the bottlenecks of the Lula government

The first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) third term proved to be a political quagmire. Even after distributing BRL 5.3 billion in amendments to deputies, the government has suffered defeats and the Chamber is the main obstacle to its strategic projects. Lula also treated agribusiness entrepreneurs as “fascists”, disappointed evangelicals and damaged Brazil’s image in the West by supporting Russia and relativizing the invasion of Ukraine.

Lula’s main bottleneck, the relationship with the Chamber was the target of several clashes in these first six months of government. Without the support of the majority of deputies, the Executive was defeated in several matters, such as the overthrow of the sanitation milestone decree and the withdrawal of the Fake News Bill from the agenda, for example.

In addition, Lula was forced to expand the release of parliamentary amendments so that the Provisional Measure that restructured the Esplanada dos Ministérios would not lose its validity.

The leader of the opposition in the Chamber, deputy Carlos Jordy (PL-RJ) claims that Lula has no basis in the government to approve projects. According to him, only 136 parliamentarians remain faithful to the president, and that is why he “seeks at all times to buy support, votes, in a new edition of Mensalão through the secret budget”.

In Jordy’s evaluation, Lula governed through Provisional Measures and decrees, and the projects would be very bad, in his opinion. “Even so, he [governo] it is difficult to approve, because there is no political articulation”.

The government recognizes the difficulty, but says that the scenario will be reversed in the next semester.

“I experienced the biggest drama as a political articulator of the government with the provisional measure for the restructuring of the ministries. It seemed that the ceiling of the plenary [da Câmara] Ulysses Guimarães was going to fall on our heads, because it was serious. There was tension of great proportions. Imagine if this provisional measure had not been approved? The chaos that the government would be in”, said the leader of the government in the Chamber, deputy José Guimarães (PT-CE).

Speaker of the Chamber, Deputy Arthur Lira (PP-AL), was responsible for the main messages to President Lula that the government could suffer even more defeats in the House given the more conservative and liberal profile of the deputies. After the clashes, Lula decided to enter the government’s political articulation and expand the space for deputies from the center in order to consolidate a support base.

In this strategy, in addition to raffling the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro, to shelter Deputy Celso Sabino (União-PA), in order to increase support within União Brasil, Lula intends to meet every two weeks with the leaders of Congress. According to the government leader, by the end of the year, the PT administration will have an “oiled” relationship with the Chamber.

“The minister [Alexandre] padilha [das Relações Institucionais] he is responsible for commanding public articulation of the government in both Houses. But it is good for the president to be close to the leaders. Anyway, I think what happened this semester is a very substantive change. We want to improve the relationship between the Executive and the Chamber”, said Guimarães.

New configuration of party blocks should prevent Lula from imposing his personal agenda

The fact that Congress is divided is another barrier for the PT, according to political scientist Adriano Cerqueira, from the Federal University of Ouro Preto. According to him, this became clear at the beginning of the first semester, with the formation of party blocks in the Chamber.

Cerqueira says that the blocks are the result of a party restructuring that has been underway since Bolsonaro’s election, and that became more evident in the composition of the new Congress.

“Parties that until then were very strong and formed the agenda in Congress, such as the PSDB, MDB and even the PT, lost strength, lost the composition of the majority group; and those other small, medium-sized parties, which formed a support block for the government on duty – which we have called Centrão – many of these parliamentarians are now part of strong parties, which define the agenda of Congress, such as Republicans, PP and PL” , explains.

In Cerqueira’s analysis, “PP and PL are clearly disputing power in the Chamber. This process of large blocks was started, one of them benefiting more Arthur Lira (PP), and União Brasil, which is the so-called super block, with more than 170 deputies, and which guarantees Lira the power of political articulation within the Chamber of Deputies”.

The other block, with about 140 deputies, around the Republicans, disputes influence in the Chamber; in addition to the PL, with 99 parliamentarians.

“This conservative and right-wing scenario explains Lula’s difficulty in defining the voting agenda and the thematic agenda in the National Congress. It is clear that Lula wants to use this third term to impose his personal agenda, and he has a leftist profile. But the Chamber has already made it clear that it will not allow this, and that it has its own agenda”, adds Adriano Cerqueira.

Lula tries to mitigate attrition after calling agribusiness fascist

Another point of crisis for Lula in these first six months of government came from the agribusiness sector, which mostly supported the government of former President Bolsonaro. The main clash occurred when Executive ministers threatened to cut Banco do Brasil’s sponsorship of Agrishow, the largest agricultural fair in Latin America, which did not occur.

In this episode, Lula referred to the Agrishow organizers as “some fascists, some denialists”. In addition, the crisis with agribusiness was amplified after Lula and other members of the government not only remained silent in the face of the invasions of private properties by the Landless Workers Movement (MST) but also awarded their leaders with strategic public positions.

The crisis ended up resulting in the installation of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) by the Chamber of Deputies.

In an attempt to mitigate the sector’s resistance to the government, Lula began to make several signals in a strategy of rapprochement. Recently, he demanded that the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) work to anticipate the invasions. In addition, Lula said that, to reduce invasions, the government will create a ”shelf of unproductive land” for settlements.

Vice-president of the Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA), deputy Arnaldo Jardim (Cidadania-SP), evaluated the PT’s nods positively. “I think that Lula’s statement that you don’t need to invade land in Brazil and that this is a government that works for the development of agriculture were very important. I thought that both statements were very timely and a good sign for good coexistence in the sector with the government,” he said.

Disapproval of the government grew among evangelicals

The approval of the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in six months of government is stagnant in the margin of valid votes received in the 2022 election, according to data from the PoderData survey released this Thursday (29).

The survey points out that 51% of Brazilians approve of the president, just 0.1% above the number of valid votes received in the second round of the presidential election, of 50.9%.

Discontent with Lula is greater in the evangelical segment, where his disapproval started at 56% in January, rose to 60% in April and now stands at 62%. In this group, the current president is approved by only 34% of voters. The survey was carried out between the 23rd and 25th of June, with 2,500 voters.

In early June, President Lula was booed when he was cited by the attorney general of the Union, Jorge Messias, during the March for Jesus, one of the biggest events for the evangelical public in the country. The petista was invited to attend the event, but declined the invitation.

Still during the transitional government, the creation of a secretariat for evangelicals in Planalto was articulated, destined to advise Lula in dealing with the group. The body would be headed by pastor Paulo Marcelo Schallenberger, but its creation did not occur. Nor did Lula include evangelical leaders in the “Conselhão”, made up of businessmen, civil society and social movements, including the MST.

By supporting Russia, Lula lost the chance to be a protagonist on the international stage

In just six months of office, Lula spent more than 30 days abroad. During this period, he made countless disastrous statements, which showed his profound ignorance of the international scene.

The PT mistakenly said that Ukraine is as guilty of the war as Russia and that the United States and the European Union are prolonging the conflict by providing weapons for Ukrainians to defend themselves.

By not taking into account that Russia is the aggressor country and Ukraine the invaded nation, Lula damaged Brazil’s image in the West and considerably diminished his own chances of becoming a protagonist in global diplomacy.

His proposal to mediate the Ukraine conflict was disregarded by world powers. In addition, in most of the countries he visited, the petista criticized the environmental policy of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Analysts stated that he could play a global role in the area of ​​environmental protection.

But Lula not only had a blacked out ticket, but also suffered criticism from the left when he traveled to France to discuss how rich countries could help poorer nations to face the challenges of climate change. The protagonism that Lula intended to assume was given to leaders such as the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, and the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.

The petista now bets on recovering prestige in the area in 2025, when Brazil should host the COP 30, the international climate conference.

But the disastrous foreign policy did not only create problems for Lula on the international stage. Stays in luxurious hotels with his wife Janja Lula da Silva during official trips and the warm welcome given to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in June have damaged the president’s image domestically.

It now remains for Lula to try to reverse the mistakes made at the beginning of his government or to accept an increasing isolation that could extend the current political quagmire until 2026.