The main industry association of São Paulo state has begun lining up business support for a petition asking the full bench of Brazil's Supreme Court, the STF, to take up the institutional crisis set off by the Banco Master scandal. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the Fiesp, the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo and one of Brazil's largest business groups, already has a draft that calls the episode an unprecedented test of the Republic's integrity and says the turmoil in Brasília puts institutions at risk.
Release is planned for sometime between September 8 and 10. The Commercial Association of São Paulo, the ACSP, is also working on the document and says it has gathered more than a thousand signatures from trade associations and commercial federations, according to Folha. Early signers include Sindibrinquedos, the toy industry group, and Abinee, which represents the electrical and electronics industry.
Organizers told Folha they decided against publishing the text on the September 7 Independence Day holiday to avoid any suggestion of political use of the crisis in an election year. CNN Brasil reported the same concern on Friday: the manifesto is to come out after the holiday so that it is not read as support for presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro or as a boost to demonstrations his supporters have called for the date.
Who is behind it and what it asks
CNN Brasil reported that the Fiesp, the São Paulo bar association OAB-SP, the real estate group Secovi and the ACSP have been debating the document with large São Paulo business figures from industry and agribusiness, and that Febraban, the banking federation, will also be invited to sign. On Friday the channel reported the wording was still under discussion; by Saturday night, Folha said the Fiesp had a draft in hand. The text is meant for the court's president, Justice Edson Fachin, and urges a rigorous inquiry into the ties between Master banker Daniel Vorcaro and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The message, one of the channel's sources said, is a defense of the court as an institution that must not be confused with any of its members, with full rights of defense and with no facts swept "under the rug".
Support is not unanimous. Folha reports that some potential signatories fear accusations of partisanship, a familiar problem for the Fiesp: in 2022, under president Josué Gomes da Silva, son of former vice president José Alencar, the federation went through an internal crisis with an attempted removal, triggered in part by a manifesto that praised the judiciary's role in defending democracy. One leader involved in the current push described to CNN Brasil a sense of indignation that feels unprecedented compared with recent crises such as the Lava Jato graft investigation and the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff.
From industry to the consumer
The petition reaches across the production chain: industry, retail, agribusiness, transport and cooperatives are among the sectors being approached. For those companies, the bet is that the dispute moves out of the clash between court chambers and onto the full bench, with consequences for the institutional climate in which investment decisions are made. For consumers, the document changes no price and no credit line today; the risk for those at the end of the chain is that the crisis drags through the presidential election, whose outcome will set economic policy for the years ahead.