June 13 united Haddad and Alckmin and removed PT from Dilma – 05/29/2023 – Politics

On June 11, 2013, the then mayor of São Paulo, Fernando Haddad (PT), was in Paris with governor Geraldo Alckmin (then PSDB, today PSB) when the São Paulo capital was the scene of the third of a series of protests against the bus fare that would take over the country.

In Europe, the two defended São Paulo’s candidacy to host Expo 2020 and, the day before, they sang the song “Trem das Onze” by Adoniran Barbosa alongside Daniela Mercury.

The act of that day 11 was the most violent until then, in a foreshadowing of what would characterize the manifestations that would come to follow, also marked by police violence.

From that protest came the image of a bloodied policeman after being attacked, holding a demonstrator and pointing a gun at another group, which would become one of the emblematic photos of that period.

Alckmin and Haddad were surprised by the evolution of the marches, which began on June 6th. So they decided to set up a crisis office in a room at the Brazilian embassy in France to receive reports and try to manage the situation from a distance.

There, in the French capital, a rapprochement was sealed between Haddad and Alckmin, then political opponents, which would pave the way for the former mayor to articulate the candidacy of the former toucan for the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, alongside Lula (PT) .

Just as it served to unite political rivals, the June 2013 protests were marked by friction between Haddad and the then President of the Republic, Dilma Rousseff (PT), who accused each other of responsibility for the escalation of the protests.

The three experienced turmoil in their political careers after the demonstrations. Haddad failed to be re-elected in 2016. Alckmin won in 2014, but saw his projection decrease after the end of the government, while he was also the target of wear and tear by Lava Jato. Dilma was impeached — fueled, among other things, by several protests after the Jornadas de Junho.

In 2013, the climate between the PT and the then mayor was icy, according to aides close to the two. Ten years later, the three actors are united again in the same government — in addition to the action to elect Lula president, they once again coexisted politically, this time in the same administration.

The events of that time, however, marked out the relationship between them, according to reports from ten people close to the politicians and heard by the report.

The relationship between Alckmin and Haddad established in that period, for example, is no longer just cordial and is now described by allies as one of mutual trust.

Haddad’s allies say that, right at the beginning of the wave of protests, the then governor told the then mayor that he would support him in the decisions to try to mitigate the acts, whether to keep the tariff value at R$ 3.20 or to withdraw —returning to BRL 3.

This does not mean, however, that there were no disagreements in the period.

An episode that generated noise was when Haddad asked Alckmin to change the commander-general of the São Paulo PM after protesters tried to invade the city hall and the police did not act firmly to contain the crowd. The request was not granted.

According to a PT interlocutor, this was read as a message from the uniforms who had been bothered by Haddad’s statements, who had criticized the PM’s violence in the repression of protests days before.

After 13 days since the first demonstration, on June 19, the two politicians announced together, at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, that they would withdraw from the increase in fares. Earlier that day, Haddad spoke on the phone with the then mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.

“‘I will not hold [o preço da tarifa], you will be alone’, the mayor of Rio told me. The internal pressure on us was already reaching unbearable levels and the phone call was the last straw”, narrated Haddad in an article in Piauí magazine, in June 2017.

For a Haddad ally, the joint announcement reveals more about the relationship he had with Dilma than with Alckmin. In the assessment of this ally, the message was that they were there together because it was the former toucan who was close to Haddad throughout the process — unlike Dilma.

An interlocutor of the ex-president points out that, even among people close to Dilma, the distance imposed by her on her coreligionist caused some concern.

At the time, the president tried to get Haddad to withdraw from the tariff readjustment, considering that the problem was initially restricted to São Paulo. The mayor, in turn, believed that the claims were going beyond ticket prices and therefore resisted lowering the fare.

Allies of the PT supporter also claim that the former Secretary of Education, Gabriel Chalita, helped in the rapprochement with Alckmin, which led to a series of criticisms of Haddad within the PT, who is reputed to be “the most toucan of PT supporters”.

Haddad and Dilma, who lived together when he was Lula’s Minister of Education and she was Minister of the Civil House, and then when the PT candidate was already president of the country, had fallen out days before the PT candidate took office as mayor of São Paulo, in December 2012.

As Haddad himself reports in an article in Piauí, that month, he had a meeting with Dilma at the Planalto Palace. At the time, the president asked him to hold the readjustment of bus fares, which would take place in January, until June 2013, to avoid impacts on inflation. So it was done.

A PT ally told the Sheet that Haddad left the meeting physically shaken and said, in an alarmist tone, that he was afraid his mandate would not work out.

According to people close to both, the relationship between the two, after Dilma left the government, remained respectful and improved, but it is not close. Haddad sang the chorus of peers against the impeachment of the PT and she, in turn, campaigned for him to be elected president of the Republic in 2018.

Already in 2023, after Lula decided to nominate Dilma to chair the Brics bank, Haddad supported and articulated to make the appointment concrete.

Among the three characters, Alckmin is treated as the one least involved in controversies in 2013. His relationship with Dilma is described as formal, institutional and uneventful.

Unlike Haddad, Alckmin endorsed the defense of the PT’s impeachment. Throughout the 2022 presidential campaign, however, the two exchanged mutual cuddling.

In a Saturday interview, Alckmin stated that he disagrees with the narrative that what happened was a “coup”, but said that the process was “unfair” and that he always maintained good relations with the PT.

At a campaign event, Dilma praised the partnership she had with Alckmin during her government, stating that she had the honor of sharing with the former toucan “the exercise of a function that in Brazil was completely forgotten”.

The three politicians were approached by the report, through their press offices.

Alckmin told Sheet who maintained dialogue with both in the demonstrations in the sense of “welcoming the demands without letting the state be paralyzed”. “Those episodes strengthened the ties I have with both of them,” he said.

Personally, the vice-president stated that June 2013 reinforced the premise that dialogue should “always be valued”. Asked about the impact of the demonstrations on the country’s political life, the vice president replied that Brazil “every day, with every shock, has been strengthening democracy.”

Alckmin also considers that the demonstrations did not harm his political life. “They brought learning, strengthened the regime. In my case, I was re-elected in 2014 still in the first round.”

In a note, Haddad said that “he considers having already said everything he thinks about at the time of the events”.

Dilma did not respond.

Brazilian politics after June Journeys

Cup on target
Acts against the 2014 World Cup criticized public spending on the event and the lack of infrastructure in the country.

electoral division
Despite the aftermath of June 2013 and poor economic performance, Dilma was re-elected with 51.6% of valid votes against Aécio Neves (PSDB), in the tightest race to date since 1989.

Wash (and Empty) Jet
Lava Jato, which started in March 2014, led to the arrest of senior businessmen and politicians, including then-former President Lula, in April 2018. The operation came into check after leaks of dialogues that exposed controversial methods of the task force involving the then judge Sergio Moro and then prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol

streets against Dilma
The economic recession has melted support for Rousseff, leading to street protests and impeachment pots. After the initiative of the then president of the Chamber, Eduardo Cunha, the process for the crime of fiscal responsibility advanced in Congress, and the then president was definitively removed from the Planalto on August 31, 2016

truck drivers on strike
Under Michel Temer, Petrobras’ pricing policy changed, leading to higher prices for gasoline and diesel in 2018 and causing thousands of truck drivers to stop work, with roadblocks and scenes of shortages across the country.

Bolsonaro’s stab and victory in 2018
In a campaign act in Juiz de Fora (MG), Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed. He ended up elected president less than two months later, putting the right in power after four consecutive elections won by PT.

Pandemic, and impeachment in the drawer
In 2021, protesters took to the streets asking for Bolsonaro to leave, driven by denialist behavior in the Covid crisis and by allegations of corruption in the purchase of vaccines. The mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), chose not to analyze the more than 150 impeachment requests

2022 elections and anti-democratic acts
When running for re-election against Lula, Bolsonaro tried to discredit the electoral system, and the presidential race took place in an atmosphere of radicalization. Lula was victorious, but Bolsonarists did not accept the result and started blocking roads and camps in front of Army barracks calling for a coup

January 8, 2023
Headquarters of the three Powers are the target of coup attacks by Bolsonarists, motivating the creation of a CPI to investigate acts and complaints to the STF against more than a thousand people