PT must balance positions with the performance of the Lula government – 03/04/2023 – Celso Rocha de Barros

Last week, the president of the PT, deputy Gleisi Hoffmann, criticized the end of fuel subsidies defended by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad. The risk of personalizing the debate was evident. The dispute between Gleisi and Haddad for the leadership of the PT has been going on for some years. But there’s more at stake than that.

If Gleisi is trying to undermine Haddad to become presidential, the strategy is very, very risky. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Haddad goes terribly wrong and Lula elects his successor in 2026, whoever he or she is.

If Haddad falls, there are many more people in the dispute for control of the PT besides Gleisi, starting with the governors of the Northeast. And, if Haddad falls because the PT overthrew him, Lula will only make the dollar fall if he calls Joaquim Levy and asks if he has a more orthodox cousin.

I don’t think that, in this specific case, the personal dispute between Gleisi and Haddad is the most important thing. What is at stake is the relationship between the Workers’ Party, which Gleisi presides over, and the Lula government, formed from a broad front against the coup d’état.

The history of the Workers’ Party’s relationship with the leaders it elected began horribly: almost all of the first mayors elected by the PT left the party irritated by interference in the administration and intense friendly fire by PT social movements.

It was only in the 1990s that the situation stabilized, and the PT managed to transform some municipal and state administrations into showcases of “the PT’s way of governing”.

Even so, Gleisi herself was the victim of friendly fire when, as secretary in Mato Grosso do Sul, she implemented an administrative reform that was considered harsh. It ended up falling.

In part, this tension between the PT and its governments is positive. It is a sign that there is a dynamic internal life in the party, that there is still debate and transparent political dispute between the militants and that the party still has ideas to offer.

But sometimes it goes wrong: if the PT is never willing to pay the political cost of its government’s decisions, nobody will pay for it. And not everything a government needs to do is popular. In the second Dilma administration, the PT resisted supporting not only Levy’s reforms, but also those of Nelson Barbosa. Dilma was not “pulled to the left”: she was even more isolated.

In last week’s dispute, the position of the PT’s “political nucleus” is easily explained: the subsidies were a demagogic gesture by Bolsonaro, and Lula is unable to give the coup d’état populist victories. It’s the tax cost of coup.

But this political calculus becomes more complex as time passes.

As economist Filipe Campante noted in a civilized conversation we had on Twitter (yes, look at that), if short-term imbalances accumulate, they could threaten long-term prospects, discouraging investment right now.

The balance is difficult, but the government’s success will increasingly depend on the success of Fernando Haddad’s economic program, which, let’s not forget, was nominated by the PT.

In the next major debates —tax reform and the new fiscal rule— the PT has the right and duty to participate, but it must better balance defending its position with guaranteeing the proper functioning of the government.

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