Bolsonarism dominates opposition and overshadows alternatives – 01/04/2023 – Politics

Born in a chaotic way about six years ago, Bolsonarism is today the only structured and relevant opposition movement to the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government, overshadowing options in the center and on the right.

Led since redemocratization by figures such as Tancredo Neves (MG), Ulysses Guimarães (SP), José Sarney (MA) and Michel Temer (SP), for the MDB, Jorge Bornhausen (SC), Marco Maciel (PE) and Antonio Carlos Magalhães ( BA), for the PFL (today União Brasil), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (SP), Mario Covas (SP), José Serra (SP), Geraldo Alckmin (SP) and Aécio Neves (MG), for the PSDB, just to name the three main parties, this political field currently presents as an alternative to Jair Bolsonaro (PL) only figures who are, for the time being, linked to him.

While the 2018 presidential election raised the then dwarf Bolsonaro to the Planalto Palace and decimated or weakened center-right powers, such as the PSDB and the MDB —which were in the fourth and seventh positions, respectively—, that of 2022 reinforced the blow.

The MDB, although it has recovered a little in the size of the bench in the Chamber, was third in the dispute for the Planalto, with only 4.2% of the valid votes. The party’s candidate, Simone Tebet, supported Lula in the second round and is now his Minister of Planning.

The PSDB did not even launch a candidate, an unprecedented fact in its more than 30 years of history.

Currently, the Lulist coalition brings together all the main left-wing parties, in addition to the centrist or center-right MDB, PSD and União Brasil (the result of the merger of the PSL with the DEM, formerly the PFL).

The centrão (PP, PL and Republicans), which supported the Bolsonaro government, is divided between a friendly relationship, in the case of the PP, and a more declared opposition, with PL and Republicans, although there are Lulist dissidences in these two parties as well.

With that, in the case of a possible ineligibility of Jair Bolsonaro, the political world discusses and speculates today much more an option within Bolsonarism than outside it — as the former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and the governors of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), and from Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo).

Is there a relevant option for Bolsonarism in the opposition?

A Sheet heard politicians from that political field, openly or privately. A line of reasoning seems to unite this group. The recognition is that today there is not, but that in the near future it is possible to have.

Former senator and former PFL president Jorge Bornhausen was for decades one of the most important figures of the Brazilian right, although on frequent occasions he classified the label “right” as outdated and not applicable to the specific conditions of Brazil.

Today, at the age of 85, he says he sees in Tarcísio de Freitas not only a potential presidential candidate in 2026, but also a politician who can represent anti-PTism, even if he distances himself from Bolsonarism.

“Who stood out absolutely [em 2023] it was Governor Tarcísio, for his attitudes, for his political and administrative action. He, without any effort, is becoming a natural candidate for the presidency”, says Bornhausen.

The former senator says he considers that Tarcísio, Bolsonaro’s former minister, has already won over both those who voted for Lula just for being against Bolsonaro and non-fanatical Bolsonarists.

“The more radical left, which is the position that Lula is taking, and the radical right that Bolsonaro adopted in his government are not models for Brazil to grow in peace and have the development that we want.”

Candidate defeated by Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2014 by a difference of only 3.5 million votes, Aécio Neves projects the return of the PT-PSDB polarization, which dominated the national political scene for about 25 years.

“Brazil needs to understand that there is more than one alternative to PTism, which is not just Bolsonarism, but a responsible, experienced, qualified center. , which is what we are today”, says the toucan deputy.

Aécio claims to be working with the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, so that the PSDB —which dwindled in the 2022 elections to the point of bordering on dwarfism— recovers the voter who migrated to Bolsonaro in 2018 due to anti-PTism and to Lula in 2022 due to antibolsonarism.

“This voter is neither Bolsonaro nor Lula. It is not PT nor is it an extreme right electorate. I think that the PSDB has a great responsibility to plant a pillar in this center, of clear opposition to the current government, but that is different from the follies of this most extreme right.”

Both Aécio and Bornhausen cite the recent Ipec survey as a promising sign, according to which 57% of the electorate would like the country to have a third way in the current political scenario.

Another deputy critical of both Lula and Bolsonaro, Kim Kataguiri (União Brasil-SP) also bets on the emergence of an option for Bolsonarism within the opposition.

“I think we are still squeezed into this unhealthy polarization based on radicalism and fake news. The good news is that we have time and politics is cloud. There is still a lot to happen, for now we only have the portrait, but the film is usually different.”

For deputy Danilo Forte (União Brasil-CE), society tends to become increasingly aware that electoral polarization is not beneficial to the country. “Who will lead this center I still don’t know, and anyone who says they know is certainly mistaken.”

National president of Cidadania, which is federated with the PSDB, former deputy Roberto Freire says that the opposition’s alternative to Bolsonarism may arise from groups that are currently in Lula’s government.

He advocates restarting the conversations that resulted in the coalition supporting Tebet in the elections (MDB, PSDB, Citizenship and Podemos), citing, in addition to the current Minister of Planning, the names of Eduardo Leite and Governor Raquel Lyra (PSDB-PE).

In addition to Tebet, Lula has other assistants from outside the PT who may be potential presidential candidates in 2026, such as Vice President Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), also Minister of Development, and Marina Silva (Rede), head of the Environment.

One of the most experienced deputies from the left field, Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ) jokes that he misses a time when “the right was represented by a Ronaldo Caiado [hoje governador de Goiás] and an ACM Neto [ex-prefeito de Salvador]for example, or by the tucanate”.

In Brazil, currently, he continues, “a conservative, rational, moderate right wing disappeared with the arrival of Bolsonarism and Bolsonaro”.

Chico Alencar says he does not disregard a slow but real recovery of a non-Bolsonarist right, which would have its greatest expression in Eduardo Leite today, but that this could take time.

“As Dadá Maravilha said, ‘prognosis only at the end of the game’. I believe that the extreme right wears out, little by little, based on what it judges on its merits: aggressiveness, tearing narratives, and false ones, irrationality. But it takes time, it has a social base and there’s mobilization.”