MP from Ministries: Senate approves text – 06/01/2023 – Power

The Senate approved this Thursday (1st) the MP (provisional measure) that restructures the Lula government (PT). A few hours before the deadline, after threats from the Chamber of Deputies to bury the text, the senators approved the MP in about two hours. The text was approved by 51 to 19 and one abstention.

The MP reorganizes the federal government and creates new ministries, such as Culture, Industry and Indigenous Peoples. If it expired this Thursday, the Esplanada dos Ministérios should resume the design of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), with 23 portfolios instead of 37.

Unlike what happened in the House, the MP was approved by the Senate without major obstacles. Amid complaints from federal deputies this Wednesday (31), senators claimed that they would vote for the MP regardless of the time they had for it.

In another sign of the Senate’s goodwill towards Planalto, the President of the House, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), appointed the leader of the government, Senator Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), to report on the text.

Before the vote, Pacheco stated that “there may be criticism of the articulation”, but said that all senators understand the importance of the MP of the ministries for the structuring of the government.

“Obviously there may be criticism of the political articulation, but nothing that leads to a situation like this, of not approving the main provisional measure of the country and the government. The structuring of ministries, institutions, it would be very bad to interrupt that.”

The MP would expire this Thursday if it was not approved by Congress. Precisely because of the lack of time, the Senate maintained the text of the Chamber of Deputies —approved this Wednesday night by 337 votes to 125, and one abstention.

Despite escaping defeat in the Chamber, the government had to give in to the initial plan and accept the recreation of Funasa (National Health Foundation), a body coveted by different parties for political appointments.

Hours before the vote in the Chamber, the President of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), walled up the Planalto Palace and criticized the government’s political articulation.

Faced with a message from the centrão that he was willing to reject the MP, Lula personally spoke with parliamentarians. The Planalto also promised to speed up the release of amendments and appointments to positions in the face of pressure for more space in the government.

As he went up to the Senate tribune, Jaques apologized to his colleagues for the tight deadline and appealed to the opposition for the text not to be changed. “The previous government thought one way, the current government thinks another,” he said.

“And I want to ask my fellow senators, warning that one of the points that had a lot of controversy here among the senators, which was the extinction of Funasa, ended up in an agreement last night, being accepted by the rapporteur at the request of the government in the Chamber.”

The MP was approved by the mixed commission —made up of deputies and senators— by 15 votes in favor and 3 against. The rapporteur, federal deputy Isnaldo Bulhões Jr. (MDB-AL), Lira’s ally, dehydrated the government’s environmental policy.

Competences of bodies that are currently in the structure of the ministries of the Environment (headed by Marina Silva), of Agrarian Development (by Paulo Teixeira) and of Indigenous Peoples (by Sônia Guajajara) will be transferred to other ministries.

The approved text withdrew the ANA (National Water Agency) from the Environment and transferred it to Regional Development —a portfolio commanded by Waldez Góes (PDT), appointed by parliamentarians from União Brasil.

The CAR (Rural Environmental Registry), an instrument to control private lands and conflicts in preservation areas, also came out of Marina Silva’s ministry for Management and Innovation in Public Services, headed by Esther Dweck.

The weakening of Marina Silva led Lula to instruct his ministers to adopt rhetoric in defense of the minister.

Rui Costa, Minister of the Civil House, went so far as to state that the text of the MP was “misaligned” with the government’s vision; and that it would work to reverse the changes during voting on both the House and Senate floor.

What was seen in the following days, however, was a Planalto Palace incapable of promoting changes in the proposal. Political articulators began to admit that there was no way to recover the defeats suffered in the environmental area, otherwise the MP would lose its validity.

“Everything that concerned the FPA [Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária] is solved”, affirmed this Thursday the opposition senator Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG), and member of the ruralist group. “The main points [da bancada] were taken care of.”