It has slightly trembling hands and fragile voice. Alongside the nurse, the former 94-year-old president walks with difficulty. The mustache strands, trimmed with care, are completely white.
On the other hand, his reasoning remains sharp as well as the conciliatory spirit. In the living room of his home in Brasilia, decorated with paintings from artists such as and, or in the large balcony, from where you see Lake Paranoá, Sarney often receives friends from the most varied political spectra, from the president (PT) to the former president ().
By the time the report arrived to interview him, in the late afternoon of the 7th, Sarney spoke by phone to former president of Uruguay. Sanguinetti told him that he intended to go to the event of tribute to the politician of Maranhão this Saturday, the 15th, in Brasilia.
On March 15, 1985, with the hospitalization of, head of the plate elected two months earlier at the Electoral College, it was up to the vice, Sarney, to assume the presidency. He imagined that Tancredo would occupy the post a few days later, but after seven surgeries, the Minas Gerais friend died on April 21.
With a whole ministry chosen by Tancredo, Sarney should lead the transition from to democracy. “I was a president marked to be deposed, like many others in the history of Brazil,” he said.
In the interview, he says he regrets criticism of Juscelino Kubitschek, recalls the depression he had in the 1980s and comments on the accusations of favoring deputies to approve his five -year term. It also remembers the relationship with the military, analyzes the reasons for having a negative outcome and criticizes the lack of leaders in Brazil today.
How is the health of sr.?
I am really well. Thank God, I am surviving well.
In 1984 and 1985, there was a lot of resistance for mr. integrate the plate with Tancredo?
Almost no resistance. The Aurelian [Chaves, vice de João Figueiredo, com quem rompeu] He almost imposed me as a vice presidential candidate, he said that without Sarney there was no democratic alliance.
After I renounced PDS [partido que apoiava a ditadura]I thought it would have no presence in national politics. But from then on, Ulysses was insisting on me so I would accept to support Tancredo. We then made a group: me, Aureliano, Marco Maciel.
Did Aureliano have a great weight in this decision?
It had a great weight, forced me to accept. So that I wasn’t just a candidate for Aureliano, Tancredo ordered me to Minas Gerais and said that if I did not accept, he would not resign to the Minas Gerais [para se candidatar à Presidência no Colégio Eleitoral].
He knew I had a great influence on the PDS and really with our PDS delegates, we won the Tancredo election. Without our participation, he would have no number to be elected by the electoral college.
In, journalist Regina Echeverria says that mr. It was about a depression at this time.
I had a depression, but I overcome this problem quickly. This is the worst disease in the world because it is a soul disease, not the body.
What is the strongest memory than mr. Do you have from Tancredo?
I was a friend of Tancredo since Rio de Janeiro, when I was a federal deputy [na segunda metade dos anos 1950]. Without much intimacy, but with a reasonable level of approach.
I participated in the vice-leader of Carlos Lacerda. Afonso Arinos was the one who launched my name for vice-leadership. He had a connection with all those most important UDN men, such as Adauto Lúcio Cardoso, Aliomar Baleeiro and Bilac Pinto.
Mr. It was opposed to Tancredo in this era?
Yes, Tancredo was from PSD, and I, from UDN.
UDN made a great opposition to Kubitscheck [também PSD]and I was very unfair to him. Well later, Juscelino was revoked during the period when I was governor of Maranhão. He went to Maranhão, and I offered him a lunch. Juscelino told me that he entered the bottom of the Freedom Palace in Belo Horizonte. The then governor of Minas did not want him to enter the front door so as not to compromise him to the “revolution” [ditadura militar]. They called the “revolution”.
Mr. talked about the 1950s Tancredo. And the 1980s Tancredo?
After I left the presidency [do PDS]Tancredo visited me to ask me to support him and then called me to Minas Gerais. But during this period, I had a greater relationship with Ulysses, who made a great catechesis with me. I say that Ulysses dated me two months for this position [risos].
What was the main challenge in these first moments in the presidency?
I didn’t want to take over the presidency, I wanted to wait for Tancredo [que estava hospitalizado]. There was a need to assume because everyone thought, including Ulysses and Tancredo, that after such a big fight to reach that moment, if we had any doubt about who would assume, we would risk a big risk of having a problem. Walter Pires, who was Army Minister…
From Figueiredo, isn’t it?
From Figueiredo. When, Ulysses and were with him to report that I would take over the presidency, Walter Pires said he would immediately go to barracks to avoid my possession. Figueiredo thought it should be Ulysses. At that moment we ran the danger of having a return from the assumption of the military.
My first challenge was to legitimize myself as President of the Republic. All the time, I had to do a political engineering process that would ensure the democratic transition. I was a president marked to be deposed, like many others in the history of Brazil.
Ulysses said that we could not let it have any problems because we were already in the transition process, which would complete themselves with the assumption of a civilian to the presidency. We could not give rise to the military to resume power.
Was it hard to deal with the military?
No, it was very easy because I had Leonidas Pires Gonçalves, the best army minister we ever had. As soon as I assumed, I gathered the army minister and the generals and said I would rule with two guidelines.
The first: Every commander had a duty to ensure his subordinates. I was the commander in chief, who would watch over my subordinates was me. I didn’t want the day order with subliminal messages. I wanted them to take [eventuais insatisfações] To the Army Minister and I, as President, was the one who would defend them. The military was very afraid of revanchism [dos civis].
One of the most difficult moments during the construction of the transition was the law of amnesty, and we amnesty both sides.
And the other guideline: the transition would be made with the military, not against the military.
Was there a moment in its five years in the presidency that thought the transition was at risk?
We had many periods of this nature. Unfortunately I cannot reveal everyone because many of the people who were participating in this time have died. That would be a motivation to deal with the dead, which I wouldn’t want to do.
During his term, the Constitution was promulgated. Almost 40 years later, how do you evaluate it?
It was the possible constitution, but it has been able to cross all our difficulties. Among the most serious, the two impeachments [Collor e Dilma] and the .
I would tell Ulysses that we needed to make the constitution because it would be the structure of our democratic project. And this constitution came out, which may not have been the best, but it was the possible.
Was democracy under threat on January 8?
I was sure that Brazil’s armed forces would never engage in such a process.
At the time of the Constitution, mr. He was accused of favoring parliamentarians with public resources to vote for his five -year term.
That was fake news, as they say today. They said that I had granted some TV stations through, who was the Minister of Communications. But after me, they made three, four times more TV concessions.
I was abdicating a year from my term. I made a mistake, which went to follow the president [Eurico Gaspar] Dutra. He was six years old and, when the 1946 constitution, abdicated one and was five years old. With that, everyone was very pleased.
In my case, it was different. I was six years old, I abdicated one and everyone thought I wanted another year in office. They wanted me to lose another year in office, and I didn’t accept it.
We were not prepared to have a presidential succession at that time. They [os parlamentares] They didn’t know, but I knew we would have institutional problems.
What kind of problem?
We had many presidential candidates, and at that time the Armed Forces did not accept.
Why the cross plan started well, but didn’t it work?
First because it didn’t have the support you should have internally. The crusader was a courageous, heroic decision because I abandoned the classic formula of making the recession to have a new conceptualization. I had no political power to endure a recession. I would be inevitably deposed.
But the crusader was not only an economic plan, it was also political because it made it possible for us to make the House and Senate benches, as well as the governors, who secured the democratic transition. With this, we managed to approve the constituent, which was very difficult.
What mr. Do you think about the complaint against former President Jair Bolsonaro and dozens of people?
I have as a rule, as it is my shape, neither censor my predecessors nor my successors. This subject is being tried. Now the depredation of the three powers was a terrible thing. Justice can and should punish.
How do you see President Lula’s third term?
No one rules the time they governs. Many times, we governs in time of abundance, sometimes of scarcity, of external problems. Lula lives the circumstances of this time he is ruling. They are not the same as he ruled in the first and second terms.
But I think Lula has been an excellent president. In the first and second terms, it was extraordinary. In the third term, it is doing well too. It is only facing problems that did not exist during the previous mandates.
On the other hand, the political part is very needy of leaders. The men of that time [antes de 1964]who exercised strong leaders, who supported the presidents, these men disappeared.
I think this was the result of a decision of the 64 movement, which extinguished the political parties and thus cut the school of training of the leaders. When I started, the leadership we had in Rio was, after, then Aliomar Baleeiro, Adauto Lúcio Cardoso … They were very expressive people. I’m talking about my case [na UDN].
In the PSD, the other side, too,, Lucio Bittencourt. Today’s leaders do not inspire an authority capable of imposing decisions on the political class according to the public interest.
On the left and right?
The left frames are very weak. And the right -wing ones are even weaker. We are in a very large phase of leaders.
What did you think of “I’m still here”?
It is a work of art, with an extraordinary performance of. She managed to interpret the soul of. I met him was contemporary mine, an extremely pleasant man. He showed none of those things he was accused by. It was a great wronged at that time.
Finally, like mr. Want to be remembered?
As the president who made the democratic transition in Brazil, who has managed to implement a lasting democratic regime, is the longest period of our history without any gap [de autoritarismo].
And this thanks to the performance I had in the presidency, of conciliator, of man of dialogue, who always believed in democratic institutions. In short, I would say that democracy has not died in my hands and continues in an extraordinary way, being the second democracy in the western world.
