Lula’s base in Congress has dispute and awaits test – 04/07/2023 – Power

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) attempt to set up a base in the National Congress currently harbors an internal power struggle between parliamentarians and still lacks tests that explain the real dimension of support.

Since his victory over Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Lula has made two relevant political moves towards the Legislature, which has also sponsored two other events whose consequences are still unpredictable. These four bids shape, until now, the congressional history of the first hundred days of Lula’s third administration.

On the PT side, he chose not to confront the re-election of hitherto Bolsonarist Arthur Lira (PP-AL) as head of the Chamber, which allowed the deputy to beat the vote record in his reappointment, in February, with the support of 464 of the 513 deputies.

At the same time, Lula returned to the government the task of managing the distribution of positions and funds from parliamentary amendments in exchange for support in the Chamber, a mission that Bolsonaro had outsourced to Lira since 2020.

In other words, the government counts on Lira’s goodwill in assembling the voting agenda and on other fronts —he has not guided sensitive votes so far precisely because there is no certainty of victory—, but the mayor is no longer responsible for setting up the governing base.

Parallel to the actions sponsored by the Executive, Congress itself moved its pieces, in an internal dispute for power whose results and consequences are still open.

In the first place, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), also an ally of Lula, is in an arm wrestling match with Lira over the processing of provisional measures, a dispute whose outcome will define the size of each president’s power over them. .

Pacheco intends to resume the constitutional rite of joint committees of deputies and senators as a gateway for MPs — a mechanism used by the Executive to legislate, with immediate force of law, but which needs to be ratified by parliamentarians.

Lira puts pressure on to maintain the exceptional rite adopted during the Covid pandemic, of starting the processing of MPs directly in the plenary of the Chamber, which would considerably expand its power over them.

Parallel to this dispute, the mayor saw the formation of a bloc with 142 of the 513 deputies internally, in a centrão split. Until then, a member of the trio alongside the PL and PP, the Republicans joined the MDB, PSD, Podemos and PSC, forming the greatest political force in the House.

Lira tries to form another block that would unite PP, União Brasil and other parties, but so far there has been no formalization.

With that, the numerical scenario of Lula’s base in the Chamber has, in a solid way, only about 130 deputies from the PT and other leftist parties.

The other deputies from the possible Lulista base are attracted, in short, by the old practice of distributing positions in the federal public machine in Brasília and in the states, in addition to directing federal Budget funds to these parliamentarians.

The pace and amount of release of these positions and funds defines the degree of support from most of these center and right-wing parties.

A first nucleus of support for Lula outside the left was created by MDB, PSD and União Brasil, which received nine ministries. However, there will still be dissent in these subtitles.

The government also has some support in the PP of Lira, in the Republicans, which is now allied in a block with the MDB and PSD, and even in the PL of Jair Bolsonaro – the account is that 20 to 30 of the 99 deputies of the former’s acronym president must vote with the interests of the Planalto Palace.

As a result, bets on the real size of Lula’s base in the Chamber range from 200 to 350 deputies, depending on the source of information heard.

“It is a mistake to say that the government has no base. As there was no very relevant vote, the base was not tested”, says PT leader Zeca Dirceu (PR), who is betting on a government contingent of 350 parliamentarians, a number he enough to approve changes to the Constitution (308).

“If Bolsonaro, with all his incompetence and stupidity, managed to have a base, it is obvious that Lula will have a much broader and more stable base. Lira has helped. The government holds the execution of the Budget through the ministries. Bolsonaro outsourced the government, not governed, in fact. Lula governs, leads.”

Other members of the supposed base, however, who prefer to speak on condition of anonymity, are much more skeptical, stating that today the government would not be able to pass a simple bill.

In the Senate, the government’s situation seems a little more comfortable, since the PSD is the largest group (16 seats) and Pacheco managed to be re-elected with 49 of the 81 votes, defeating a fierce Bolsonarist opposition.

Next week, four mixed commissions will be set up to analyze MPs sent by the Lula government.

Faced with the impasse in dealing with the matters, an agreement was reached between the Executive and the Legislative for the installation of commissions to analyze the provisional measure that recreated ministries, the one that instituted the new Bolsa Família, the new Minha Casa, Minha Vida and the one that changes to CARF (Administrative Council of Federal Resources) rules.

Consideration of these matters in plenary, however, should only take place in May — and they will be the first relevant votes by Congress in the Lula government. Afterwards, the government’s new fiscal framework will be put to the vote.

At breakfast with journalists on Thursday (6), Lula said that until today he has not felt “any difficulty with the National Congress”, but admitted that “we still haven’t had a test” and said that he will “wait for the first vote of interest from the government”.

“It’s very difficult to talk in a political coalition system with the number of parties we have. It’s much easier to make a coalition in a world where there are three political parties, four political parties. a lot of divergence”, he said, in relation to the base of the government.

The petista charged Pacheco and Lira for the solution of the deadlock on the processing of MPs.

“This base has not been tested yet in any poll. […] I’m sure the two [Pacheco e Lira] they will come to an agreement to start voting on the things that need to be voted on, because the country cannot stand still,” said Lula.

History shows that crises, disarticulation and even eventually defeats are common in the hundred-day history of the presidents of the Republic since redemocratization, even in those who had a robust formal base.

This was the case, for example, of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), who won the 1994 election in the first round, taking over in the wake of the success of the Real Plan.

Despite the majority support in Congress, in his first hundred days he suffered a significant defeat when he was forced to raise the minimum wage from R$70 to R$100 under pressure from Congress —the toucan was against it, under the argument of threat of imbalance in pension accounts.