SAO PAULO, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Partisan politicking in Brazil's heated municipal races turned rowdy Wednesday when supporters for Sao Paulo's mayoral candidates engaged in heated verbal volleys on the campaign trail.
The race is considered a possible barometer for just how well the ruling Workers' Party and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will fare come federal elections in 2006.
According to eyewitnesses and local media reports Wednesday, supporters for incumbent Mayor Marta Suplicy confronted backers for challenger Jose Serra, who was campaigning in a southern neighborhood of Brazil's largest city for Sunday's electoral showdown.
Both sides sought to drown out each other with blaring music and campaign messages from sound trucks and chanting, creating a cacophony of boisterous political rhetoric.
"We are here trying to wage a democratic campaign," read a Serra statement. "This provocation is a sign of (Suplicy's) desperation."
The candidates are neck-in-neck leading up to Sunday's election, with Serra holding a slight lead according to the latest polls.
Serra campaign coordinator Walter Feldman, also a federal deputy for the right-leaning Social Democrats Party, or PSDB, said the tactics employed by the Suplicy supporters were "outside the rules of the game."
Members of the campaign for Suplicy -- who hails from the leftist Workers' Party, or PT, led by President Lula -- declined to comment on the altercation.
Wednesday's spat in the street followed another heated confrontation between the PSDB and PT backers, when the latter reportedly tried to prevent the former from making a campaign stop, resulting in a brawl that ended with members of both sides explaining themselves at a local police station.
Recent fighting between both sides of the Sao Paulo struggle has garnered national attention, considering what the outcome of the vote means to the federal government and its political future.
The Sao Paulo mayoral race has lasting national implications for Lula's ruling PT. According to analysts and election experts, Lula needs Marta to win come Sunday to ensure voter support for the 2006 presidential elections. The city and state of Sao Paulo are the most populous in the country and crucial to Lula's reelection aspirations.
Brazil's local politicians such as mayors and councilmen often act as vote brokers capable of swaying their constituencies toward supporting those candidates they favor.
A win Sunday for Suplicy and Lula's PT also strengthens the president's hand in the Congress, where he is constantly battling for additional support from lawmakers for his widespread reform proposals.
A victory for the incumbent PT mayor also could reaffirm the ruling party' s popularity among voters since recent corruption scandals have battered the party.
In February, a leading magazine reported that Waldomiro Diniz -- the former adviser for the PT -- received illegal gambling funds connected to the bingo industry to fund certain PT candidates' campaigns during the 2002 election.
Lula fired Diniz -- though at the time of the infraction he was not officially a member of the PT -- hoping to put a quick end to the ordeal. That wasn't the case, however, as opposition lawmakers sought an investigation of Lula and the PT and even called for the resignation of Lula's chief of staff and key adviser, Jose Dirceu, who had close ties with Diniz.
Since then, it appears, floodgates containing other past improprieties -- some occurring on the watch of Lula's predecessor, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2002) -- have been flung wide open.
In May, nearly two dozen people were arrested in connection with a scam in which Health Ministry officials and others illegally sold blood supplies from 1990 to 2002 for a sum totaling some $660 million.
Also in May came the controversial New York Times report that Lula's drinking was becoming a national concern, a story that prompted Brazil to revoke the visa of Times reporter Larry Rohter only to have it reinstated a few days later.
More recently, Serra -- a one-time presidential hopeful who Lula defeated in October 2002 -- accused the president of using the federal budget to campaign for Suplicy during a recent stop in Sao Paulo.
