SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian presidential candidate Aecio Neves picked a 69-year-old senator from Sao Paulo as his running mate yesterday, reflecting his party’s belief that the country’s biggest city and business capital will be a key battleground in October.
Neves, 54, a candidate for the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) who is running second in polls behind President Dilma Rousseff, told reporters he had chosen Aloysio Nunes as “the person who would add the most to the ticket.”
Nunes was seen by PSDB leaders as a safe, well-connected pick who would help ensure support from labor unions and other organized voting blocs in Sao Paulo. The city and surrounding state, which has the same name, account for about a quarter of Brazil’s population and a third of its gross domestic product.
Sao Paulo has long been the PSDB’s stronghold, producing all its presidential candidates in the last six elections including Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who ran Brazil from 1995 to 2002.
But Neves is a senator from neighbouring Minas Gerais state, and the PSDB has recently suffered from infighting in Sao Paulo. Meanwhile, Rousseff’s leftist Workers’ Party has made inroads in the city, electing its mayor in 2012 thanks to strong support from the ascendant lower-middle class.
In a nationwide poll earlier this month by Datafolha, Rousseff led Neves by a margin of 46 per cent to 38 per cent if the vote were to go to a runoff, as most analysts expect.