Party of One, Party of None

The other day, my roommate was reading the newspaper, shaking her head at a new candidate that appears to be gaining support in the São Paulo mayoral elections.  I hadn't heard of this candidate before, and I asked her more about him and what party he belonged to, seeing as the major parties (PT, PSDB, PMDB, PSOL) already have closed slates.  My roommate looked up his campaign's website, and researched for some minutes.  To her consternation, she couldn't find a political party.  "Maybe he is running as an independent?"  I asked.  My roommate shook her head.  "You can't run for office without a party," she informed me.  This new found fact about the Brazilian political system tickled my ethnographic funny bone for some reason, and I mused about about the differences between the U.S. and Brazilian political systems.  "Isn't it funny," I remarked, "that in the U.S. we only have two major political parties that successfully field high profile candidates, but people run as independents all the time."  She looked back at me from the coffee pot, her head tilted as if in disapproval, "é porque você vem de um pais individualista."  [that's because you come from an individualist country.]