Doria launches biography with clues about political collapse – 03/26/2023 – Politics

In the book “João Doria – O Politics da Transformação”, a biography of the former governor of São Paulo that will be released by the publisher Matrix this Monday (27), journalist Thales Guaracy observes that the former toucan won the presidential primaries of the PSDB , in 2021, but did not take the candidacy in 2022 – and that few people, not even Doria himself, understood what happened.

Like any character worthy of a biographical book, João Doria has a trajectory that arouses interest, especially due to his meteoric rise in politics, with a victory in the first round in 2016, and, less than six years later, a melancholy withdrawal from public life, without carry out the claim of candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic.

Although the biography focuses more on what worked in Doria’s life than what didn’t, the book gives clues about what may have led to this outcome and exposes the backstage of the former toucan’s campaigns and the political disputes involved in them.

Guaracy interviews Doria’s closest politicians, as well as friends and family. Raul, the former governor’s brother, tells the writer that Doria was “excluded from the political system”, like their father, who was impeached by the military dictatorship.

Former governor Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB), who was Doria’s deputy, differs from Raul when he tells the biographer that “João was not removed from the race”, but that there was “ill will” on the part of the PSDB, which made him analyze the difficulties and give up.

The journalist points out, in turn, that the movement against Doria in the PSDB “was also towards [Jair] Bolsonaro”. As an example of the Bolsonarization of the party, he mentions the episode in which Rodrigo rolled out the red carpet to the then president at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, during the second round of the campaign.

In the same lobby, recalls the book, in which Doria gave her interviews to the press about the pandemic and opposed Bolsonaro’s denialism. This clash is even narrated in a specific chapter. In the same way that he exposes Doria’s opposition to Bolsonaro, Guaracy also highlights the antagonism between the former governor and Lula (PT).

The author attributes the high rejection of Doria among the electorate, the reason that led the PSDB to raffle him in 2022, to the Bolsonarism attack machine – an explanation already expressed by Doria and allies. Lula’s share of the blame for the sinking of Doria lay in the emptying of the third way, since the PT attracted the support of historic toucans.

In chronological order, the book details the lives of Doria’s parents and then narrates his own, which helps to understand how and why João Doria, the father, became his son’s main reference. In 1964, the senior Doria, then federal deputy, had to go into exile in Paris when the military dictatorship took over in Brazil.

At this point, the biography locates in time the period of financial difficulty that Doria always refers to, when he was between 8 and 16 years old, and his father was in exile. The book focuses on the advertising careers of Doria Sr. and Doria Filho, and also tells about the latter’s period at Embratur.

The work, whose preface was written by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), narrates Doria’s vision of her achievements, praising in a laudatory tone the overcoming of difficulties and the deliveries in the Government of São Paulo, especially the vaccine against Covid .

It is also Doria’s side that appears when the PSDB’s internal clashes are narrated, although some self-criticism is fished out here and there when the author states that Doria was unwilling and clashed with the “high toucanato” and “the old politics of the broken”.

He mentions, among others, disputes with Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) and Aécio Neves (PSDB) – always under the eyes of Doria, who is betrayed and wronged by his peers.

For Guaracy, Doria is “the leader who wants to achieve, no matter the obstacles”. The book describes the ex-toucan’s obsession with perfectionism and punctuality, and narrates that, at City Hall, he adopted “working methods of private companies”. There was an award for secretary of the month, and Doria presented the chosen one with a watch.

In this sense, the work shows that Doria, in the world of politics, was a stranger in the nest and resorts to the clichés of anti-politics and old politics to expose the thesis that the former governor, an “entrepreneur who throws himself into politics”, found it difficult not to bow to the traditional politics he rejected.

Doria’s exit from the electoral race, according to Guaracy, was the political game taking its toll. “He himself, João, thought that he had not been elected to act politically, or according to the rules of traditional politics, but to change them, even if that meant creating enemies. It was that way of acting and thinking that led Brazil to the delay – and, if it were to improve, it was the system that had to change, not him”, he writes.

The biography, however, is not a lamentable or decadent record, on the contrary. It sends the message that, for Doria, it was worth facing the system to deliver a more efficient management. And that he doesn’t resent his tormentors in the PSDB.

Guaracy still leaves Doria’s future in public life open – whether he will hear again “the siren song” that took him to the polls.

Chronology of Doria’s trajectory

• 20.mar.16 – João Doria is confirmed as the PSDB candidate to run for mayor of São Paulo after the withdrawal of Andrea Matarazzo
• 2.Oct.16 – In the first round, Doria defeats then-mayor Fernando Haddad (PT) with 53.29% of the valid votes
• 18.mar.18 – With more than 80% of the votes, Doria wins the toucan primaries to run for governor of the state of São Paulo. With that, he resigns as mayor with less than two years in office.
• 28.Oct.18 – In a narrow victory against Márcio França (PSB) in the second round, Doria is elected governor of the state in a campaign supported by then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), a strategy baptized by the campaign itself as Bolsodoria
• 27.Nov.21 – Doria defeats the former governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, in PSDB previews for the presidential race
• 23.May.22 – Down in the polls and pressured by the PSDB itself, Doria gives up the presidential race
• 19.Oct.22 – Doria announces his withdrawal from the PSDB after 22 years. “I end my party trajectory with my head held high. Proud of the contribution I was able to make to São Paulo and Brazil, thanks to the generosity and trust of all those who opted for my name in three primaries and two elections”, he wrote in a note.
• 9.Dec.22 – Ad published in newspapers by the PSDB extolling the party’s legacy in the state of São Paulo omits Doria’s flags when he was governor, such as pioneering the search for a vaccine against Covid-19, the depollution of the Pinheiros River and the renovation of the Ipiranga Museum