Entrepreneurs reinforce engagement in the 2022 electoral debate

Ten months after what promises to be the most troubled election since redemocratization, the engagement of businessmen and investors in debates about national politics and the future of Brazil seems to have reached a level rarely seen, according to the evaluation of participants interviewed by leaf.

The movement started about a year ago, took shape during the second half of 2021 and is expected to intensify again from the end of this month.

“In more than 30 years of executive life, I have never seen this medium so mobilized”, says Fábio Barbosa, partner-counselor of Gávea Investimentos and former president of Santander and Real, in addition to Febraban. “It shows a much more intense concern and involvement with the country’s destiny than in previous years.”

Organizations funded by representatives of the private sector interested in contributing to the improvement of democracy and institutional politics have emerged over the last decade — some with the objective, including, of training new cadres. Examples include RAPS, created by a group of leaders headed by businessman Guilherme Leal, co-founder of Natura, and RenovaBR, owned by investor Eduardo Mufarej.

In the last year, however, what has been seen is the emergence of several informal groups, articulated by people dissatisfied with political polarization, the anti-democratic threats of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and the superficiality of public debate. They are investors, shareholders, executives and economists who promote private face-to-face meetings, Zoom meetings and WhatsApp conversations to learn more about the intricacies of politics, meet potential candidates and discuss issues related to the 2022 election.

Despite being very engaged behind the scenes, most of the businessmen consulted by the report preferred to remain anonymous. A shareholder who participates in several discussion groups says that the business community is afraid to express itself for fear of being persecuted by the current government, which he classifies as a nefarious presence.

In August 2021, Bolsonaro’s coup escalation provoked a rare explicit manifestation of several heavy names. The manifesto “Brazil will have elections and their results will be respected” was signed by figures not used to giving public opinions on politics, such as banker Pedro Moreira Salles, investor Fersen Lambranho and Ana Lucia Villela, shareholder of Itaúsa and founder of Instituto Alana.

In the following months, several signatories of the manifesto were involved in an intense agenda of meetings around the need to articulate a third way candidacy. The organizer of a debate group says that there were no conversations only with Bolsonaro, because he understands that there is no possible dialogue with the president, nor with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) — in this case, the justification is the refusal to give stage to the PT.

Interlocutors such as former Minister of Health Luiz Henrique Mandetta, senators Rodrigo Pacheco and Simone Tebet, governors Eduardo Leite and João Doria, PSD president Gilberto Kassab, Ciro Gomes, Sergio Moro circulated among the interlocutor groups.

A businessman present in several of these conversations says that a message the group sought to convey to potential candidates was: give up your candidacy if you don’t do well in the polls and support someone in better conditions.

At the beginning of the year, while many representatives of the GDP already consider the clash between Bolsonaro and Lula in October as likely, several leaders are still betting on the possibility of an alternative.

These businessmen claim that, regardless of the results of the polls — the latest Datafolha survey, on December 16, showed Lula with 48% of voting intentions and Bolsonaro with 22% — there is room for news until March or April, the deadline for the articulations between parties and possible candidates.

“We still have three decisive months ahead, it’s not time to throw in the towel”, says Horacio Lafer Piva, shareholder of Klabin, a paper and cellulose manufacturer, and former president of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo). “The time is to hold back anxiety, read the movements of the parties and discuss not the candidates we have or don’t have, but the proposals we want to have — from those who are there or from others.”

Lafer says that, in the groups in which he participates, the only consensus so far is the “no” to Bolsonaro. “The fact that he is losing his base of support makes room for alternatives.”

“The game is not played”, says Fábio Barbosa. “One thing is the time of the media and the financial market, another is the time of politics and parties.

“For the first semester, another priority is the sewing of ideas that can influence the pre-election political debate – like what the Rio Meeting group did, articulated by presenter Luciano Huck, who launched 22 proposals for Brazil in December past.

“We need to have the chance to have a deeper discussion about the country”, says Pedro Passos, co-chairman of Natura’s board of directors. “As long as there is polarization, good debate does not happen.

“Passos says that, in addition to the growing mobilization of business leaders, in recent years there has been an effervescence of “good formulations about Brazil”. He cites the work of economists such as Armínio Fraga and Bernard Appy and groups such as the CDPP (Center of Public Policy Debates), chaired by economist Persio Arida.

A businessman who requested anonymity says that, although there are people prepared and with good ideas, there is a lack of someone with the ability to bring these proposals together and present them in a way that appeals to the voter’s heart.

In this context, a group that has been gaining ground and is praised for the quality of the people it has managed to bring together is Derrubando Muros, coordinated by businessman and sociologist José César Martins. About to complete two years of existence, it is currently made up of 96 people from different areas and profiles —about 30% are entrepreneurs— who work voluntarily to build an “ambition agenda” for Brazil. In 2021, it held more than 40 meetings.

“We are not a technical-scientific group, but a civic-political initiative that works in the curatorship and in the construction of syntheses on critical themes for the country, as well as in the distribution of this knowledge”, says Martins. The group includes economists such as Armínio Fraga and André Lara Resende, education specialists such as Priscila Cruz, co-founder of Todos pela Educação, and former minister Cristovam Buarque, environmentalists and Amazon specialists such as Beto Veríssimo, from Imazon, Tasso Azevedo, from MapBiomas. , and Ana Toni, from Instituto Clima e Sociedade.

“Our society is one of peace, but not passive”, says the document presenting the initiative. The coming months will show the ability of this and other groups to influence the country’s future.