her would be to offer her a position as a candidate for president in 2026.
The presumed candidate, the governor (PSDB), signaled to the party’s leadership that he should not accept the undertaking, leaving his future undefined — he was re-elected in 2022 and could perhaps run for the Senate in the next election.
The problem is to combine with Pernambuco, who, according to interlocutors in the state, discards any idea other than running for re-election.
Less clear is the picture in Mato Grosso do Sul, where the PSDB is, with a large bias to the right in Bolsonarist frequency — even though it has the PT in the secretariat of governor Eduardo Riedel.
The party elected 44 of the state’s 79 mayors this year and has three federal deputies. The group is led by , who is the treasurer of the PSDB, and is under strong harassment by .
According to politicians in the region, there is an informal agreement for Riedel, Azambuja and most of the mayors to migrate en masse to the PL in time for the 2026 election. In other words, the negotiation is still ongoing, and the change will not be immediate.
Riedel’s allies dispute this version, seeking to leave the governor with the highest hand on the table, especially because he is the one with the political capital to be conquered. According to them, there are more rumors than certainties in the conversations, and any decision will only be taken from next year.
A Sheet He contacted the governor, but did not receive a response until the conclusion of this report.
Perillo lists the toucan attributes in the state to argue that it makes no sense to talk about losing the Riedel-Azambuja consortium. “The former governor is the national treasurer of the PSDB, participates in all the discussions we have with Cidadania and has helped us in the search for new leaders”, he states.
That said, the Tucano president concedes: “It will be a huge surprise if any of our newly elected governors, deputies or mayors leave the PSDB”, he says.
“With 10, with 100, with 1,000 or with millions, we will continue with the strong conviction that we are a party with a past, present and future.”
According to members of the Tucana Executive, Perillo is particularly irritated by the harassment from Kassab, whose PSD swallowed the spoils of PSDB city halls in , his former stronghold.
It is not a new process, having started with the dismantling of the party in the botched handover of the baton to Rodrigo Garcia, defeated in the first round in the election that saw (Republicans) triumph over Fernando Haddad (PT) in 2022. That said, the invoice has been closed now.
Perillo says that the PSDB rejects “right and left” populism.
“Dumb radicalism is totally lacking in efficient responses and solutions to the people’s demands. We will not succumb to physiologism, adhesism and much less to occasional opportunism”, he states.
