TCU judgment may expand Lula’s negotiation with Centrão

In the search for space to house the Centrão parties, allies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) increased the pressure for the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) to conclude the judgment that could reduce the mandate of directors and presidents of several regulatory agencies. With that, the Planalto would expand the margin of positions to be negotiated with parties like the PP and Republicans.

The judgment in question deals with a disagreement with the General Law of Agencies, of 2019. According to the legislation, directors of agencies will have a maximum term of office of five years, without the right to reappointment. There is, however, an interpretation that if the director was promoted to the presidency of the body, he should be counted for another five years.

The TCU analyzes the case of Carlos Baigorri, current president of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel). He was nominated for the presidency of the body in 2021 by then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and his term would continue until 2026. However, when he was nominated for the presidency by Bolsonaro, Baigorri was already one of the directors of Anatel with a term that would go until November 2024.

TCU’s technical area has already indicated that such mandates of director or counselor and president of regulatory agencies cannot be counted separately. The expectation now is that the rapporteur of the case, Minister Milton Alencar, will take the process to the plenary of the Court by the end of August.

TCU judgment may increase Lula’s negotiating margin with Centrão

If the TCU plenary declares the unconstitutionality of the accumulation of terms of directors and president, Lula would have room to harbor political allies in other regulatory agencies, in addition to Anatel itself. The understanding would apply to Sandoval Feitosa, current president of Aneel; Barra Torres, at Anvisa; Paulo Rebello; from ANS and Alex Muniz from Ancine. Their current terms, as presidents, end between 2024 and 2027.

That is, all of these would have to leave their positions immediately, as their oldest terms, as directors, have already expired. Behind the scenes, Lula’s allies have been defending the thesis that the legislation does not allow the accumulation of mandates of directors with those of presidents in regulatory agencies.

The maneuver would also open up space for Lula to use these posts in the negotiations he has been doing with the Centrão parties. In the regulatory agencies, after the designation of the Planalto Palace, the names have to undergo a hearing by the sectoral commissions in the Senate and be approved in the plenary of the House.

Left-wing parties enter the list due to Lula’s nominations

Inside the Planalto Palace, the evaluation is that, in addition to eventual members of the Centrão, the posts in the regulatory agencies can be used to house Lula’s allies from the leftist parties. Since acronyms such as the PP and the Republicans charge ministries with large structures as a way of delivering the votes of their deputies in the Executive’s interest votes.

For this, palace ministers such as Rui Costa (Casa Civil) and Alexandre Padilha (Institutional Relations) designed what changes Lula would have to make in the ministerial reform to accommodate the new parties. In this design, allied acronyms such as PSB, PDT and even PT could lose space within the government.

The expectation of Lula’s allies is that the TCU judgment be completed in the coming weeks in order to expand the government’s negotiating margin with all parties. The petista has postponed the definition of the ministerial reform, which has widened the scenario of disputes and dissatisfaction within the Executive.

“I’m not in a hurry, people know what I’m going to do [a reforma ministerial] and they know that the President of the Republic has to be very careful and very responsible. Because, when you move the board, you cannot move a wrong piece or place a wrong piece”, said Lula in an interview with radio stations in the Amazon.