It was a mistake to support Bolsonaro, says truck driver Chorão

One of the main leaders of the 2018 truck drivers’ strike, Wallace Landim, aka Chorão, says he regrets having supported President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), after Petrobras announced a mega-increase in the price of gasoline, cooking gas and mainly diesel.

“I supported Bolsonaro, campaigned for him, and for free. I received the commendation of merit for Mauá, the greatest merit of transport that exists in Brazil, for the services provided to transport. And, in all sincerity, I no longer work for him, I don’t vote for him. Everything he promised us, he didn’t deliver”, says Landim.

He considers, however, that it will not be necessary to call a stoppage at the moment, since the country will stop “automatically”, in the face of the impossibility of transport activities.

Two other representatives of truck drivers heard by the sheetJosé Roberto Stringasci, from ANTB (National Transport Association of Brazil), and Carlos Alberto Dahmer, from CNTTL (National Confederation of Transport and Logistics Workers) confirmed their intention not to call for any strike in the category.

Like Chorão, they consider that this is a problem for the whole of society and, therefore, they intend to participate and attract interested parties for civil society demonstrations against the Bolsonaro government’s fuel price policy.

“We will not speak as truck drivers, but as Brazilians, since this problem affects all of us”, says Stringasci, from ANTB, who plans to hold a meeting this Friday in São Paulo to discuss what to do from now on.

For Dahmer, from CNTTL, the problem affects everyone in the country. “It is a crime against the Brazilian people. It has advanced from the horrible to the terrifying, there is no worse situation than this, with the policy that came from the Temer government, of parity in relation to the quotations of the North American currency. profit to shareholders”, says Dahmer, whose association brings together around 800,000 transport and self-employed workers across the country.

For the representative of the CNTTL, about 70% of the self-employed truck drivers category voted for Bolsonaro – although he claims that this is not the case for him. “But now it has dropped a lot, even though about 30% are still determined to vote again this year,” says Dahmer.

Landim, now president of Abrava (Brazilian Association of Motor Vehicle Drivers), considers that Bolsonaro indicated at that time that he intended to change the so-called policy of parity of international prices, which almost automatically transmits to the fuel pumps the increase in oil in the market. International.

“Bolsonaro had a narrative that he was going to do something for the price of fuel. When we stopped working, a video came out shortly afterwards supporting that act, saying that if he were president, he would really mess with it. He put Castello Branco (in the presidency) of Petrobras) with this narrative. He put Luna (General Joaquim Silva e Luna, current president of the state-owned company) with this narrative. And did it improve? It got worse”, says Landim.

For the truck driver, it was a mistake to support candidate Bolsonaro. “I shouldn’t have supported it in 2018, but we had a stance to bring a change to the country, with a very important weapon at this moment that are social networks”, says the former truck driver, today dedicated to representing the category.

“Everyone is suffering, not just truck drivers. The population is not able to eat, cannot buy cooking gas, which is already worth more than 10% of the minimum wage”, says Landim.

As alternatives, Landim supports the creation of a fund to stabilize fuel prices, putting an end to the current pricing policy. And the direct hiring of truck drivers, which would serve, according to him, to remove the “middlemen” (carriers and shippers), improving the margin of truck drivers.

In the first case, however, the agenda faced opposition from Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy). And, in the second, what he considers the inaction of Minister Tarcísio Freitas (Infrastructure).

Landim says the PEC (Constitutional Amendment Project) on Fuels is positive, which reduces ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services) collection, although he considers it a patch, not a definitive solution.

“We have a government today that keeps transferring responsibility. As was done in the PEC (Constitutional Amendment Project) on Fuels, it was going to be voted on yesterday, but it was removed from the agenda. It says it will enter today, but anyway it’s a palliative. In the text (of the PEC) it says it would reduce by 30%, but only today there was an increase of 25%. It doesn’t solve the situation, and we are desperate.”, he says.