Analysis: Lula, allies and rivals gain time in the 100 days – 4/9/2023 – Politics

The first 100 days of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) third term were marked by a calculated waiting game. The president, his allies and rivals have taken advantage of exogenous factors to buy time while the political world realigns.

The main one of these fireballs that hit reality was, of course, the coup catharsis on January 8th. Reverberating until now, the depredation of the headquarters of the three Powers had a much more positive than negative impact on the departure of the government.

Until the arrival of the new Congress, in February, only the episode was discussed. The polarization with Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was exacerbated, which is in line with Lula’s strategy of keeping the country divided as much as possible.

The former president also presented Lula with a scorched earth that made good intentions, such as the resumption of the climate agenda, the discussion of human rights and an active foreign policy, look like grandiose works. Old brands were taken off the shelf, such as Bolsa Família and Minha Casa, Minha Vida.

Politics is symbology, after all. Not by chance, when Datafolha questioned voters at the end of March about Lula’s successes, indigenist policy (courtesy of the visibility of the Yanomami crisis), combating poverty (the central feature of the PT) and culture (recreated ministry) appeared as highlights.

In the item that was most poorly evaluated by the electorate, the economy, was put on hold while what matters in practice is being put together, the new fiscal framework presented at the end of March. Here, it is worth mentioning the role played by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad.

He has been instrumental in what allied leaders have jokingly dubbed the government’s Ricardo Salles moment. It is a reference to Bolsonaro’s former environment minister, recorded saying that it was good to take advantage of the pandemic to “pass the cattle” of deregulation in his area.

This is because, in this view, Lula has been unleashing his words and creating controversies, in addition to maintaining a strong leftist rhetoric, while Haddad would be responsible for measures that would never find shelter in the president’s support base.

Although no one in the market takes the proposed fiscal adjustment at face value, on paper it is even tougher than the one undertaken by Lula in his first term, when he kissed the Faria Lima cross. Now, that won’t happen, but, as one of these allies says, “some oxen will end up passing”, saving the presidential image.

It is something yet to be gauged. What is certain is that these allies of Lula, as well as his rivals, are taking advantage of the post-8/1 deadlock to reorganize themselves.

Congress lost the near-omnipotence it had when Bolsonaro handed over the rings to save his government, in 2021, symbolized by the rapporteur’s amendments. Lula balanced part of that game, but we don’t expect a return to the time when Parliament was a pushover of the Executive.

In this context, there is a new concentration of actors. Today there are, roughly speaking, four main groups in Congress, quite visible in the design shown by the formation of the PSD-MDB-Republicanos-Podemos-PSC bloc in the Chamber.

This new pole broke the traditional center, removing the Republicans from the sphere of the PL and the PP. The adherence of these former Bolsonaristas will still need to be proven in polls. It is a governing group, with ministries, but it will not carry any coffin to the ditch in case of economic disaster. As a bonus, he controls the Senate with Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG).

Looking ahead, the bloc has a project to lead the center-right and embody it in the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), under the ideological command of Gilberto Kassab (PSD). Whether it will succeed is unfathomable now.

But the Bolsonarist opposition in the Chamber was defined in the core of 148 deputies from the PL and PP, which may also fluctuate, while the left 100% Lula adds up to around 140. The remainder of the 513 votes seems destined to be controlled by the President of the House , Arthur Lira, who despite being from the PP exudes his own power.

These numbers, of course, are illusory, as they depend on punctual and pendular adjustments, as in the case of União Brasil and its juicy group of 59 deputies. The themes count: it is a conservative Congress, so one does not expect so-called progressive outbursts from Lula, but the focus on the economy.

Thus, the petista has a Schrödinger basis, playing with the abstraction of quantum physics that proposes that a cat can be alive and dead at the same time. The ruler of this should be punctual.

The waiting period was beneficial to all — not least because no Congress openly rebels after three months of government. The approval seen as median for Lula in Datafolha, 38%, and the need for some predictability after Bolsonaro’s chaos in power, seem to support this.

In the opposition, the ex-president’s return to Brazil was a critical and public failure, but that says little for the long term. Although he doesn’t have the DNA to lead anything and is worrying about his court rolls, he still has the vote. The municipal elections next year will be the thermometer of this.

Institutionally, Lula was successful. He used well the credit that the chaos of 8/1 gave him and, even without ever fulfilling the promise of a broad front, something that was always only for the purpose of kicking Bolsonaro from the Planalto, he managed to relax tensions in these months.

A good example is the relationship with the military, marked by shock therapy when he dismissed the Army commander for late Bolsonarism, the great negative effect of 8/1 for the government. Not that the civil power has finally taken an interest in the uniform, but the appeasement of José Múcio (Defense), based on the deference-funds dichotomy that he worked in the past, is ongoing.

Allies and rivals agree that Lula’s leftist verbiage is out of balance, even if it serves to pass some oxen. Episodes like the suggestion that the plan to kill Sergio Moro was a set-up had a bad effect, but they didn’t change plans either.

The sum of these factors shows Lula without much of his own fat to burn, but counting on a scenario that has so far been relatively benign, even if due to disparate interests.