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 It was good to see President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva facing some tough questioning by his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, in the first debate between the two candidates for the presidency. Lula had refused to participate in earlier debates and paid the price for dodging his responsibility to the electorate by narrowly failing to win in the first round as he had expected he would.
The debate brought Alckmin - skinny, specky and balding - against Lula - stocky, gimlet-eyed and hairy - together in a live televised confrontation. The clinical Dr. Alckmin proceeded to take Lula apart without giving him the benefit of an anesthetic. Alckmin was disrespectful, aggressive, incisive and forceful while Lula was defensive, ill-prepared and uneasy. However, despite his surprisingly vigorous performance, Alckmin failed to land any fatal blow. His style was wooden and his script read as though it had been written by a correspondent to the "Estado de S. Paulo" newspaper, the mouthpiece of Brazil's moaning middle class. There were some lively moments as Alckmin hammered away at the issue of corruption in Lula's administration and within his Workers Party (PT). Lula's response was to try and smear Alckmin's PSDB and the administrations of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This tactic did not work nor did Lula's attempts to denigrate Alckmin's record as governor of São Paulo. At times it sounded as though the election was for the Presidency of São Paulo rather than for Brazil as a whole. Both candidates bombarded each other with statistics to back up their arguments and then disputed each other's interpretation of these statistics. Lula tried to focus on the economy so he could boast about how his government had inherited a country on the brink of collapse from the PSDB and turned it into the semi-paradise he thinks we live in at the moment. Even then, Lula failed to emphasize positive economic factors such as low inflation, higher levels of income and falling interest rates. There was a brief foray into foreign affairs with Alckmin quite rightly pointing to the failure of Lula's foreign policies in the area of trade and comparing Brazil's poor rate of growth with that of other developing countries, including arch-rival Argentina. Lula avoided the issue and responded by claiming that he had warned George Bush not to invade Iraq and supporting Bolivia's right to nationalize its gas reserves. These are only brief examples but show the low standard of this "debate" which lasted over two hours and included stoppages for the candidates to be briefed by their minders. The format was long and complicated with the moderator giving way to four other journalists at one point who each asked a question. It would have been better to have had a simpler affair, the two candidates sitting face-to-face with one credible interviewer and no audience filled with minders and hangers-on. However, this is not how Brazil's self-centered Brazilian media, with its opinion-formers, commentators and bloggers, works. This comment is being written only a few hours after the debate so it is still too early to assess voters' response to this encounter. However, my feeling is that it will make no difference. Alckmin's main failure was to pin Lula down in relation to the corruption which has marked his government. Despite the fact that Lula has lost practically all of his main ministers and top PT advisers and has been unconvincing in his claims that he knew nothing about what was going on, Alckmin could not link him to any wrongdoing. Lula was able to say that he had got rid of wrongdoers and was awaiting the results of the various investigations into the various scandals. Alckmin also failed to broaden his appeal. He should stop preaching to the converted and try to win over electors who voted for Lula or the two other candidates in the first round, Heloísa Helena and Cristovam Buarque. These are both former PT members and accounted for almost 10% of the vote while Lula won 48.6%. Alckmin will probably win a lot of Buarque's voters but Helena's supporters are more likely to go to Lula. However, since Helena has refused to endorse Lula and was bitterly critical of him, Alckmin could make inroads here. Alckmin may have abandoned the idea of targeting Lula's bedrock supporters but he has still almost three weeks to try and get some of these people to change their vote. To do so he will have to stop sounding like a middle-class Paulista who thinks Brazil revolves around his state and show that he cares for other regions, particularly the Northeast. Alckmin has a lot to win and a lot to lose. If he wins, or comes within a very close distance of winning, then he will have consolidated his position as the outstanding PSDB leader. If he fails, then his moment of glory within the PSDB will be short-lived as José Serra, the governor-elect of São Paulo, and Aecio Neves, the governor of Minas Gerais, try and carve up power for themselves. Serra was briefly interviewed during the debate and his hostility to Alckmin could not have been made more apparent. Despite Alckmin's impressive opening attack, Serra's response was icily cool and almost contemptuous. John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. This article originally appeared on his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br. He can be contacted at jf@celt.com.br. © John Fitzpatrick 2005
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