A ministry to call your own – 06/25/2023 – Marcus Melo

In an interview, the vice-president of the PT, Washington Quaquá, discussed the allocation of ministries and parliamentary amendments and the formation process of the government base.

He argued that “it is not [ministério] that will solve the problems of the base of the government. What will solve it is a parliamentary amendment… With R$ 18 billion, R$ 20 billion, R$ 25 billion solves this problem. Of course, the ministry is part of it, but from the point of view of wanting to govern together, participating in public policy. What will contemplate the base and form the majority to govern are the amendments”.

Quaquá takes aim at the leaders of União Brasil who want the Ministry of Tourism and who argue that if the current holder of the position continues, they will take 50 deputies to the opposition. “That’s a lie. They don’t control anyone over there. That’s bullshit. If the government gives R$50 million to each member of the União Brasil, 90% of them will vote with us.”

These topics have already been extensively investigated. An influential analysis argues that amendments and the ministerial portfolio are part of the Executive’s toolbox. And more: they would be substitutes, not complements: the individual amendments would be all the more important the greater the party deficit in the allocation of ministries.

Quaquá thinks like the first Lula government, in which the PT kept most of the ministerial portfolio for itself and had to compensate with other instruments. In 2002, Lula allocated 21 ministries (60% of the total) to members of his party, whose bench had 91 deputies (18% of the Chamber). With 78 deputies, the PMDB, the largest party, had 2, out of a total of 35. Today the situation is no different and the underrewarded are União Brasil and PP.

But academic research has already shown that ministries are very heterogeneous and function as clusters of amendments: deputies include more amendments in the budget of ministries of co-religionists.

Meirelles showed, with data on voluntary transfers to municipalities from 1997 to 2016, that the mayor’s party alignment with coalition partners and with the Executive implies a greater volume of transfers. The average causal effect is considerable and varies across ministries. The biggest effects are, in order: Ministries of the City, Integration, Health, Agriculture, MDA, and Tourism. Education, Sports and Culture has small effects; in the others it is null.

The occupation of the Ministry of Health and of the City implies, respectively, transfers to the aligned municipality of more than 3 to 4 times (in reais per capita) than that of Culture. It is not by chance that the PP wants the Ministries of Health and Tourism.

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