Serra waits, a bit too patiently, for the presidency

With almost 30m voters and a population greater than Canada’s and on a par with Argentina’s, the giant industrial state of São Paulo is accustomed to playing a big part in choosing Brazil’s presidents. The retiring incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, both had their political roots in the state. The front-runner so far in this year’s race, José Serra, has been the state’s governor for the past three years. He has suffered much criticism of late, as heavy rains have caused flash floods, landslides and collapsing roads, resulting in around 70 deaths. Despite the accusations of failing to improve the state’s flood defences, Mr Serra’s team still think his record as governor is solid enough to carry him to the presidency in October’s election.

Brazil’s rising economic and diplomatic muscle means that the job of running it is becoming an ever bigger one. With an impressive record as an academic, minister and state governor, Mr Serra is surely a strong candidate to fill the post. But he is a curious character. A friend says he announced that he would become president of Brazil when he was just 17. Colleagues describe a nocturnal control freak with a stubborn streak. Paulo Renato Souza, a former cabinet colleague of Mr Serra and now his state education secretary, remembers him telephoning in the middle of the night, demanding information.

A difficult man he may be, but the governor inspires loyalty from those who work with him. “He’s a leader and he knows it,” says Luiz Carlos Mendonça de Barros, another former minister, who saw Mr Serra cut his teeth as a student leader.

In the Cardoso government Mr Serra built a reputation as a good manager, determined to get his own way. He left the planning ministry after disagreeing with free-market colleagues in the finance ministry and Central Bank. Then, as health minister he took on two big foreign drugmakers, threatening to break the patents on their HIV drugs and getting them to cut their prices. Mr Serra organised a lobbying effort at the World Trade Organisation, where America eventually dropped a case against Brazil for patent infringement.

After losing to Lula in the presidential election in 2002, Mr Serra became mayor of São Paulo city in 2005, stepping down the next year to run for governor. In this job he seems to have been following a predetermined plan to raise cash in the first two years of his mandate so as to spend it on public works in the second two, says Alexandre Marinis of Mosaico, a political consultancy. Much of it has gone on improvements to the state capital’s metro and its main arterial roads. His presidential campaign will contrast all this digging and asphalting with the projects announced by the federal government three years ago, many of which have yet to get going. Mr Serra seems to have learned from past São Paulo governors and mayors that having a big, visible legacy to pose in front of does wonders in swaying voters.

Less visibly but just as important, this has been achieved without busting the state’s finances. Signs of improvements to public services can be found elsewhere too. Mr Serra has introduced testing for teachers to make sure the best are retained and are paid more, and a system of bonuses for schools that show improved results. Both reforms were pushed through despite the opposition of teachers’ unions. Better policing has contributed to a fall in the state’s murder rate (though it did tick slightly upwards last year).

The same as Dilma, but different

For all the good stories that Mr Serra has to tell about his governorship, the strong poll lead he has held for over a year has recently faded (one poll this week put it as low as seven points), as President Lula, still hugely popular after seven years in office, has campaigned energetically for his chosen candidate, Dilma Rousseff. Mr Serra is a “developmentalist”, as Brazilians call social democrats who retain their faith in active government, so he is ideologically not far from Ms Rousseff, though he seems more likely to push through fundamental reforms needed to improve public services and speed up the economy.

Ms Rousseff, though an able administrator, is even less charismatic than her rival. So Mr Serra’s ratings ought to perk up again once he starts campaigning. But Brazil’s riotous multiparty system, in which candidates must delicately stitch together broad coalitions, is harsh on those whose bandwagons lose momentum. Mr Serra needs to get out on the stump and start singing his own praises now, if he wants to avoid being remembered as the best president Brazil never had.