By LUIS FELIPE MIGUEL*
Figures like Huck are more harmful to democracy than the old Centrão
Luciano Huck lied to Pedro Bial when he said he voted blank in 2018. Everyone remembers the video, on the eve of the second round, in which he takes a position. In the video, he begins by saying, pompously, that he had "an analysis". Then he expresses himself clumsily, at the level of a not particularly gifted teenager who gets information via zap. It's shocking to think that this guy was being considered to run for president.
He immediately discards voting for Haddad, without even bothering to present a justification: “I never voted for the PT and I will never vote. This is a fact". Then get down to business. Huck says that he “raised the problems” of Bolsonaro, without making them explicit, but then adds: “I think that people can, yes, mature”. And he completes by saying that “he has a golden chance to reframe politics in Brazil. Let's see, let's wait."
There is no room for doubt. Huck just didn't say "I'm going to vote 17", but he made it clear. There were only two options; one was vetoed and the other made room for many hopes. Even an average Caldeirão viewer would know which conclusion to reach.
It's not just the video. Angélica’s husband acted strongly in favor of Bolsonaro in the final phase of the campaign – he forbade, for example, Agora, the “political renewal” movement he sponsored, to publish a note already approved in favor of #EleNão. Afterwards, he pushed for the federal caucus of RenovaBR, another “political renewal” movement that he sponsored, to align itself with the government.
Bial, who says he is so active in detecting the untruths of his interviewees, let it pass. But, of course, he was just fulfilling his supporting role of mystification.
The most important thing is that, when lying about the 2018 vote, Tiazinha's discoverer said: "I don't regret it, I voted blank and would vote blank again". Which means that, despite all the mis-en-scene months, he will march alongside the genocide in next year's elections.
I didn't watch Huck's interview. I read the story in Folha, which gave it two-thirds of an odd page, in addition to a cover story. It is the continued effort to make Feiticeira's former boss a relevant figure on the national political scene.
On the opposite page, an article about the meeting of leaders of what the newspaper, characteristically, calls “seven parties of center-right and center-left”, in search of the mythical third way. Mandetta, organizer of the meeting, declared that what united them was the desire to seek an alternative to the “two extremes”.
The maintenance of this discourse, after two and a half years of this government (which Mandetta himself, it does not hurt to remember, served with pleasure for so long), signals the same thing. An open door for embarrassed support for Bolsonaro in the second round. Where, by the way, do you think Doria will end up, tight pants and all? Especially with the chance, which today is real, of a second round in São Paulo between the PSDB and Haddad or Boulos?
There are political personalities on the right who were able, albeit belatedly, to assert a minimal commitment to democracy and make it clear that, against Bolsonaro, they support whoever is necessary. Unfortunately, almost all of them are, like FHC or Cristovam Buarque, already retired politicians. The active leaders of right-wing parties do not have this attitude.
Who would say: they are more harmful to democracy than the old Centrão – which, after all, is there to sell itself to whoever it is.
* Luis Felipe Miguel He is a professor at the Institute of Political Science at UnB. Author, among other books, of The collapse of democracy in Brazil (Popular Expression).
