Padilha says that Lula will assume articulation when he needs to – 05/08/2023 – Politics

The Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, minimized this Monday (8) the defeat suffered with the overthrow of the changes promoted by the Lula government in the Sanitation Framework.

Padilha said that what matters most to the government is a set of victories in more important matters.

“We have had many victories. We had a defeat last week. It is very rare for a team to be undefeated champion. In a championship you lose, you draw. To be champion, you cannot lose the final”, he stated.

He also added that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will participate in the political articulation whenever necessary. “Any time he needs to enter the field, he will enter,” he said.

At the same time, Padilha sought to minimize conversations that Lula would enter political articulation himself to improve the government’s performance in Congress. He stated that the representative has been working since the beginning of his term, talking to parliamentarians, inviting some of them to accompany him on trips around Brazil.

The minister also said that he would hold meetings, at Lula’s request, starting this week, with the benches of other parties and ministers nominated by them to demand more fidelity in the votes. He added that the first should be with the PSD.

“And let’s go, President Lula asked, delegated to me the task, as political coordinator of the government, to hold meetings with leaders of the Chamber to discuss the performance in the Chamber, the action that is being carried out and compliance with the voting calendar until the end of the first semester, until the recess that should take place in the middle of July”, said the minister.

Padilha quoted the Minister of Cities, Jader Barbalho Filho (MDB), whose portfolio is one of the authors of the sanitation decree.

“You see the MDB bench, [que] voted against. So it is time for the minister, with a group of representatives from the bench, with political coordination, to understand what the reasons were”, he said, during an interview with journalists.

Padilha has been the target of criticism because of problems in the government’s political articulation with the National Congress. The issue became more latent with the government’s first defeat last week, with the overthrow in the Chamber of changes made by the federal government to the Sanitation Framework.

Lula, however, came out in defense of his minister in recent days, ruling out changes in political articulation for the time being.

“Padilha is the country’s best in terms of political articulation,” he said in London, where he accompanied the party for the coronation of Charles III.

“If there is a disagreement in politics, everything can be settled. The hardest thing is to keep getting it right. There are 513 deputies and 1 political coordinator only. Sometimes a certain disagreement can happen, which we will settle. In politics, everything is possible. The only thing impossible it is God to sin. The rest, everything is possible”, said the president.

On Monday, the minister also defended himself against the criticism he has been receiving. He stated that “he is not a first-timer” in political articulation and said that the government has been getting good results in the National Congress.

“I’m used to the tasks of this position. I’m not a first-timer. I know it’s a position that people discuss all the time,” said the minister, recalling that he already held the position in Lula’s previous terms and in the Dilma Rousseff government. .

The minister also stated that Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) should meet this week with the rapporteur for the proposed new fiscal framework in the Chamber, Deputy Cláudio Cajado (PP-BA). The forecast is that the rapporteur’s text will be presented on the 10th or 11th. The government expects to vote on the proposal next week.