Analysis: After ‘salute’, part of the economic elite, intellectuals and activists prepare movement in support of Tebet

Simone Tebet has received support from a certain elite that was once a tucana, who was part of the governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2002) or has the characteristics of the group of politicians, intellectuals, businessmen and executives who founded the PSDB at the end of the 1980s. In the party, this toucanate is practically extinct, although Tasso Jereissati is one of Tebet’s supporters and the preferred name for the vice post.

This group is about to launch a kind of explicit manifesto for the candidacy of the senator from Mato Grosso do Sul, the MDB’s pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. The idea is, at least, to prevent the election from being reduced too soon to two candidates.

A week ago, people from this group launched what they called a “salute” to Tebet’s name as another option for the Plateau dispute. João Doria was still a pre-candidate for the PSDB and at least some organizers of the manifest did not want to close doors to names of what was called “Third Way”.

The “manifesto”, published on the Change.org platform, was called “Vamos Reconstruir o Brasil”, had more than 4,200 signatures this Thursday and was reported by the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo. It read the following about its authors: “We are a collective in support of Senator Simone Tebet’s pre-candidacy for the presidency.”

The now explicit support group for Simone Tebet is not a “businessmen’s movement”, as they say, because there is no such thing. There are very different groups of “entrepreneurs” (or financiers, executives of large companies, etc.), with different political affiliations (such as Bolsonaristas) or disparate interests.

By the way, the pro-Tebet group has very different ideas from those of confederations or larger employers’ associations in agribusiness or industry, due to radical divergences in relation to environmental policies or reforms (the group is much more liberalizing than the standard industrialist), ” customs” (are liberal) and emphasize “social concerns”.

Silent majority would be ‘satisfied’ with dispute between Lula and Bolsonaro

Furthermore, as one ex-president of a large bank puts it, not at all connected to the pro-Tebet people, most “businessmen” are “neutral” (or “missing or interested only in the mere success of their business”, as a pro-Tebet businessman), does not want to associate his business with this or that candidacy. More than that, this majority would be “conformed” with the “politically realistic” hypothesis that the final dispute will be between Lula da Silva (PT) and Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In the banker’s words, this silent majority expects at least a second round to take place. For what reason? If there is a second round of voting, there would be a greater possibility for the finalist candidates to present clearer proposals and seek alliances, political, social and economic. “It makes it easier to have some more serious agreement about what to do with the country,” he says.

A businessman who is in the organization of the pro-Tebet manifestos says that his group includes “8 or 10 groups of people who chat via Whatsapp or meet at dinners” that are more political. He emphatically says that they work to avoid the idea that the election is set and to give “visibility” to alternatives.

why isn’t it [definida, a eleição]because there is still a long time to go, because the people have not yet started to think seriously about who will vote and because the elections are being decided more and more late, he explains, criticizing the “conformism” of “many people in the country, even the media and journalists” with a dispute reduced to Lula and Bolsonaro.

Furthermore, he continues, it would be very bad for the country if there is no debate. For him, Lula and Bolsonaro want to put an end to the alternatives and reduce the election to a mere confrontation of choices between candidates that you dislike less. The businessman says he expects “some serious discussion of what to do with the country” and considers Tebet a “big name”.

Artists, environmentalists and scientists participate in pro-Tebet movement

The first text of sympathy for Tebet would have been articulated by Teresa Bracher and businesswoman Marisa Moreira Salles. According to some of its organizers, it was motivated by a dinner on April 28, organized by Teresa at her home (which is also that of her husband Candido Bracher, former president of Itaú), partly at the initiative of Elena Landau, from the Livres, once a tucana, who was part of the FHC government and now coordinates Tebet’s program.

Neither the first manifesto sympathetic to Tebet, and even less the second, of adhesion, is a “movement of businessmen”, say its organizers. It would, of course and obviously, have “businessmen”, executives, people at the top of finance, but alongside environmentalists, representatives of indigenous peoples, people of culture (theater, cinema), economists, scientists.

Teresa Bracher has environmental concerns, militates in the cause, for example; Marisa Moreira Salles, among other interests, has urbanistic concerns and the social problem of housing. Organizers of the second pro-Tebet manifesto say economists or other professionals who worked on the João Doria and Sergio Moro programs are joining the group that supports the MDB senator.

In the most ironic saying of a financier who must sign the second manifesto, after Bolsonarismo, it is difficult to “clean the name of liberalism” and even more so of those who say they are ‘right wing’. Laughing, he comments that it is necessary to show that there are “civilized people in the country, even among the economic elite”. In all seriousness, he adds that public debate, outside the usual restricted world, is half dead in the country.

Among the signatories of the first manifesto were Armínio Fraga (who highlights the diversity of the group that prepared the text, which was led by two women), economist Eliana Cardoso, executive Maria Silvia Bastos Marques, Landau, economist and financial executive Henri Philippe Reichstul, financier Luís Stuhlberger, Candido Bracher, Pedro Wongtchowski, from the Ultra group, Fábio Barbosa, former president of Santander.

Not infrequently, it was possible to see many of these and other signatories of the “manifesto” at meetings at the Instituto FHC, or, until some time ago, at meetings between mothers and fathers (or grandparents) at Colégio Santa Cruz, the São Paulo elite, or at Santo Inácio, from Rio, or similar. On a less picturesque note, several of the first signatories and organizers of the manifesto sympathetic to Tebet and the second, of explicit support, have already signed other public letters in the years of Bolsonaro’s government.

For example, they headed the letter from March of last year in which they asked for effective and rational measures to combat the epidemic (also signed by Roberto Setubal and Pedro Moreira Salles, co-chairmen of the Board of Itaú Unibanco. Pedro is married to Marisa Moreira Salles, articulator of the pro-Tebet letter). Several of the pro-Tebet group were among the first signatories of last year’s August letter defending the Brazilian electoral system. They organized a letter delivered to Arthur Lira (PP-AL) in June 2021 against setbacks in the environmental area. Etc.

Has the pro-Tebet group already agreed with the Russians, with the MDB summit? A good part of the party does not believe in Tebet’s success or has already disbanded for Lula or Bolsonaro. One organizer of the thing says he sees “positive manifestations” from big party people. Another says the movement “is more of a civil society thing.” In short, the group’s contact with the MDB’s political machine is minimal.