MST and agro feed tension between Lula and Tarcísio administrations

Sao Paulo-SP) – The MST (Movement of Landless Rural Workers) and the relationship with agribusiness became a source of tension in relations between the Tarcísio de Freitas administration (Republicans) and the Lula government (PT).

While federal deputies are likely to use the MST to attack the government, Tarcísio and his team have also launched artillery on the subject in speeches and interviews, including criticizing the Lula government for its relationship with the movement.

The attack by the São Paulo government against the MST occurred as a nod to agribusiness, at a time of unease with the federal government after the presence of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) at the main fair in the sector, Agrishow, and a report of “disinvitation” by the minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro.

Tarcísio’s base at Alesp (São Paulo Legislative Assembly) follows the same line, with proposition of laws and CPI against the movement.

This week, in an interview with GloboNews, the governor said he considered MST leader João Pedro Stedile’s trip to China in Lula’s entourage more serious than Bolsonaro’s presence at the Agrishow.

Criticism of the MST is not just a nod to the extreme right, but also an easy recipe to please agribusiness, averse to the left and anti-PT.

In the political environment, Tarcísio’s gestures are seen as an attempt to mark territory among Bolsonarists, at a time when his name is seen as a possible heir to Bolsonaro, whose ineligibility is given as almost certain.

During the agribusiness fair, in homage to this group of businessmen from the interior, Tarcísio sent a message to the rural workers’ movements by saying that he is intransigent “with the violation of the right to property”.

“We are not going to compromise. We will be tough to secure the property right. And those who tried to compromise in the state of São Paulo are stuck right now. And whoever tries will have the same fate, jail”, said the governor at the event in Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo, a region where Bolsonarism defeated PT in the last elections.

Bolsonaristas have linked the federal government to the recent land invasions by the MST, which took place during the so-called Red April. Last month, the movement held several protests and invaded an area that belongs to Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation), as well as Incra headquarters.

According to reports made to the report, camps of rural workers’ movements have been under 24-hour monitoring by the police in São Paulo.

“The position of the Tarcísio government, in our opinion, is the same as that of the federal opposition. That is, it is to create a subject to move the agenda [da base eleitoral] them”, says Márcio Santos, member of the MST’s national leadership in São Paulo.

“The backdrop is the dispute over the narrative, between two antagonistic projects, on the one hand, the land ownership agenda, which today is disguised as agribusiness, and the agenda for agrarian reform and family farming”, he adds.

The movement sees the banner of land regularization championed by the state government as an initiative to regularize land grabbing and refutes Tarcísio’s criticism of Stedile’s trip to China, seen as justified by the quest to replicate in Brazil that country’s experience in fighting hunger through of agriculture.

In addition to police monitoring of the movement, with preventive actions that have already prevented new occupations, Tarcísio’s base in Alesp also promises to close the siege.

“Today, the government [monitoramento] through the intelligence of the secretariats. This is a fact that there were invasion attempts and the security forces acted quickly and blocked it”, says state deputy Danilo Balas (PL), author of a state CPI request on the subject.

“By the Legislative Assembly, as we have the power of investigation, we can go into the field, share data with other secretariats and thus evolve in this research issue”.

He also proposed a law aimed at penalizing members of the movement. Under the proposal, they would be prevented from receiving benefits and aid from state government programs, in addition to being vetoed in public tenders and positions.

As CPIs are installed in order of protocol and that of the MST is the eighteenth, the matter should not come up before the middle of Tarcísio’s administration. But Balas relies on Tarcísio’s loose base at Alesp to try to pass the urgent request for the bill, preventing the bill from having to go through all the committees individually.

“I believe 100% that it has the support of the governor”, ​​says Balas, quoting Tarcísio’s speech that invaders would be arrested. “This is the imposition of the state against crimes perpetrated in previous governments and now it [Tarcísio] has a hard line in not admitting it”.

Both Bolsonarists and PT supporters believe that the tension surrounding the MST and dialogue with the agro will not affect larger issues involving the state and federal governments. However, among Lula’s allies, there is an admission that the insistence on the issue creates discomfort.

PT state deputy close to the MST, Simão Pedro says that there is an attempt by Bolsonarists to criminalize the struggle for civilizing rights such as access to land and housing, demonstrating insensitivity towards the poor population. In the case of Tarcísio, he considers that the MST is an issue that has been narrowed down to help signal his base.

“Tarcísio, with that kind of attitude, of speech, he tries to hold this Bolsonarist radical base with him as one of the pillars of political support and with that to prove himself reliable for the extreme right sector, of the big export agribusiness, which has proved to be anti-Lula and resisted in that position”, he says.

While Tarcísio displays rapport with agribusiness, Lula’s allies are divided.

PT president and federal deputy Gleisi Hoffmann came out in defense of the MST and stated that part of the Brazilian agribusiness favors the sector with “arrogance and radicalism”. On the other hand, sectors of the government seek to attempt a rapprochement with the agro and assess that the actions of the MST harm the Lula administration.

*With information from Folha de S.Paulo

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