Senator leaves PSDB and says that party has become a moral dwarf – 01/29/2023 – Politics

The PSDB became a “moral runt”, not just a party with derisive benches close to what it had in the past. The assessment is of the most recent loss of the toucanate, Senator Mara Gabrilli (SP), who exchanged the acronym for Gilberto Kassab’s PSD after 19 years of militancy.

“I never even thought about joining another party, I’ve always been in the PSDB. All my inspirations are not closer to the party’s daily life”, he told the Sheet this Sunday (29). The toucans now have 3 senators and 13 federal deputies.

Gabrilli, 55, is now part of the largest bench in the Senate, which with the addition of her and Eliziane Gama (Cidadania-MA) reaches 15 names and exceeds the PL, which has 13 senators. Thank you for the re-election campaign of Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), who faces Rogério Marinho (PL-RN) next Wednesday (1st).

The senator suggests mixed feelings about her decision, anticipated by the Sheet. “I keep feeling toucan”, she said.

Before closing with Kassab, she asked the blessing of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, senator Tasso Jereissati (CE, who is now leaving office), former governor Yeda Crusius (RS) and also future former senator José Serra ( SP), with whom he started in public life when he was mayor of São Paulo.

Gabrilli says “to take a lot of love and gratitude” for the work in the PSDB, but he does not spare the leadership that has just fallen from the acronym, which was commanded by Bruno Araújo (PE). “I’ve already had several setbacks. After the last election, I was very disappointed with the way the party distributed resources to women. I saw candidates giving up”, she said.

She credits this both to the policy’s structural machismo and to Araújo’s centralization of resource distribution. “The party shrunk pretty much. And I always defended maintaining an independent posture, I don’t believe in the worse, the better. I’ve always been the opposition, but building. Then Bruno says that we would be the opposition”, she said.

The senator said she had not discussed her departure with the future president of the acronym, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite.

Candidate for vice president on the ticket of Simone Tebet (MDB), who had 4% of the votes in 2022, Gabrilli sees no contradiction in the history of disagreements he has with the PT and with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva —in the campaign, the Electoral Justice removed an interview in which it said that the PT had paid to avoid being associated with the murder of the mayor of Santo André Celso Daniel, in 2002.

The Celso Daniel case is dear to the senator, as her father was one of the transport businessmen who denounced having been extorted by the PT administration in the investigation into the kidnapping and death of the mayor.

The PSD is in Lula’s base, with three ministries, at the same time that it is central in the nominally opposition government of Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP). “I’m comfortable with myself. Brazil is aware of my clashes with the PT and Lula. But we are at a time when we need peace. It doesn’t matter what I feel or don’t feel for Lula. Congress,” he said.

“The growth of the PSD is a turnaround in Brazilian politics. It was a surprise the huge bench of the PL, which would bring a certain characteristic [ao Congresso, na esteira da votação do então presidente Jair Bolsonaro, que é da sigla]. Now, we have a party that is not in extremism either from there or from here, “he said.

She criticized the swelling of the ministry from 23 to 37 portfolios, even though part of this was done precisely to cover the PSD that she now integrates. “Lula started off making a mistake. And, if I really liked the creation of the folders for women and indigenous people, he reduced the staff of the secretariat that takes care of people with disabilities by half”, said she, quadriplegic since an accident in 1994.

“There are ways and ways of doing this. Rich machines, poor people,” he said. At the same time, she considers such pacification necessary, especially after the Brazilian Capitol on January 8th.

Regarding priorities, she lists tax reform, “fundamental to bring investments to Brazil”, guidelines already associated with her work with disabled people and women, and also health issues that are little commented on: access to medical cannabis and expanding access to caregivers. “

“I’m a quadriplegic and I’m a senator because I was able to have caregivers. We have a contingent of people with rare diseases, 15 million in the country, the elderly and people with severe disabilities, but who don’t have the money to pay for a caregiver,” she said.