 Some attribute his loss to this episode.Elected to the Senate in 1986 for the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), which MDB became after re-democratization, he joined a group of PMDB parliamentarians who left that party to found the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) after previously-held PMDB positions shifted to the right when the party filled with politicians who had collaborated with the dictatorship.As senator, Cardoso took part in the 1987–1988 National Constituent Assembly that drafted and approved Brazil's current Constitution in the wake of the country's re-democratization.