Brazil’s Low-Key Operator
Gilberto Kassab is one of the country’s most important behind-the-scenes politicians, worth watching as the 2026 elections draw closer.
This article is adapted from AQ's upcoming special report on Guatemala. When Gilberto Kassab founded his party, the PSD, in 2011, he uttered a phrase that has become famous in Brazilian politics: The PSD would be “neither right-wing, nor left-wing, nor centrist.” This made many Brazilians laugh, for he was describing a long tradition, of which the PSD is only the latest and strongest version—that of parties that work, if not quite with anyone, certainly with a wide range of political groups. As of March, three ministers in President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s center-left...
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