Former governor of Minas Gerais, former senator, federal deputy and defeated candidate in the 2014 presidential election, (), 64, says that “the winds have changed”.
“I think the movement today is not about strengthening the extremes, as it was in the last two [2018 e 2022]. The movement today is a certain migration to the center”, he tells Sheet after municipal elections in which parties from the center emerged victorious while the de and candidates supported by () failed.
The deputy states that the PSDB needs to talk “without prejudice with those who want to get rid of radicalism”. In other words, with sectors that reject Lula and Bolsonaro and even with parties that are part of the PT government out of pragmatism and not conviction.
“It may be a utopia, but my hope is that the extremes will lose strength. And then we have to be positioned to reunite these forces in the center, the same ones that made me almost win the 2014 elections”, he adds, who is betting on attrition ” of the far right and the government”.
The deputy himself says he doesn’t know if this field will be available, but he defined his role: “Talk to these forces that were once at our side, trying to rebuild the center.”
According to him, Brazil needs a conciliatory project and, he says, talking about a presidential candidacy now inhibits these conversations.
“At the end of next year [2025] or at the beginning of the following [2026]Let’s see what muscle we can get, who is it? It may be from the PSDB, but it may not be from the PSDB.”
When asked what he will compete for in 2026, Aécio responds that he loses legitimacy in the construction of a project if he puts his own name on it.
He, however, differentiates between what he calls the center and the physiological center. “The PSDB is different because the PSDB did not participate in either government or another. We are the only child in this. […] I still think that the PSDB is essential to Brazil”, he points out.
He says he is aware that he had an opportunity in 2014. “I’m sorry for myself, but I’m sorry for Brazil too, without any lack of modesty, because there Brazil took a turn, everything that happened post-election ended up somehow affecting politics and me personally.”
“I want to speak again to the 51 million Brazilians who voted for me to say: my God, we cannot succumb to this. This electorate cannot be pendulum. It goes against Lula because the wear and tear was great, now it goes against Bolsonaro So? What are you building? People need to believe that a project in the center is viable”, says the deputy.
Rehabilitated after being accused of passive corruption in the JBS case, Aécio is back in the game.
At the head of the Teotônio Vilela Institute, linked to the PSDB, he has led initiatives to reposition the party as a leading player in the opposition to the PT and, close to the president of Tucano, participates in top-level decisions.
He says that the PSDB needs to “rescue the DNA of opposition to the PT, but it is not an opposition that scolds, calls people a thief, it is an opposition that shows the government’s mistakes.”
In the deputy’s opinion, the PSDB made a mistake in 2022 by having “subordinated the national interest to the interest of “.
“The megalomania and egocentrism of the former governor [] led to the biggest collapse in the history of the PSDB. The outcome of MDB’s candidacy didn’t matter. They wanted to elect the person in São Paulo, who is not even in the party today.”
The PSDB, which ended with 2% in 2024.
With only 13 federal deputies elected in 2022 and 274 mayors elected this year, the PSDB alone, in Aécio’s words, “is not in a position to lead an electorally viable project today.”
The deputy, however, avoids mentioning specific politicians or parties that could come together and does not rule out a tucana presidential candidacy for the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, who tried this path in 2022.
“Milk is of very high quality. His name will always be mentioned. But it has to emerge as the result of a broader political articulation than the PSDB”, he observes.
Regarding (Republicans), Aécio says it is more likely that the governor of São Paulo will run for re-election.
“But we have to talk to him too, you know? To strengthen the center. If he makes clear moves towards the center, we have to talk. Tarcísio tries to position himself in a broader way, tries to be broader than Bolsonarism.”
Regarding (Novo), another opposition governor tipped for the Presidency, Aécio states that he is “a good man, but he is light years away from understanding what he is.”
“Zema has its virtues, but it is a government that leaves no legacy, does not have the slightest political articulation and at most will leave a footnote in the history of Minas”, he adds.
In his sixth term as deputy and after having presided over the Chamber from 2001 to 2002, Aécio says that “the plenary has become an unhealthy place, that’s all.” “I think Brazil is looking for this project where hatred is replaced by conciliation.”
Another aspect he noticed in Congress is that “many people who were elected in the shadow of Bolsonarism are already thinking that this is not convenient for the next election.”
Regarding the suspect of participation in , Aécio states that it is “serious to attack democracy or allow it to be attacked”.
“It’s something that has to be punished. We have to wait for the Attorney General’s Office to delve deeper into all these investigations that the Federal Police carried out to define the extent of each person’s participation.”
Focused on rescuing the anti-PT supporters who migrated to Bolsonaro and now reject him, Aécio says that the ghost of recent years was the automatic classification of anti-PT supporters as Bolsonaro supporters and anti-Bolson supporters as leftists.
“You can be against one or the other, like I am. Or you succumb to one of the two,” he says, adding that he doesn’t put Lula and Bolsonaro on the same page. “They are completely different figures in their history, in their commitment to the country.”
