Antes do planalto: a fabricação de Collor e o crepúsculo de Fernando nos periódicos Gazeta de Alagoas e Jornal de Alagoas (1979-1989)

Abstract

Fernando Collor de Mello, before being a candidate for president of the republic in 1989, took this first steps in the field of party politics in 1979 in the city hall of Maceió, then as a federal deputy, and making a large investment in the elections for governor of Alagoas, in 1986. All this projection was narrated, reported and promoted on a large scale in the newspaper Gazeta de Alagoas. This newspaper, belonging to the Arnon de Melo Organizations, was the stage and script for Collor's self-promotion, with the intention of making him the protagonist for his family and for Alagoas. During his governorship, he built the image of a moralizer of public administration through partnerships with the national media, with the intention of being a candidate for president of Brazil. In 1989, Brasil was promoting the first direct election after the civil-military dictatorship and, in that context, the candidacy of Fernando Collor de Mello, governor of Alagoas, emerged. The problematizations and analyses of Fernando Collor presented here are based on bibliographical sources, memoirs, as well as the periodicals Jornal de Alagoas and Gazeta de Alagoas. The problem is to understand how the journalistic texts published in the periodicals acted in the development of different narratives, whether presenting Fernando Collor's governments and his political figure as victorious, or as a moderate character with a strong influence on the state scene. The main question is: how did the political rise of the "Phenomenon" Collor take place in Alagoas in the period 1979-1989? In other words, before he became president.