Deputies consider relationship with Lula as negative, says survey

Almost half of federal deputies consider the relationship with the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to be negative, according to the Genial/Quaest poll released this Thursday (10). The institute heard 185 congressmen, representing 36% of parliamentarians, based on criteria of region and ideological position. The margin of error is 4.8 percentage points.

According to the survey, 41% of deputies do not have a good relationship with the government, while only 24% assess it as positive, 32% regular and 2% did not know how to respond. The survey confirms the difficulty that Lula has been having in establishing a cohesive and solid base of support in the Chamber, and that was verbalized by President Arthur Lira (PP-AL) last Tuesday (8).

Lira criticized Lula’s political articulation and said that the composition of the Esplanada dos Ministérios is “unbalanced”, with more space for senators than for deputies.

“There are a lot of Senate in the ministries and little Chamber. There are parties with 30 deputies who have ministries, and there are parties with 50 who have no ministries. If the government’s criterion is to accommodate parties on the Esplanada, it is unbalanced”, he said in an interview with radio. Mix FM from Maceio.

Still according to the survey, deputies on the right are the most critical in relation to the Lula government, with only 6% evaluating it positively, 25% as regular and 67% as negative. Another 2% did not respond.

Those on the left are more favorable, with 62% considering it positive, 33% as regular and only 5% negative. Among deputies from the center, 18% see the relationship as positive, 45% as regular and 38% as negative.

Difficulty was reflected in the release of amendments to approve projects

The difficulty in forming a solid base was also reflected in the struggle that the government went through in some votes in the first half of the year, such as the provisional measure that reorganized the government structure of the ministries, the new fiscal framework, the tax reform, among others. Lula’s own leader in the Chamber, Deputy José Guimarães (PT-CE), confirmed that the votes were tight.

According to him, the negotiations to improve articulation aim to “guarantee the panel, which is what matters, how many votes the government has”. Lula’s ministries released R$19.1 billion in parliamentary amendments in seven months, R$4 billion of which in May, when the government’s reorganization and the text of the fiscal framework were processed; and R$11.5 billion in July, the month in which the tax reform was voted.

More recently, last week, Arthur Lira also said that the Chamber does not have a consensus to re-analyze the text of the fiscal framework, which passed through the Senate with changes that need to be voted on again by the deputies.

Because of this, the government has spent the last few weeks in constant meetings with centrão parties to integrate the allied base. During the parliamentary recess, Minister Alexandre Padilha, of Institutional Relations, managed to close an agreement for the entry of the PP and the Republicans in the Esplanada dos Ministérios in exchange for more votes in the Chamber.

The two names indicated by the parties, André Fufuca (PP-MA) and Sílvio Costa Filho (Republicanos-PE), have already been approved by Lula and should have their portfolios announced next week.

However, if negotiations go forward, the Republicans could lose their top name to another party. The governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, said this week that he may leave the party if his entry into government is actually confirmed.

Tarcísio’s departure would make Republicans lose the government of the richest state in the country and currently the strongest name on the right for the 2026 presidential succession.