The mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), will complete two years in office – he took over after Bruno Covas’ death in May 2021 – and until now, he has been living with the ignorance of the population.
At the turn of the year, allies encouraged him to invest in an agenda to reverse the image of lack of charisma and enable an electoral flight in 2024.
The strategy of his political group is to occupy the vacant space in the center-right field in the country’s largest city.
If the electoral campaign were to take place this year, the conservative and liberal electorate would not have a clear name for the probable dispute against the left.
The few remembered are congressman Ricardo Salles (PL) and former congressman Vinicius Poit (Novo), who ran for the government of São Paulo.
In the MDB, it is known that the current mayor will have no chance of winning the race without the formal support of governor Tarcísio de Freitas.
Besides, the main articulator of the state government, Gilberto Kassab, of the PSD, may decide to nominate a name from his legion to run for the election, reducing his chances.
Since Tarcisio took office, the presence of Nunes in joint agendas with the governor has become a recurrent scene.
Meanwhile, close allies are trying to find a conservative “veneer” for the mayor.
The goal is to achieve unity around Nunes’ name to run for reelection as mayor against the natural candidate of the extreme left, Guilherme Boulos (Polo), elected as a federal congressman.
Leader of the Movement of Homeless Workers (MTST), Boulos, has the endorsement of the left after he gave up running for the Bandeirantes Palace to support Fernando Haddad (PT).
He was also advised to change his clothes – read: leave the image of a property invader in the past. With this, he will have president Lula as his main electoral cable.
For Nunes to inherit the position of the center-right candidate, the big bet is on the most sensitive issue for São Paulo citizens: Public Security.
The mayor has already announced his intention to install, until the end of his mandate, around 20,000 cameras throughout the city, with artificial intelligence capable of identifying criminals and increasing security in the city’s main points.
Members of the PSOL party have criticized the project.
Crackland, another issue dear to São Paulo citizens, is also on Nunes’ radar.
He counts on the task force and the will of the State to put an end, once and for all, to the problem, which has been dragging on for three decades. For this reason, the manager said he would not “measure efforts” to recover the center, which makes him the target of constant criticism for the “abandonment” of the region.
For 2023, the signaling is that the mayor will prioritize projects with the potential to boost his popularity in time for the reelection race.
Nunes is trying to adjust his speech, launching works and janitorial projects around the city, and investing more in traditional media interviews and public appearances.
For this, he is not measuring effort or money.
Nunes has a budget of R$96 billion this year, 16% higher than in 2022, resulting from increased tax collection due to high inflation.
Last year, the City Hall allocated R$8.8 billion for investments in public policies, with priority allocation to the peripheral neighborhoods – the largest amount in history.
For 2023, Nunes has already set aside R$11.5 billion.
“São Paulo is in very good financial health,” says the mayor, a City Council’s finance committee member for two terms – he was a councilman for the first time in 2012.
Allies admit that Nunes “knows the ins and outs of the municipal budget like few others.
However, the city of São Paulo only executed 25% of the investments planned for last year.
This is a challenge for the mayor, who blames the City’s Court of Auditors for holding up the bids that needed to be redone by the municipal executive.
MONEY, MONEY, AND MONEY
“It is the largest resurfacing program in the city’s history.”
This is how, as recently as June 2022, the mayor announced a mega-investment to recover the city’s streets.
The forecast is to pour R$2.5 billion until the end of 2024, the year Nunes will seek reelection.
He hopes that this effort will help pave the way for his second term.
“We will go on from here until the end of 2024 without stopping,” he said.
The mayor, however, knows that the zeitgeist is still insufficient.
Nunes’ main bet for reelection is in the housing area.
There will be R$4 billion for housing actions and programs in the capital city.
This is another investment classified as “the biggest in the history of São Paulo”.
This is to try to minimize criticism.
Between 2020 and 2021, almost 9,000 housing units will be delivered, or 5% of the total of more than 165,000 active registrations waiting for a definitive home.
DISCREET ARTICULATOR
The mayor is on the right track for politicians around the municipal executive, developing actions to reach the city’s four corners.
“He has a different management than Covas’,” said councilman Rubinho Nunes (União Brasil). “Ricardo, for being an alderman, tries to bring a relationship of proximity and constant dialogue with the City Council.”
Despite this capacity for political articulation, the councilman admits that the mayor is not well-known in the city.
“He has carried out the mandate focused on the administration within his own office and left aside the publicity, political aspect,” he observed. “As a consequence, he ends up less known.”
A survey commissioned by the city administration revealed that more than 60% of Paulistanos evaluate the city administration between “excellent and fair”.
However, the government knows that there is a significant gap between the city government’s evaluation and the mayor’s figure.
Another one who evaluates the municipal manager’s work positively is the federal congressman Delegate Palumbo (MDB), who left his seat in the municipal legislature after being elected to the Federal Chamber.
“Ricardo Nunes is extremely hardworking,” he highlighted.
For him, however, the mayor needs to “think more about the city” and “not please politicians who have been there for years”.
The congressman referred, mainly, to the mayor, Milton Leite.
According to the congressman, Leite’s political strength helped boost the municipal budget for the sub-districts this year.
The resources approved in the Legislative Assembly to cover expenses and investments in 2023 increased 16%, reaching R$1.45 billion for 32 sub-districts.
The biggest increase was for Parelheiros, a district in the extreme south zone of the capital, and Milton Leite’s electoral stronghold.
The amount set aside for the region jumped almost 50% after going through the Legislative.
Another councilman who closely follows Nunes’ work is Major Palumbo, who took a seat in the City Council in the middle of last year.
“He is a mayor who never stops,” he summarized, listing several projects directed to the population. “He has everything to fight for re-election.
THE WAY IS TO “SPREAD THE WORD”
The mayor still faces difficulty with the “face” of his administration.
Among supporters, there is the impression that Ricardo Nunes’ actions do not have the necessary public repercussion.
Therefore, the decision was to spend to publicize.
In December last year, the city government published a public notice to hire a company to provide communication advice in the municipality.
The contract foresees spending R$20 million for the service over 12 months.
However, the São Paulo justice system suspended the tender, alleging the municipality already has such a service.
In parallel, Nunes is giving his “face” to create a positive agenda full of promises.
On Monday 23rd, he was interviewed on the entertainment program Morning Show of Jovem Pan radio.
With a less serious image, he tried to “sell” his administration.
Nunes admitted that he still needs to publicize his work more.
“We put the financial health of the city at a very high level, with a very high investment capacity, and that is why I can inaugurate many things”, he said.
“I’m just not managing to communicate many things,” added the mayor.
He used the hook to add that currently, the city of São Paulo has 1,300 construction sites in progress, “with many in the periphery,” he said.
This is a strategy adopted by the administration to get closer to the voters who live in areas with the worst vulnerability indicators in the city.
Ricardo Nunes will have less than two days until the next elections to give his mandate a “face” and become known by the people of São Paulo.
In the meantime, he must do the right articulations to guarantee support and prevent the left from growing.
Money, Nunes knows, is not lacking.
With information from Revista Oeste