Twice mayor of, Mário Kertész was last elected for an elective term 40 years ago. Still, it follows as one of the most influential politicians in recent history of Bahia.
At the age of 81, 30 of them as a broadcaster and communication entrepreneur, Kertész gets a caught in his personal and political trajectory in the autobiography “Riso – Choro (and everything that comes in the middle)”, published by Edufba, editor of the Federal University of Bahia.
With a direct, almost colloquial language, the book speaks of the boy’s personal life who grew up in a family of Jews in Salvador, the technocrat raised to the young power and narrates behind the scenes of Bahian politics, with emphasis on the relationship of love and hatred with (1937-2007).
ACM, who was three times governor of Bahia, is quoted in 47 of the book’s 353 pages. The coexistence between both began in 1967, when the then deputy ACM became mayor of Salvador and Kertész worked at the Finance Secretariat. Years later, the mayor became governor and made the young assistant secretary of planning.
By recalling the period, Kertész talks about an ACM that stimulated management technicians, but carried politicians on the Short Rein. He gave sporos in public, praised between four walls. It showed pleasure to exercise power, but had a certain dependence on its closest assistants.
Together, they played projects such as the construction of the administrative center, a government showcase that hinted a modern Bahia, and worked in the command of Eletrobras. When ACM returned to the government, he made Salvador’s bionic mayor in 1979 without even consulting him.
The tuned and intimacy relationship gave rise to intrigue when Kertész was quoted as a candidate for governor. ACM initially played double, but chose for succession Clériston Andrade, an ally that he would die in a helicopter accident during the 1982 campaign.
Kertész decided not to support the governor’s candidate and prepared for the worst. Anticipating that he would be fired, he went to Ondina’s palace driving his own car – Suspeted that ACM would collect the city’s vehicle and make him go back. I heard the resignation only the next day by the Official Gazette.
The crisis between them had tense chapters, including cuts of transfers to the city and notes in newspapers. In one fight, the governor unleashed prejudice and cursed Kertész of “smelly Jew.” In another, he spoke to the wife of the then mayor that he kept an extramarital affair: “ACM was very dirty with me,” says Kertész in the book.
The breaking led him to the opposition. Affiliated to, he was elected mayor of Salvador by direct vote in 1985. Kertész and ACM would return to the late 1980s, when they hugged, cried together and ended the enmity. Would not be allies again.
Kertész’s departure from politics is treated in the book superficially, leaving readers a puzzle about how a well -evaluated mayor embittered defeats in the following.
In 1990, he rehearsed to be a candidate for governor, but faced wear after breaking with the successor, broadcaster Fernando José (PMDB), who accused him of leaving a break in the city coffers. He faced cases in court, but has always denied having committed irregularities.
He was a candidate for federal deputy and had only 15,000 votes. In 1992, he played the city, but was sixth. He returned to the polls in 2012, again defeated for mayor, an episode he classifies as “a crazy” that for a while scratched his credibility.
In the command of Radio Metropolis, it maintains influence ahead of microphones, but especially behind the scenes. In 2020, he participated in the articulation that anointed Bruno Reis (União Brasil) as a candidate for mayor and, at the same time, was heard by () in choosing the name of the opposition.
Sparks against contemporary politicians are rare in the book. (União Brasil) is called arrogant in more than one passage. About (PT), with whom he says he has intimacy, says his government suspended funds to the radio after criticism. The notorious opponents are ignored.
The release of the book in Salvador had airs of pilgrimage among politicians, with the presence of allies and intimate enemies. The broadcaster and entrepreneur who has never failed to do politics claims to keep grudges: “I have no right to complain about anything, life has been extremely generous to me.”
