Lula negotiates positions with centrão and uses leftover amendments – 02/03/2023 – Politics

Assistants of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) have already started negotiations with the main parties that were allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

Leaders of Republicans, PP and even PL opened the channel with the political articulation of the PT government, submitted requests for second and third-level positions, and, in exchange, promised the Planalto Palace votes from part of each bench.

Negotiations have been at retail and coordinated by the Institutional Relations Secretariat, commanded by PT minister Alexandre Padilha.

The government wants to try to seal the adhesion of smaller acronyms, such as Podemos, Citizenship and Solidarity, until next week, when the meeting of the Political Council — a group of parties allied with Lula — should take place.

Regarding the core of Bolsonaro’s former base, Padilha has already met with the leader of the party in the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB). In the PL, the conversation has been with the leader of the acronym, deputy Altineu Côrtes (RJ) – who is close to the party’s president, Valdemar Costa Neto.

The dialogue with the PP takes place via the re-elected president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (AL), and some deputies from the Lulista wing of the bench, such as Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PB), who must report on the proposal for tax reform in the House. The role is disputed because it is a priority for Lula this semester.

The three parties are not part of the president’s support base in Congress. The government also does not expect their formal accession in the short term.

According to Lula’s articulators, the negotiation of positions should expand political alliances. The main focus is the Chamber, where the group formed by PP, PL and Republicans (the biggest exponents of the centrão) has more strength. Members of the Planalto say that these talks will continue throughout February.

The appetite of these legends is for positions at the top of Codevasf (Company for the Development of the São Francisco and Parnaíba Valleys), DNOCS (National Department of Works Against Droughts), FNDE (National Fund for the Development of Education) and Correios, among others .

União Brasil has also shown interest in these positions. Therefore, the idea is for the government to distribute a state-owned company to each party and include other smaller Executive positions in the package.

This week, the government indicated that it will put a directorate of the FNDE and three directorates of the Post Office in negotiation. This negotiation was championed by Deputy Elmar Nascimento (União Brasil). He was passed over in the nominations for Lula’s ministry.

The deputy would be the Minister of National Integration, but was barred by the PT in Bahia. After that, the government had to make nods to Elmar.

While the impasse remains, the government must analyze the rest of the list of requests from the centrão, which brings together nominations for regional positions, such as state coordinators and superintendencies of state-owned companies allocated by the centrão (Codevasf and DNOCS) and other bodies, such as Iphan ( National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute).

The expectation of Lula’s articulators is that, with the negotiations, the government will be able to count on about 15 votes from the Republicans (whose bench has 40 deputies) and about 20 votes from the PL (which has 99 deputies). The PP’s support is still unclear and depends on Lira, who has approached the Planalto Palace. The party has 47 votes in the House.

As shown to Sheetthe PT reached an agreement with the Republicans at the end of last year, in a first movement for the future adhesion of the acronym to the base.

The party supported the candidacy of the president of the Republicans, deputy Marcos Pereira (SP), for the first vice-presidency of the Chamber in the election this Wednesday (1st) and says it will support the candidacy of Jhonatan de Jesus (Republicanos-RR) for the vacancy open in the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União), in the vote this Thursday (2).

Another strategy to expand Lula’s base in Congress is the distribution of amendments. Assistants to the president claim that the idea is to use almost R$ 10 billion that were foreseen for rapporteur amendments.

This type of amendment gained expression in the Bolsonaro government and was used as a bargaining chip in political negotiations.

The instrument strengthened Lira and the re-elected president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG). Last year, the STF (Federal Supreme Court) declared that these amendments are unconstitutional.

The centrão sewed an agreement with the PT to redistribute the resources of the rapporteur’s amendments previously scheduled for 2023 and which add up to more than R$ 19 billion. Half of that budget was passed on to individual amendments —the ones that each deputy and senator is entitled to. The rest went to the budget of Lula’s ministries.

Despite the decision of the STF, the 2023 Budget maintains the resources in the same actions and projects that were already foreseen in political agreements between leaders of the centrão for the amendments of the rapporteur (when they still existed).

Members of the Planalto Palace claim, on condition of anonymity, that the government’s political articulation intends to use the release of these resources as a negotiation in important votes for Lula — such as the tax reform and the new fiscal rule to be presented by the Ministry of Finance.

As part of the R$ 9.85 billion that returned to the government’s hands had already been the currency of negotiation between the top of Congress and parliamentarians, Lula’s allies want to align these negotiations. The idea is not to break agreements with Lira, who was re-elected with a record 464 votes in the Chamber.

Centrão leaders already stated last year that, although they have lost the power to execute the rapporteur’s amendments, they want the R$ 9.85 billion transferred to the ministries to be released following indications by parliamentarians. Now, even members of the Lula government say that these resources should be used for political negotiations.