Toucan with hirsute plumage, Mário Covas, dead 25 years ago, embodied the formative principles of , outlined in the “Manifesto to the Brazilian People”, published on June 25, 1988. It was a social-democratic platform, as the acronym suggests, which contained within it the spirit of the country’s re-democratization process, combining social justice with support for private initiative.
The party he helped to found has now lost its prominence, and the ideological profile of the engineer who held the positions of federal deputy, senator, mayor and governor of seems not to have been perpetuated, according to researchers and former allies of Covas.
Their assessment is that the PSDB was unable, in the last decade, to reaffirm its identity and absorbed anti-political thinking, without renewing its leadership. In parallel, the decrease in the number of members made the party lose relevance, a contrast with the Covas era, during the government of (1995-2002).
“Covas said: ‘Public men and women can be a little more to the right, more to the left, taller, shorter, thinner. But what differentiates men and women in public life is who has an appreciation for democracy and who doesn’t'”, says vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (currently at PSB), who first assumed the role of governor of São Paulo in 2001, after the death of Covas, a victim of bladder cancer.
Covas’ son, Mário Covas Neto, who has a law degree, former councilor for Podemos and candidate for the Senate in 2018, believes that, if he were alive, his father would vote, this year, for the president (), in the case of a hypothetical second round between the PT member and senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL).
“There’s nothing to think about. Not just for ideological reasons, but for experience. What does Flávio commit to for the future? Just amnesty his father”, says Covas Neto.
The former president (PL) is imprisoned in Papudinha, in Brasília, where he is serving a sentence for an attempted coup d’état. In 1989, Covas supported Lula in the second round against de Mello, who emerged victorious in the election.
For Covas Neto, the PSDB lost its principles when arriving at Planalto, when it had to accommodate different political lines. He himself left the party in 2018, fighting with João Doria, elected governor of São Paulo with the help of Bolsonarism.
In the meantime, he followed the rise to São Paulo City Hall of his nephew Bruno Covas, who died in 2021, also a victim of cancer. In the last municipal election, the family was divided: Covas Neto supported the PSDB candidate, José Luiz, while Tomás Covas, 21, his great-nephew, preferred to work in ().
Tomás is now tipped to be a candidate for federal deputy. When contacted, he did not respond to the report’s contacts.
“I don’t know if he’s going to be a candidate. Did you talk to your great-uncle? I saw Tomás on a few occasions. He could have my vote, but if it weren’t for the PSDB, he wouldn’t campaign”, says Covas Neto, who rejoined the party in 2024, hoping to rebuild it.
In the Diretas Já campaign, in 1984, Covas shared a platform with Lula at the Sé rally and, four years later, still as a PMDB senator, he was one of the leaders in the Constituent Assembly. During his two terms as governor, from 1995 to 2001, he stood out for sanitizing public accounts.
He also worked on the restructuring of , taking on the Sala São Paulo project, which is still a toucan’s nest today. At the same time, he came into conflict with teachers amid class demands for salary increases. Covas was even attacked by protesters camped at the headquarters of the Department of Education.
In the same area, it was criticized for implementing continuous progression teaching, eliminating repetition. Throughout his political career, he was the main opponent of .
Covas lived through the heyday of the PSDB. In 1998, the party elected 99 deputies, 16 senators and four governors. In 2022, there were 13 deputies, three senators and three governors — since then, the governors have each changed parties to lead their respective states.
“No one takes into account what the PSDB says anymore. Human creations end, the bench dwindles. Alckmin is a survivor, he survived very well”, says Aloysio Nunes, former senator and deputy for the PSDB, who was an ally of Covas.
For political scientist Henrique Curi, from FespSP (Fundação Escola de Sociologia e Política de São Paulo), author of a doctoral thesis on the history of the PSDB, a series of reasons explain the Tucana collapse.
Curi states that the party did not continue the ideology of European social democracy, as promoted by the Covistas, and ended up reduced to the task of opposing the PT governments. With the rise of Bolsonarism, it opened up to anti-system thinking.
“Doria liked to say that he was not a politician. It turns out that the historical toucans were politicians and were willing to be good politicians. How does a party open up to this thought? Today, in fact, you have several parties that are against the PT, so the PSDB no longer differentiates itself”, says the researcher, adding a central episode, according to him, for the emptying of the acronym: the stance in the second round of the 2014 round.
At the time, the PSDB filed a request with the (Superior Electoral Court) to verify the fairness of the presidential election. The tucano candidate in that election, , had lost to Dilma Rousseff (PT) by a tight margin — 51.6% to 48.4%.
When contacted by the report, Aécio, now a federal deputy and president of the PSDB, did not grant an interview. In December, he minimized the collapse of the toucans. “We underwent liposuction and we are coming back slimmer,” he said, referring to the reduction in the size of the caption.
At the time, Aécio said he would organize a movement to revive centrist ideas, aiming for this year’s election.
Covas Neto, in turn, says that the 2014 episode is “minor and punctual”. Professor of political science at Uerj, Fernando Guarnieri, who was an advisor to Covas, states that the party has gone astray with the departure of its founders. He also says that Covas’ centrist thinking would have low electoral performance in the current situation, divided between Lulistas and Bolsonaristas.
“People got tired of politics, and the party created in the fight for redemocratization started to question the polls”, says Guarnieri. “The PSDB lost its social insertion, of a middle class that had links with social movements.”
