National Coordinator of (Free Brazil Movement), Renan Santos, 41, sees the “imploding” pockets, which creates a window of opportunity for the mission, “Pragmatic Right” party that the group is creating.
At the moment, the TSE, and the expectation is to officialize later this year, in time to run for the election of 2026. The new acronym promises to have a candidate for president, who must be Renan himself.
He sees the right cheating on his political weakening after involvement in the coup plot. It also considers that Lula and the left will come strong for the 2026 election, as showed by this Sunday (21) in Brazil.
Renan approves the conviction of the former president on the merits, but rejects her in form. Despite being “convinced” that Bolsonaro tried to blow, he would vote against punishment if he were Minister of the Supreme Court for seeing defense curtailment.
Ahead of a movement that has been noted for controversies since it came out 11 years ago, Renan says he will need to adapt to the party leader’s costume, but without totally abandoning the style. “Our nature is questioning, half punk rock.”
How is the mission ideologically? We are moving away from the idea of MBL’s initial liberalism and today can be framed as a party in the highly pragmatic right field. In economic terms, it talks to a lot from a liberal point of view, but flirts with developmentalism as well. There is no dogmatism in this.
Are these things not contradictory? Do you advocate industrial policy, for example? Industrial Policy in Brazil is cursing. People will soon refer to Sudene [Superintendência do Desenvolvimento do Nordeste] and national champions. It’s not what we are proposing. We take the experiences that worked, such as pioneering fronts, Embrapa, a subsidized credit to Agro. You have an entrepreneur working, but a public company producing technology and articulating these forces. What we don’t want is to create what they call “Cony Capitalism” in English, the most vagabond crop capitalism they have.
Will economic policy be more like that of Bolsonaro or Lula? I will not work with these definitions because they limit. Bolsonaro’s politics were liberal clichés from Paulo Guedes. In practice it is allowing an increase in mandatory expenses uncontrollably, and this is going to a course of collapse in the coming years.
The right field is already congested, with PL, PP, Republicans, new, had been small parties. How will the mission differ? I do not agree with the definition. The new is a right -wing party. The others do not. Everyone served the basis of PT governments, they are still going to be policies on the left. If we talk about the right, it has to have a minimally a program. They do not have. They are part of a classic Brazilian phenomenon that is the patrimonialist policy, compdation, vote purchase.
That is, will the mission be the only right -wing party? With a program on the right, independent frame renewal, it will be the only one, yes.
There have been several attempts at figures from the right to take off from pockets and everyone failed. Is it possible to have a non -scholarship right? Yeah, we are even at a time when pockets are imploding, right -wing politicians cheating on it. Tarcisio looking for his own way, is the new one, who was Super Bolsonaro, now looking for his own way. Our difference is that we never hid our differences from pockets. I would never like to work with someone I consider dumb than me, like Bolsonaro.
But that came to the presidency. It is the vicissitudes of democracy, which has these things.
How do you analyze left manifestations on Sunday? On the one hand they are reliving dead language, on the other, it shows that they take advantage of the mistakes of a dumb, scholarship right, which gives them a perspective, albeit illusory, of fighting corruption, which does not glue to anyone, but in practice repositioned them in the game. It shows that Lula and the left go to a strong election in 2026.
Why do you want to be a presidential candidate? That’s what the group wants. It was not what I initially wanted, because I wanted to work internally. But if the group wants I will be with pleasure, because one of our dreams is to reach power.
It is not taking a step larger than the leg, without alliances, without being structured throughout the country, without money, TV time… We already walked to Brasilia, so we will take a lot of steps. We are willing to affirm the thesis to a fraction of the electorate, and if this fraction is sufficiently influential, try to dispute to win the election.
Do you consider supporting another candidate? Zero. This hypothesis does not exist. Thus, 0.00%.
And alliance with a party that supports you? Supporting our program, we would accept.
The idea is to launch candidates for governor, senator? The idea is, in all possible states, to appear with a complete plate.
How to fulfill the barrier clause next year, which will be 2.5%? If the work is well done we get the clause, but it is not the goal. All parties will have to make a number of very complicated decisions that involve reducing their own legitimacy. We won’t do that.
Isn’t it hard for a party to survive not having the barrier clause? It has restrictions, but they are not total. You continue to have the right to exist and participate in elections. There is still the Electoral Fund, which is independent of the barrier clause.
Electoral and party funds do you intend to use? Sim.
This is a change from what they defended at the beginning of MBL, isn’t it? We were essentially wrong, with a playful, childish vision, to some extent even anti -political. It would not even make sense of our expansion to other states, from the North and Northeast, where people do not have the culture of money donation to campaign. You can find excellent arguments that a public fund, obviously without exceeding limits in terms of value, can be beneficial to democracy.
In behavioral themes, do you put yourself more clearly as traditional right? Abortion, for example. Our position is the maintenance of the legislation.
And drugs? We have already agreed to discuss the legalization of marijuana. But today our discussion was eventually swallowed to the issue of criminal factions, has become a matter of territorial occupation. So it ends up being framed in another discussion that is more important to us.
How do you see the debate about gender identity? This is a discussion that has been poisoned because of an extremely toxic type of militancy, Woke militancy. The percentage of people who define themselves as trans is tiny in society, but becomes a central theme because everything becomes the basis for divisionism, to point out the finger to attack that so -and -so is transphobic.
MBL has emerged as a bold, controversial movement many times. Will they bring something of this behavior to the political party or will they be more behaved? It is much more a party with a movement -faced than a movement that became a party. Our nature is questioning, half punk rock. This does not mean that we will not behave regimentally and seriously in the elective positions we occupy.
What is your opinion about Bolsonaro’s conviction? It is deserved on the merits. In form, it is the target of questions. I know what Bolsonaro tried to do. We have been denouncing these practices since 2019, the attempts and Bolsonaro’s scammer Sanha throughout his term. That said, the consequences of the creation of this STF punishment apparatus are being lived by Brazil so far and we can’t think this is not anomalous. Then the shape counts.
Are you convinced that he tried to hit a blow? Very convinced.
What is your criticism of form? The suppression of elements of defense rights, the deadlines that were given. In the question linked to the prisoners on January 8, we will see other absurdities even bigger. As a citizen I think Bolsonaro deserves to be punished for what he tried to do. But if I were the minister of the Supreme, I could not find the ruptures to the form
Can’t this be seen as a Bolsonaro defense? By no means, we always asked Bolsonaro to arrest. We denounced all this throughout the process. I am not making any nod to the pockets, I am not asking them to vote for them, nor do I make a point. These guys even don’t like us.
How will the (União Brasil-SP), deputy of the movement? The heads of the coup plot have to be arrested and punished. The prisoners of the 8th [de Janeiro] They have to have reduced penalties, must be entitled to trials fairer. There are people there who, in fact, should not even be stuck, there are some absurd things happening in this process. These people were cannon bushed, but some punishment has to have.
And amnesty for Bolsonaro? I don’t see Kim defending this.
You have a very strong criticism of the center, but until recently you had the position of vice-leadership in the Tarcisio government in the Assembly. And they have a relationship with Mayor Ricardo Nunes, after being critical in the past. . Isn’t it contradictory? We have no problem participation in management spaces, as long as we can implement the public policies in which they believe. And conditioned to good results. , I wanted to play Sabesp’s privatization agenda. Our subprefect is there focused on having the best indicators. We criticize Centrão not by participation in governments, but because this participation is an end in itself.
Renan Santos, 41
Born in São Paulo, the businessman is national coordinator of MBL (Free Brazil Movement) and president of the Mission, a party linked to the movement. He studied law at the University of São Paulo, without completing the course.
