Governor Ronaldo Caiado of Goiás announced on Tuesday evening that he is leaving the União Brasil party to join the Social Democratic Party (PSD) — the first of many high-profile maneuvers we will see between now and the official start of this year’s general election campaign.
The move comes after months of tension over Caiado’s presidential ambitions, which União Brasil proved unwilling to support. Last year, the party announced it was cutting ties with the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and ordered its members to resign from executive positions — a directive that met fierce internal resistance.
That led party leaders to the conclusion that fielding an opposition presidential candidate offered them little upside, preferring instead to maintain strategic flexibility, allowing regional candidates to chart their own courses based on local circumstances — particularly in the Northeast region, where President Lula commands strong support and where taking a hard stance against him could prove costly in state-level races.
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