Businessmen show frustration with third way at event in RS

Entrepreneurs present at an innovation event in Porto Alegre (RS) are already showing frustration regarding a third way capable of defeating Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in October.

Presidents of companies of different sizes heard by the Sheet avoided advancing on the position of the private sector in a likely second round between the current president and the PT leader. The former governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite (PSDB), however, is still mentioned as the preferred alternative that did not succeed.

Leite is on hold in Rio Grande do Sul, while the winner of the party primaries João Doria tries to grow in the polls for the Presidency. The gaucho is considering running for state government for the second time.

“Every entrepreneur wanted a third way, the upside economic would be the third way. We want a growing, solid middle class, a consumer class,” said Julio Mottin Neto, president of Grupo Panvel, the largest drugstore chain in the South of the country. “And one option was Eduardo Leite.”

“Brazil encourages little entrepreneurship. I never lost an employee because he opened a company, always because he went to work elsewhere,” he added.

Daniel Randon, president of the multinational transport sector Randon, says that polarization dominates the scenario. “Historically, it depends on how the economy is doing: GDP is not doing well and the population has no food on their plate, the opposition wins. But now it is very unexpected, we have many variables”, he said, without delving into what they are.

He says that the pandemic has included a new agenda in the industry, which is the need to support and encourage digital transformation, and that the government needs to embrace this.

Randon was impacted by the semiconductor and parts crisis with the lockdown in China, but tried to diversify its sources of supply to contain the crisis. In 2021, he had his best year, according to the president.

A businessman from one of Brazil’s largest multinationals, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the business community sees low hope in the third way because the parties have not managed to organize themselves, and now time is short.

Politics is no longer a subject on technology event stages, but at the South Summit Brazil debut, the organization took special care not to bring controversial topics to the presentations.

“The political agenda is not in the conversation of our ecosystem, of entrepreneurs. They want to know about business, ‘how will I be better tomorrow than today?’. Brazil needs an agenda of construction, of union, it needs to seek the dialogue”, said José Renato Hopf, president of the event.

The president of the conference in Madrid, María Benjumea, thanked Eduardo Leite very much. In an unpublished video, she spontaneously expressed “Eduardo Leite president”.

“São Paulo is spectacular, but it is important to give Porto Alegre a leading role when the government is concerned with putting a new important point on the map. South in the neck.

Entrepreneur Guilherme Enck, president of CapTable, investments, considers the innovation sector detached from national politics, but says that, in general, it is polarized like the rest of society.

“My opinion is that there is no third way, there are two poles. When we look at the farmer, he knows that he has already bought a side, when we look at workers in the industry, we see something more comparable with technology: if we made a stratification , an election within the technology segment, the stratum would look like the stratum of the rest of society.”

According to the latest Datafolha, when Sergio Moro (União Brasil) still intended to run, the third way languished in voting intentions.

As for Cezar Augusto Gehm, CEO of Piperun, of sales automation, the game is not yet over. “Regardless of who will be there, we already know the lines. We will hardly have a great regulatory impact on the ecosystem, people are safe, looking inside the companies”, he said.

Despite the tranquility a little inherent in the speech of technology entrepreneurs, he says that companies are holding the cash for the post-election moment.

Regulatory guidelines related to technology often depend on municipal governments and on the dialogue of city halls with state and federal entities. “It comes from the bottom up,” says Gehm.

The South Summit was held at Cais do Mauá – an area of ​​large warehouses in front of the Guaíba River, revitalized by the government and 22 companies to host the event. During three days, it gathered about 20 thousand people. The investment was approximately R$ 20 million, according to José Hopf, who founded Getnet in 2003, the country’s first unicorn.

The majority public is from the startup universe. The first day brought together names such as Guilherme Benchimol, from XP Investimentos, and presenter Luciano Huck.

Innovation secretaries from more than 20 states, the presidential candidate Simone Tebet (MDB) and politicians linked to the right, such as the Partido Novo and the PP, traveled along the Cais streets.

In addition to participating in the opening, when he was cheered, Eduardo Leite attended the Pier on Friday (6), when he stopped to take selfies with those present.

THE Sheetsaid that he is in the “condition of availability”, whether for an eventual reelection to the government of Rio Grande do Sul –which he denied that he would do it for a long time–, to the Presidency or even to no position.

“The resignation opens up all possibilities for me, it doesn’t take any away from me. I think it was clear that I had a space within the party itself, even with the caucuses. Doria himself had said that he could make room for someone who eventually had a better condition. , there was a space. Doria reveals that he wants to be the candidate, and has legitimacy by the priors conferred”, he says.

The ex-governor claims to be discussing with his political group, the party and other acronyms the path he can follow. He says that his biggest task is for Rio Grande do Sul “not to take steps back” and to see how it can contribute nationally.

“That story: the game only ends when it ends. So, we have until the deadline of the conventions to seek to promote an agglutination of forces to present an alternative to Brazil that breaks with this fratricidal polarization of people against people against each other”, he said. .

“Hard on the problem, soft on the people [pegue pesado com o problema e leve com as pessoas]since here at the event you have to speak English for a lot of things”, he concluded.

*The reporter traveled at the invitation of the ANK consultancy