Allies of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) evaluated the CNN that the arrest of former Minister of Education Milton Ribeiro this Wednesday (22) is the worst moment of the reelection campaign.
The perception gains strength when they find that, just over three months ago, the campaign coordination bet that, at the end of June, the current moment, Bolsonaro should already be in a technical draw with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). The most recent surveys, however, point to a distance from the PT.
As a result, the campaign leadership was planning a new event to try to gain a breath and revitalize the political strategy. The new fact had a name: Tereza Cristina, former Minister of Agriculture, who the president of the PL, Valdemar da Costa Neto, and the minister of the Civil House and licensed president of the PP, Ciro Nogueira, had been trying to get for the vice vacancy.
The bet was on the political transit of the former minister, on the fact that she is a woman and that she could replace Bolsonaro’s favorite, former Defense Minister General Braga Neto. The political wing believed that the change would create a new positive fact and move away from the government’s military image, something considered relevant to try to win over the centrist voter and turn the tables against Lula.
But the arrest of Milton Ribeiro left the campaign’s summit paralyzed this Wednesday. Mainly because the investigative elements that the Federal Police collected are still not known. There is a special fear regarding the National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE), a body controlled by allies of Valdemar and Ciro, which means that the chance of Centrão occupying Bolsonaro’s vice is at least suspended.
In addition, there is a view that the investigation against Milton is completely different from those that reached other ministers, such as Ricardo Salles (Environment) and Marcelo Álvaro Antônio (Turismo), even because both ended up leaving their positions and the moment was not electoral.
Bolsonaro’s reaction to Milton’s arrest was also criticized. The assessment was that it would be better to wait for the unfolding of the crisis before taking a position and that the idea of detaching himself from Milton Ribeiro as the president did could be dangerous: he could retaliate. Ribeiro’s allies even reported to the CNN that he had been complaining of having considered himself wronged and abandoned by the government.
The order now in the campaign HQ is to wait for the next facts of the investigation to, then, try to evaluate the best reaction strategy.
Source: CNN Brasil
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