Presidency candidates Romeu Zema (Novo) and Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) expanded their movements in agribusiness and the financial market in an attempt to take advantage of the wear and tear of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) after the revelation of messages exchanged with banker Daniel Vorcaro. Zema and Caiado are also rehearsing a rapprochement, in a movement that would seek to bring together right-wing forces around an alternative to Bolsonarism.
Representatives of agriculture and Faria Lima continue to see Flávio as the most viable name to face President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), but recognize that the crisis surrounding the PL pre-candidate reinforces the need for alternatives.
In recent days, the former governor of Minas participated in a lunch with businesspeople from the agribusiness, finance, industry, energy, health, foreign trade and retail sectors, in addition to recording a podcast focused on the financial market and giving a talk at an investment brokerage. Zema should even take the pre-campaign HQ to São Paulo, in a move to be closer to the business community. He is advised by economist Carlos da Costa, former special secretary for Productivity at the Ministry of Economy in the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
— Of course a path opens. Zema is a businessman and has the government of Minas Gerais as proof of his ability — said Fred Papatella, ally of the former governor and vice-president of Novo in Minas Gerais.
The former chief executive of Goiás, in turn, already close to the rural sector, has been reinforcing the identification. Last week, Caiado participated in Expoagro Dourados, in Mato Grosso do Sul, where he attended auctions, meetings with rural producers and political meetings with agribusiness leaders.
— I had a meeting last week with a mixed group from the agricultural and financial markets. On Monday, I was at the Institute for Retail Development — said Caiado.
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The president of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State of São Paulo (Faesp), Tirso Meirelles, stated that the episode involving Flávio and Vorcaro reignited the search for alternatives within the right.
— We had a certain guarantee that Flávio would be very well, but he had this problem. One part went to Zema and the other to Caiado. But they don’t have national projection yet. They are doing business, participating in agricultural fairs, which they really need to do, but the scope of the process will take place after the (party) conventions — said Meirelles.
Polls show that Lula has widened the gap to Flávio, while Zema and Caiado remain far from the lead Datafolha survey released last week showed that the difference between Lula and Flávio in the first round went from three to nine points after the crisis involving Daniel Vorcaro, while, in the second round, the PT member opened a four-point lead over the senator.
Caiado appears with 4% of voting intentions, and Zema, with 3%. Within this context, allies of the two assess that Flávio’s deterioration has rekindled conversations about a possible reorganization of the right outside of Bolsonarism. This week, Caiado stated that “there is a feeling” for a union between the two in the first round. The former governor of Goiás classified an eventual composition as a “certificate of political credibility” and a “breathing breath for the population that wants to break with polarization”. The command of the two campaigns, however, still treats the possibility as remote.
Complaints at meeting
PL leaders privately admit that the crisis interrupted a process of rapprochement that had been built with businesspeople, investors and rural producers in an attempt to present Flávio as a politically more “institutional” heir to Bolsonarism — less associated with the radical ideological core and more capable of dialoguing with sectors concerned with economic predictability and political stability.
Last week, businesspeople linked to the financial market expressed discomfort to the senator during private meetings in the capital of São Paulo. Interlocutors claim that some of the guests decided not to attend the meetings after the release of new information about the relationship between Flávio and Vorcaro, including the revelation that the senator personally visited the banker in São Paulo shortly after the businessman’s first arrest.
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— The way this appeared became criminalized, because control of the narrative was lost. The problem here is that this situation should have been anticipated, it was not said in a timely manner that that relationship existed — admitted the political coordinator of the campaign, senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN).
