Fronteiras simbólicas borradas na transição de ciclos políticos: a campanha para o governo do Ceará em 2006

Abstract

The 2006 election campaign in the Brazilian state of Ceará, analyzed in this text, reveals the end of the 20- year cycle in the local politics which constitutes the “Tasso era”. However, the transition has not set clear symbolic frontiers announcing a new political cycle, due to the peculiarities of the formal and informal arrangements and alliances, which prevented or reduced an explicitly “anti-Tasso” political discourse by the two leading candidates. Thus, the symbolic rupture with the past, the contraposition between continuity and change – this last ingredient expected in a conjuncture of transition between political cycles – could not be established. The analysis of the discursive strategies employed by those two candidates suggests an attempt to move away from the political image of Tasso, relegating it to marginal areas of the political field in Ceará.