07/17/2024 – 21:35
Presenter José Luiz Datena (PSDB) made his first public commitment as a pre-candidate this Wednesday, the 17th, after withdrawing from four previous elections. Candidate for mayor of São Paulo, he walked alongside allies through the Municipal Market, one of the iconic places in the capital of São Paulo, and spoke with shopkeepers, employees and customers.
Upon arrival, he was stopped by several people to take photos and was approached for conversation. Datena joked with a woman who approached him that he would not speak to her because she was a voter from another city in the interior of the state.
Walking through the alleys of Mercadão, walking from store to store, Datena stopped at Bar do Mané, a place he usually goes to eat mortadella sandwiches. Despite having a lapel microphone, which captures everything he says, he asked the campaign production team for a traditional microphone, quickly located his team’s camera and did a sort of interview with the bar owner.
When informed that his last visit was two years ago, he replied: “I’m really becoming a politician. I only come during election time.”
The first public agenda takes place more than a month after the PSDB held an event to launch the journalist’s pre-candidacy on June 13. The lack of public commitments and Datena’s history of reluctance and withdrawals mean that even PSDB members still doubt that his name will be on the ballot in São Paulo.
The assessment is that even though the journalist is widely known due to the police program he has hosted on Band for years, it is necessary to mobilize the PSDB militants and present himself as a pre-candidate to voters. Rivals in the race, the current mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) and federal deputy Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) have been fulfilling electoral agendas for months.
On Tuesday, Datena declared that this time he intends to go all the way, but avoided saying that he will run for office and said that he may withdraw if politicians “annoy” or “screw him over.” He ended his agenda without speaking to the press, citing personal commitments.
Skepticism aside, the PSDB has been working to provide structure for journalists. The party has rented a new headquarters for the São Paulo branch, which will be transformed into the campaign “HQ” when the election begins. The new address is located on Minas Gerais Street, near Paulista Avenue.
José Aníbal, president of the São Paulo PSDB, downplayed Datena’s statement during Tuesday’s debate and said that the presenter said on Wednesday that no one was “annoying” him. “So this issue is settled,” declared the party leader.
During the interview, Datena focused his criticism on Nunes, but adopted a more moderate tone with Boulos. According to Aníbal, the PSOL candidate called the presenter to thank him for his speeches. “He (Datena) said: ‘but don’t worry, your time may come soon’. This is politics. You choose, at every moment, who you will criticize, who you will demand”, continued the PSDB president.
According to Aníbal, the idea is to visit the areas of all 58 zonal directories that the party has spread across the capital.
The tucanos also hired the experienced marketing expert Felipe Soutello, who served as one of the advisors to the current mayor, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), Datena’s rival, but distanced himself from the president in the last two years.
Soutello is a member of the PSDB, where he has campaigned for José Serra (PSDB), Geraldo Alckmin, now in the PSB, and former mayor Bruno Covas, who died in 2021 due to cancer. He was one of the organizers of the Lula-Alckmin ticket in the 2022 election, which was led by Fernando Haddad (PT).
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