Attack on Brasília reinforces the need to train politicians – 01/21/2023 – Panel SA

The political training school RenovaBR, founded in 2017 by businessman Eduardo Mufarej, will open another front in Brasília with a new executive director, Patrícia Audi. In addition to offering training to novice candidates for public office, the organization wants to expand its reach to those who already have experience.

Audi claims that the invasions of the three Powers on January 8 reinforce the need to raise the political level in the country. “Our responsibility has grown even more in relation to forming good politicians, who are capable of dialogue and who must diverge, finding consensus in the divergence to build democracy”, he says.

According to Audi, RenovaBR also wants to increase its participation in the economic debate by promoting meetings with members of the government. The first topic of interest will be tax reform.

What changes at RenovaBR with your arrival and the opening of a performance in Brasilia? We will stay in Brasília and São Paulo. Our idea is to get closer to our students and Congress itself, and to be able to contribute to current parliamentarians, following what is very important to us, which is decision-making based on evidence and data, defending the best practice of ethics and democratic principles.

Will there be a change in the vocation of RenovaBR? A new function, in addition to the school of new politicians that you had since the foundation?We encourage new leaders to come to Congress, all with their first term. But that doesn’t mean that these people don’t want and don’t need and aren’t interested in continuing their education, in continuing education.

We want to continue providing subsidies so that they can make the best decisions and promote better debates. For that, we need to be closer. And it’s not just the students who are in Congress. We have leaders formed with these principles across the country.

In these five years, Renova has trained 2,300 people. It is this network that we want to reinforce, and the fact of being in Brasília is exactly for that. It is to understand what our students need, how we can contribute to this renewal of politics, this strengthening of democracy, starting from Brasilia.

Did the invasions that took place in Brasília on January 8 have any influence on the changes that Renova intends to make now?Do not. The decision to be closer to Brasília predates this. We were one of the first third sector organizations to formally demonstrate in favor of democracy and against any attack on democratic institutions. One of our stony principles is precisely the defense of democracy.

I think these acts further reinforce the importance of the existence of schools of democracy and schools of political leadership such as Renova. Our responsibility has grown even more in relation to forming good politicians, who are capable of dialogue and who must diverge, finding consensus in the divergence to build democracy.

One of the great assets of Renova in these five years is exactly what we most defend in democracy, which is the plurality of opinions and party. In this last year, our students had 6.8 million votes. There are 18 elected, 15 substitutes, 22 second substitutes. We are training political leaders to occupy public management careers in the Legislative and Executive branches.

What is the degree of concern with the situation of polarization that led the country to the attacks on Brasilia? How did we get there and how to lower this dust?What Brazil needs to do, it is already doing. What was very important on the 8th of January was the reaction of the democratic institutions, of the three constituted Powers.

There was no doubt that the reaction was at the height needed in defense of democracy. That’s why it was important for us to make sure it happened. Regardless of the problems that may arise, the reaction of the Three Powers is much more important. And I believe they reacted the way they should have.

While there have been acts of vandalism as it happened, the backlash has demonstrated the strength of our democracy. Although our young democracy has been tested several times, it continues to show itself to be vigorous, strong. We were all worried at that moment, but also very relieved to see the reaction of the three united and constituted Powers.

Will there also be an expansion of Renova’s role in the economic debate? Are you going to promote meetings to discuss topics such as tax reform?This is exactly part of this approximation that we want to make of the great national themes. We can, as a school of democracy and political leadership, offer these debates. The first is about tax reform.

We are preparing an event on February 8th. We invited secretary Bernard Appy, who has already accepted. What we want is to offer our students and parliamentarians a discussion about what the tax reform proposal is, how this should be conducted by Congress and by the government. And bring these worlds closer together.

The first was tax reform, but we are already imagining other topics that are relevant to discuss throughout the year, such as the issue of sustainability, for example, which is one of Brazil’s great assets.

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New executive director of RenovaBR, she was vice-president of institutional relations at Santander and secretary of the Economic and Social Development Council in the Temer government. She worked at the CGU Secretariat for Transparency and Corruption Prevention during the Dilma administration and at the International Labor Organization in the country.

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