Letter from Sao Paulo: To understand why Brazilians are so quick to use the phrase só podia ser no Brasil - it could happen only in Brazil - you need only consider the build-up to elections here in October.
Start with the country's biggest party, the Democratic Movement of Brazil, or PMDB. In most democracies the biggest party would be expected to have an interest in winning the presidency for one of its leaders.
Not so in Brazil.
Several leading lights in the PMDB have declared an interest in running. But the law says that if the party runs a presidential candidate, any electoral alliances it builds to back him at the national level would have to be replicated at the state level.
This is distinctly unappealing to the regional barons who run the party. In part the PMDB is Brazil's largest party because it controls many of the country's 27 state governments. And its grip on state governments is the result of strange alliances that defy ideology and mean the party can ally with another party in one state while being its bitter electoral rival elsewhere.
This can only happen because the PMDB is very light on ideology - except the ideology of staying in power - and very practical about ignoring the glamour of the top job and instead accumulating power at the state level.
This flexibility would be threatened by running a presidential candidate so political observers here expect the party's barons to pull the plug on any PMDB presidential campaign.
That means the main opposition candidate will come from the Social Democrats, the PSDB. Now in most democracies, parties selecting a presidential candidate typically try to find the person most likely to win.
Not so in Brazil.
The PSDB politician that all opinion polls show running closest to left-wing incumbent Lula da Silva is São Paulo mayor José Serra.
Defeated by Lula in 2002, he is known to be keen for another crack at the presidency. But a troika of PSDB "wise men" instead decided that their candidate would be Geraldo Alckmin, the governor of São Paulo state and, according to all the polls, far less likely to defeat Lula than Serra.
So why Alckmin? One theory centres on the PSDB's fear of losing control of the state government in São Paulo. Governor Alckmin is prevented by term limits from seeking re-election as governor. This poses a serious problem for the PSDB as São Paulo is its main powerbase and, with a quarter of all Brazilian voters and more than 30 per cent of GDP, it is not a prize to be given up lightly.
The dilemma the PSDB "wise men" faced was that the only candidate the polls showed was holding on to the state for the party was one José Serra. Perhaps they decided that holding on to the statehouse in São Paulo was of greater urgency than trying to take the presidential palace in Brasília.
Maybe the PSDB's "wise men" were looking at the polls which showed that no matter who the opposition selects, President Lula is on course for re-election. Now in most democracies an administration that has been caught up in a huge corruption scandal might expect an uphill battle to stay in office. Not so in Brazil.
Despite his government being caught up in Brazil's biggest political scandal in years, some political commentators have taken to calling Lula the "Teflon president" because no matter how bad the scandals around him become, none of the mud sticks.
Only last month he lost his finance minister, the last of President Lula's so-called "pillars" to go as a result of corruption. These were the men who ran the campaign which at the fourth attempt won him the presidency and who formed his "kitchen cabinet" once in power.
Now they are all gone from office and under federal indictment, accused of running a "criminal organisation" from within government.
President Lula claims he knew nothing of the illegal campaign finance and congressional vote-buying schemes which his closet political allies are accused of operating. And as no smoking gun has been found to link him to any illegality, voters seem prepared to focus on his steady stewardship of the economy and moderate efforts to redistribute wealth.
But if Lula is set for electoral absolution his Workers' Party faces political damnation. Some forecasts have its congressional strength being slashed in half, possibly leaving it with little more than one-tenth of the seats in Congress. Such a scenario would leave Lula more dependent than ever on alliances with other parties in Congress in order to avoid his second term being a complete waste of time.
And the party best placed to extract maximum advantage from a weakened Lula? The presidential candidate-less PMDB.
It could happen only in Brazil.
