The governor of Mato Grosso do Sul, said that Brazil has changed. The sentence, given in a speech earlier this week, served as justification to change the, where he remained for two decades, for the PP, now in a federation with União Brasil. Riedel was the last toucan in the leadership of a state. Since 2022, the PSDB has lost, one by one, its elected governors: from Rio Grande do Sul, and, from Pernambuco, had already migrated to the PSD.
It is a very representative framework of the loss of political relevance of the party. In nearly four decades of existence, the caption had its peak presidency and decayed after the defeat of in the dispute against (PT) in 2014. A series of factors contributed to this: the absence of striking identity, the lack of new paintings, Lava Jato, and the rise of pockets as an antipetist force.
“When a leader who spoke with the deep soul of the PSDB electorate, the vote went to Bolsonaro,” he says, he composed the Ministry of the FHC government and held three terms as a federal deputy and one as a senator until last year to be paraded from the acronym.
He states that right -wing parties are “coagulating” and have the challenge of escaping their pockets. “There is a facilitation, we are seeing the end of the political life of (), which entered as a lion in the Supreme Court (), but came out as a sarnent and foolish dog,” he says, recalling the ex-president’s testimony in June, about the coup plot.
In the recent past, Aloysio credits the increase in the unpopularity of the PSDB. He himself was investigated by, suspected of getting involved in Odebrecht’s corruption scheme. As with others then toucans, such as José Serra and the now vice president (), the process was filed. At the time, the PSDB used the anti -corruption speech to face and ended up running out of rhetoric when its members were in allegations.
Little by little, the electorate migrated to Bolsonaro, who was emerging as a presidential candidate in 2018. “Then the damage was already done,” says Aloysio. FGV Political Science Professor Marco Antonio Teixeira says that pockets were already camouflage in toucan, especially because of anti -corruption speech, a preview of antisystem feeling. The transmission of PSDB’s political capital to Bolsonaro, says Teixeira, was paved by civil society organizations, such as the (Free Brazil Movement), which acted by Dilma in 2016.
“Bolsonarism erodes the toucan political base,” says Teixeira, adding that the PSDB was unable to produce new leaders and succumbed to internal disputes. In 2018, for example, he was able to elected governor of Sao Paulo, supporting Bolsonaro to the presidency, in a strategy known as “”.
Alckmin, at that time on the PSDB and Bolsonaro opponent in the electoral race, considered Doria’s movement a betrayal and decided to support (PSB) to the São Paulo government. “Doria was the PSDB gravedigger,” says Teixeira. “He created a great deal of confusion and left public life. It was not a PSDB project, it was a Doria project that pulled the now vice president rug.”
The Brazilian Social Democracy Party was founded in 1988, in a context of redemocratization. Its founders, among them the first president of the acronym, Franco Montoro, were dissidents of the PMDB, which housed more conservative politicians.
At the party’s launch event, Montoro spoke in front of a replica of the toucan. As the name of the subtitle had not yet been defined, the press came to call it “Toucan Party”, creating a mascot even before the denomination. It would not be long for the party to have national expression. In 1994, the toucan Fernando Henrique Cardoso won the presidential elections.
In the first term, FHC was notable for implementing the Real Plan, whose effects were already felt since he was still Minister of Finance on the Itamar Franco government. Similarly, FHC made a series of reforms that wiped the Brazilian state and privatized state -owned companies, such as Vale do Rio Doce.
One of the scandals that most worn out his image was linked to the amendment that benefited him, authorizing his reelection. In 1997, a report from Sheet revealed that deputies of the extinct PFL. At the time, the camera summit prevented the installation of a CPI.
After the FHC era, the PSDB became synonymous with opposition to the PT and built its electoral force in Minas Gerais, a state that ruled for four terms, and in São Paulo, where he headed the state government for 28 years to Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB) to be left out of the second round, in 2022. Professor at FESPSP (Foundation School of Sociology and Politics of São Paulo) party’s sunset.
In 2014, the PSDB filed a request at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to verify the fairness of the presidential election. Aécio had lost the election to Dilma for a tight margin –51% to 48%. “Contesting the ballot box meant the opening of the party to antipolitics and no longer differed from radicalization -based policy,” says Curi. Aloysio Nunes, however, has a different version of what happened.
He says he saw Aécio call Dilma and recognize defeat. It also says that the request on the TSE was to prevent a feeling of fraud from, not a demand for recount of votes. In any case, the episode, in Curi’s view, deepened its notion that the party has never been able to build its own identity as well as opposition to the PT.
The numbers, after all, show that the decay of the PSDB began after 2014. In the past elections, the party elected only 13 federal deputies and three senators. In 1998, he managed to elect 99 federal deputies and 16 senators. The decay of the PSDB was consummated with the episode of José Luiz’s chair, toucan candidate to the City of São Paulo, in (), his opponent, in a debate in the 2024 elections.
In June this year, the PSDB National Convention approved the party’s merger with Somos. Days later, however, the acronyms gave up on the agreement for disagreements about who would assume the presidency.
“The episode of the chair showed how the acronym could no longer control the values of its foundation,” says Curi. “The merger could only work if it didn’t look like a notary gathering.”
