Mistakes in Planalto’s strategy

The cancellation of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) meeting with party leaders from the Chamber of Deputies, this Monday (5), once again exposed the errors of the Planalto Palace in the government’s political articulation. The meeting, which was scheduled to take place at the end of the day, was even confirmed by Lula’s articulators in the morning, but was canceled due to the decline of the invitation by some party leaders.

The background of the meeting would be for Lula to personally thank party leaders for approving the provisional measure that restructured the Esplanada dos Ministérios. In addition to leftist and center parties, such as União Brasil, MDB and PSD, the invitation was also made to leaders of independent acronyms, such as PP and Republicanos. Planalto has courted deputies from these parties in order to expand the government base.

Despite this, PP and Republican leaders declined the invitation given the various “repressed demands” in relation to the government. According to deputies from these parties, Planalto still needs to adjust some articulation points before a meeting that “would only serve to pose for a photo next to Lula”.

The president of the Republicans, deputy Marcos Pereira (SP), says, for example, that the party will remain independent until the end of Lula’s term. However, party leaders will be free to negotiate individually with the Planalto Palace.

The leader of the acronym’s bench in the Chamber, Hugo Motta (PB), and deputy Silvio Costa Filho (PE) maintain a close relationship with the Lula administration. They have already sewn nominations in their states for the Development Company of the São Francisco and Parnaíba Valleys (Codevasf). In the Esplanada MP vote, the Republicans delivered 35 of the 41 votes from their bench to the government.

Along the same lines, PP leaders claimed that they had to decline the invitation before the deadline for the agenda to be confirmed. To the leader of the government in the Chamber, Deputy José Guimarães (PT), the parliamentarians said that the “short week” due to the Corpus Christi holiday meant that they did not travel to Brasília. The government now expects to reschedule the meeting for next week.

Still on Monday morning, Lula had coffee with the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) at the Alvorada Palace, and heard from the deputy that the government needs to improve the way it talks with the House. Lira said that the president’s management needs to negotiate in order to build a solid foundation. He also said that, at the moment, the Chamber is only voting in favor of matters that are of interest to the government because “it has a commitment to the country”.

Daniela Carneiro may lose ministry to Lula to increase support in União Brasil

In addition to a rapprochement with the leaders of the Chamber, Lula is studying a change in the Ministry of Tourism in order to expand its support within the União Brasil. The expectation is that Daniela Carneiro will make room for Deputy Celso Sabino (PA) – with the support of the party’s deputies.

Despite having three ministries, the group of deputies from União Brasil alleges to Planalto that it felt underrepresented by the nominations of ministers made by Lula during the period of government transition. In addition to Daniela Carneiro in Tourism, União Brasil has as Minister Juscelino Filho, in Communications, and Waldez Goes, in Integration and Regional Development.

Carneiro, however, is in an internal dispute within União Brasil and his political group is working to leave the party and migrate to the Republicans. The Minister of Tourism is a federal deputy and is fighting in the Electoral Court to leave the party without losing her mandate due to party infidelity.

Faced with this dispute, Lula sought in recent days the leader of the União Brasil in the Chamber, Elmar Nascimento (BA), in order to seek an understanding with the bench of deputies. With that, the name of Celso Sabino started to be endorsed as a favorite to occupy the Ministry of Tourism.

Sabino is close to Arthur Lira and gained prominence with the PT government at the end of last year, when he made it possible for the Joint Budget Commission to process the so-called Transition PEC. At the time, Sabino was president of the collegiate and worked for the approval of the measure, which made it possible to breach the spending ceiling and increase resources for Lula to make possible, for example, the Bolsa Família in the amount of R$ 600.

In addition to the exchange of Daniela Carneiro, Planalto is also studying the possibility of changing the Communications portfolio. Juscelino Filho was at the center of one of the first crises within the PT government, when he was accused of having traveled with public money to resolve personal issues in São Paulo, still in January. The exchanges, however, still do not have a date to take place, but are already being negotiated by the Planalto.

Without the presence of House leaders, PT took refuge with Senate allies

Without the presence of party leaders from the Chamber, Lula ended up meeting only with allied senators to discuss political articulation. Among the opposition parties, only the leader of the PSDB, senator Izalci Lucas (DF), was present at the meeting with Lula at the Planalto Palace on Monday.

In addition to the toucan, the following leaders were present: Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), Randolfe Rodrigues (no party-AP), Otto Alencar (PSD-BA), Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES), Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO), Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL) and Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI). The Ministers of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, and of the Civil House, Rui Costa, also participated in the meeting.

In the conversation, the politicians spoke about the government’s political articulation, the size of the Executive’s allied base in the Senate, lawyer Cristiano Zanin’s sabbatine for the Federal Supreme Court (STF). In addition, Jorge Kajuru stated that the leaders will start investing in meetings with agribusiness representatives to strengthen Lula’s relationship with the sector, which is going through a moment of turmoil.

According to the senator, a meeting between Lula and the Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, has already been scheduled with approximately 200 producers from Goiás for the month of June. “The president knows that he needs to openly talk to the agro in the states about the demands and what is happening in the country”, he said.

The only member of the opposition on the Planalto agenda, Izalci Lucas stated that Lula made a commitment to withdraw spending on the Constitutional Fund of the Federal District (FCDF), supplied by the Union to fund public security and other policies of the DF, from the limit of the framework Supervisor. The text was approved by the Chamber with the inclusion of these expenses in the new rule for public accounts.

“The president did not know at first, but we talked and the tendency is either to remove it from the text or we approve it and have a veto commitment and maintain the veto”, said the DF senator.