The president of , , joined the governor of Rondônia, Marcos Rocha, on Friday (30), to his party. He is the second state head to migrate to the acronym in less than a week.
On Tuesday (27), Kassab surprised the political world by announcing that, governor of Goiás, he had joined the PSD and reached an agreement with his colleagues. (PR) and (RS) around a single candidacy for the Presidency.
With this, Kassab, isolating the postulation of the family of , now handed over to the son of former president Flávio, senator for the PL of Rio. Now, he has attracted a soldier of the Bolsonarist cause.
Colonel Marcos Rocha, as the former PM-RO member is known, was re-elected in 2022 supporting Bolsonaro. He has already taken a stand against the arrest of the former president, who is serving a sentence of more than 27 years in prison after being convicted of leading a coup plot to prevent the (PT) victory that year.
He will now run for the Senate, helping Kassab in the House if elected. Today, the PSD has 14 senators, and only 2 of them remain for the second leg of the eight-year term.
Last week, the leader said he hoped to at least maintain the bench, which is currently the second largest in the House with 81 members.
Meanwhile, the arrival of Marcos Rocha expands his lead in the ranking of governors. The PSD already had the largest number of state heads, 5 out of 27, and will now have 6.
Kassab’s movement is the most relevant in the electoral chess at the beginning of the year. Until now, the main doubt was whether Flávio’s candidacy would be consolidated or whether there would be a possibility of the governor of , (Republicans), taking over the position to face Lula.
With the Bolsonaro’s insistence on the family record, Kassab, who is Tarcísio’s secretary and has already said that he would support him under any circumstances, moved to insert a third element into the dispute.
Ratinho Jr., Leite and Caiado had already said that they would like to run for Planalto and, now, they have agreed that one of them will be the candidate, based on their performance in polls. If it were taken today, the mission should fall under the responsibility of the people of Paraná.
Kassab estimates that one to reach the approximately 20% that Flávio has been scoring in the surveys. In a second round against the president, the bet would be to win both voters further to the right and those in the center who do not sympathize with the PT member, but do not tolerate Bolsonarist excesses.
None of this is certain, of course. In practice, if in the end the PSD’s candidacy is not viable, Kassab positions himself as a “kingmaker”, an English expression that means kingmaker, the vital ally to win the election.
This is consistent with the fact that it never requires automatic alignments: Kassab himself, who is part of the government of a Bolsonaro offspring, has three ministries in the Lula administration. The chief has already said that they are free to remain in their positions and that their own candidacy would not harm the PT member.
All of this led Bolsonarism to attack Kassab even more, who is unlikely to win praise in the group for bringing Marcos Rocha to the PSD. Bolsonaro’s allies suggest that the Pssedista chief could already be in the first round.
There is still a strangeness with Tarcísio, since the governor’s visit to Bolsonaro in jail on Thursday (29) showed that he was a man of character, but could not show submission.
Tarcísio went public to refute the insinuation, leading allies to speculate that being a candidate for vice on his ticket could go through the roof. According to this script, the governor would leave to try for Planalto in 2030, opening the way for the head of the PSD to contest Bandeirantes already in the seat.
In favor of keeping Kassab around there is the density of the PSD, which is on its way to being the largest party in the country at all levels, being a fundamental partner moving forward.
