Fiesp Assembly approves removal of Josué Gomes from the presidency

Extraordinary Assembly of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo) held this Monday (16th) approved the removal of Josué Gomes da Silva from the presidency of the entity. The result, however, is already questioned by people connected to the businessman, who claim that the decision is not valid.

Voting took place at night, after hours of assembly – the meeting began at 2:30 pm. Representatives of 47 unions voted for dismissal, 2 abstained and 1 voted against, totaling 50 votes. At the start of the meeting, there were 89 delegates from 80 unions.

In all, Fiesp has 116 unions, of which 86 signed the request for the plenary to take place.

Joshua was among those absent at the time of voting. According to participants at the meeting, he left the assembly around 7 pm. Josué’s absence and the quorum at the time of voting are seen as problems for the validity of the decision.

Representatives of the opposition unions argue that the plenary session is valid. The opposition plans to register the minutes in a notary this Tuesday (17). If the dismissal is considered valid, the bylaws provide that the oldest vice president, Elias Miguel Haddad, will assume the position on an interim basis until the board meets.

Elected with 97% of the votes, Josué assumed the presidency of Fiesp in January 2022, replacing Paulo Skaf, who held the position for 17 years. For weeks now, the businessman has faced a rebellion by opposition unions who have criticized his management at the head of the entity.

Just last year, the entities sent Josué a list of questions that, in their assessment, justified the holding of the assembly.

Among the 12 points, there were questions such as the number of interviews given by him to talk about the industry and how many visits he made to the National Congress to debate industry agendas. At another time, those dissatisfied asked Josué Gomes to explain the activities carried out by some people in bodies linked to Fiesp, such as Sesi and Senai.

According to reports from people present at the assembly, a Fiesp contract with a consultancy linked to former BNDES president Luciano Coutinho, who is a councilor at the federation, was one of the points of contention between the current president and the opposition unions.

The composition of the departments and councils, pointed out by allies and opponents as a source of tension between the unions and Josué, also appears in the details of the request. For the opposition, Gomes should justify the participation or absence of unions in these spaces.

The unions’ questions also included the fact that Josué had signed, on behalf of Fiesp, a manifesto for democracy. Despite being non-partisan, the document was understood to be in opposition to then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) – of whom Skaf was an ally and supporter in the 2022 elections.

Josué is seen as close to Lula. He is the son of the former vice-president in Lula’s previous terms, José Alencar (who died in 2011), and was even invited to be Minister of Industry in the current administration — which he declined.

In one of his few interviews with journalists, Josué criticized Bolsonaro, marking a new political moment for the entity. At the beginning of its mandate, Fiesp criticized the increase in the basic interest rate and defended the need to “think beyond the Copom”.

Participants at the meeting report that the atmosphere was bad. For almost three hours, Josué defended himself from the questions that had been presented by the unions that opposed him and that requested the holding of the plenary. At the end, they voted if they considered the explanations satisfactory. The score stood at 24 votes in favor of his arguments, and 62 against.

In an attempt to demonstrate strength, the businessman received the vice president and minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) and former president Michel Temer (MDB) at the federation headquarters this Monday, for a meeting of the director of the entity.

Opposition leaders, however, saw the gesture as a sign of weakness. For a leader who voted for Josué’s dismissal, Fiesp has always received presidents, ministers and secretaries at its headquarters. In the year 2022, however, he criticizes what would have been the absence of these visits and agendas, in one of the criticisms made by the opposition to the management of Josué.

The election of the businessman for the presidency of the entity had already been troubled. The group led by José Ricardo Roriz, from the plastics industry, accused the electoral process of being run over, making it impossible to formalize its opposition ticket.

Skaf’s participation in the election was also disputed. In early 2020, the then leader of the São Paulo industry entity began to move to approve a change in the federation’s statute that would allow a new re-election —which would lead him to a fifth term.

Since his first election, in 2004, Skaf had approved two changes in the federation’s bylaws in order to be re-elected.

After the negative reaction when the movement became public, Skaf ended up backing down and announced support for Josué. The choice surprised by the political profile of the two.

Skaf was in charge of Fiesp when the federation installed a giant inflatable duck in front of the building on Avenida Paulista against the rise in taxes and the return of the CPMF in 2015. The duck was a kind of character in the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff ( PT).

In 2019, already during the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, Skaf approached the then president. Fiesp then came to be seen as a Bolsonarist entity.

Josué, on the other hand, came to be known as “Lula’s boy”. In 2018, when he was still affiliated with the PR, the same party as his father, the businessman was disputed by parties on the left and right, seen as a dream runner-up. Ciro Gomes (PDT) was one of those who tried to attract him to a ticket.

In addition to having his own resources to finance an electoral campaign, Josué has dialogue with the financial market and support in Minas Gerais, the second largest electoral college in the country. At the time, he said that he would not be a candidate because, at the head of Coteminas, he spent a lot of time outside Brazil. In 2014, he was a candidate for the Senate in Minas Gerais, but was not elected.