Debolsonarization of the Lula administration causes paralysis in areas of the government

Since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) took office, a series of exonerations of names linked to former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) are being made. But the “debolsonarization” of federal management has caused paralysis and slowness in some sectors of the government due to a lack of civil servants to run the day-to-day activities of the public service. Added to this is the existence of an ideological filter, mainly against former supporters of Lava Jato, which has been delaying the replacement of these dismissals with new hires for leadership and advisory positions.

There are already reports of the effects of “debolsonarization” and the ideological filter on Lula’s personal security, on the payment of a new Bolsa Família benefit, on the organization of the national vaccination plan and on facing the threats of overthrowing energy transmission towers.

The case of Lula’s personal security involves his distrust of the military in the Institutional Security Office (GSI) of the Presidency – a body with the status of a ministry responsible for guarding the president and the presidential palaces. Lula is still living in a hotel in Brasilia and not in the Alvorada Palace. And his security has been done by the Federal Police (PF).

The personnel structure of the GSI in the PT government is not even defined precisely because of the difficulty for Lula to find military personnel he trusts. Since the acts of vandalism in Brasília, on January 8, the PT’s distrust of the Armed Forces has increased – which, for him, are contaminated by Bolsonaro’s influence.

“We are in a moment of deep screening, because the truth is that the Palace [do Planalto] It was full of Bolsonarists and soldiers,” said Lula after the acts of vandalism. As a result of this distrust, on Tuesday (17) and this Wednesday (18) a total of 56 GSI soldiers and members of the Armed Forces who they were responsible for the Alvorada Palace and other official residences of the Presidency, such as Granja do Torto.

New Bolsa Família benefit is affected by debolsonarization

The “debolsonarization” of the government has also affected other sectors of the government and paralyzed some ministries. In the first week of government, the Civil House edited an ordinance in which it exonerated 1,204 civil servants who performed functions of trust in the Bolsonaro administration.

At the time, the portfolio commanded by Rui Costa indicated that “the most technical positions were being preserved at this first moment, to prevent the offer of services from being impacted and generating a paralysis in the organs”. “We’re taking people out who aren’t suited for the role. Everyone will be replaced,” Costa said.

Despite this, layoffs are already impacting the work of some government sectors. This is the case of the Ministry of Social Development, responsible for social programs of the federal government. Privately, ministry officials say that, more than two weeks after Lula took office, there has still not been a reorganization of functions and the ministry has not defined what its structure will be.

heard by People’s Gazette, commissioned officials from the former management argue that “they are in the dark” about whether or not to maintain the portfolio commanded by Wellington Dias. The blackout has even had an impact on the work to guarantee the fulfillment of an important campaign promise by Lula: the payment of an additional BRL 150 from the Bolsa Família for each child up to six years old in each beneficiary family of the program. Upon assuming the ministry, Wellington Dias indicated that the additional should only be paid in the second quarter.

Ideological filter against Lava Jato affects vaccination program

In addition to vetoing names linked to former President Bolsonaro, Lula’s allies are also making a filter to veto the hiring of people who defended Operation Lava Jato, former judge Sergio Moro and Lula’s arrest.

The servant Ana Goretti, for example, had her name vetoed for the board of the Department of Immunization and Vaccine-preventable Diseases of the Ministry of Health. The Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, even announced the appointment of Ana Goretti on January 2. “In the case of the PNI [Programa Nacional de Imunizações] I’m already going to anticipate that it’s Ana Goretti, who has been working on the program for many years,” he said at the time.

Despite Nísia Trindade’s nomination, members of the Lula government vetoed Ana Goretti’s nomination because of her previous demonstrations in favor of Lava Jato. Eder Gatti was chosen for the post, who worked at the Emílio Ribas Hospital, at the Professor Alexandre Vranjac Epidemiological Surveillance Center and at the Butantan Institute.

The Department of Immunization and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases is responsible for the immunization program, which is seen by the federal government as strategic to expand vaccination coverage in Brazil – an area in which Lula criticized Bolsonaro very harshly in the election campaign. With the delay in nominating the director of the sector, the minister said this week that the vaccination campaign should start only in February.

Debolsonarization affected action against vandalism in power towers

The dismissals made by the Lula government also had an impact on the activities of the Ministry of Mines and Energy. One of these effects was in tackling acts of vandalism on power transmission lines. Faced with a lack of technical staff, the ministry initially opted to transfer responsibility for tackling the crisis to the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel).

At the beginning of the new government, the Ministry of Mines and Energy had dismissed at least 50 advisors who held commissioned positions in the previous government. And Minister Alexandre Silveira has not yet indicated names for strategic sectors of the portfolio.

Quoted to take over the executive secretary of the ministry, Bruno Eustáquio faces resistance for having acted in the Bolsonaro government. In addition to the executive secretary, Silveira still hasn’t been able to name people for the Energy Planning and Electric Energy secretariats. The blackout has also affected the Secretariats for Oil, Gas and Biofuels, Mining, and the recently announced Secretariat for Energy Transition.

Before taking office, Flávio Dino also faced cases of ideological filtering

At the Ministry of Justice, at least one nomination for an important position was reversed because of the ideological filter. Even before Lula’s inauguration, then-future minister Flávio Dino announced that the general director of the Federal Highway Police (PRF) would be Edmar Camata. However, PT members complained because Camata had posted on social networks defending Lula’s arrest in Lava Jato, and appeared in a photo alongside Deltan Dallagnol, the former coordinator of the operation.

The choice was reversed even before taking office and the new one chosen to command the PRF was Antônio Fernando Oliveira. There is no information that this shuttle has caused any operational problem in the Highway Police.

Another nomination by Flávio Dino that caused controversy and ended up not materializing was that of São Paulo Military Police (PM-SP) colonel Nivaldo Restivo to head the National Secretariat for Penal Policies. There was also criticism from the left because the colonel was a lieutenant in the PM-SP Shock Battalion in 1992, during the case known as the “Carandiru penitentiary massacre” – in which 111 rebel prisoners were killed by police. At the time, Restivo had a role in supplying logistical material for the troops. In this case, at least officially, the choice was not reversed by Dino. It was the colonel who announced that he would not accept the nomination.

Government officials minimize impacts of exonerations

Government officials have minimized the impacts of the dismissals and believe that the government is still going through a period of adaptation. They also say that the episode of depredation of the Palácio do Planalto building delayed the restructuring of the public machine.

Lula himself recently commented on the matter. “We haven’t even finished setting up the government, because so far few people have been nominated. We want to see if we can correct it to put career officials, preferably civil servants who were here and were removed, transferred from department, so that this become a civilian cabinet,” said the president.

The ideological filter and the vetoes of opponents in the composition of the government, however, are nothing new in the Lula government. In 2019, the then Minister of the Civil House of the Bolsonaro government, Onyx Lorenzoni, promised a “depetization” of the Executive. At the time, layoffs also caused management problems.