What explains Lula’s drop in popularity in the Northeast

A skating economy, cuts in Bolsa Família, lack of deliveries and setbacks in the environmental agenda accelerated the end of the honeymoon of the population with the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including in his main electoral stronghold of the PT, the Northeast. The most recent survey by the Ipec institute, published on Friday (6) by the newspaper O Globo, showed that the PT’s approval in the region has dropped from 55% to 45% since April.

On the national scene, there was also a negative oscillation: 40% of respondents disapproved of the PT’s administration. In April, disapproval was 37% and in March, 35%. Still according to Ipec, 37% of those interviewed assess the government as “great” and “good”. This is the lowest percentage achieved by Lula, compared to his first term, in 2003, when he received a 43% positive rating and 48% in his second term, in 2007.

The numbers follow in the wake of several events that show a certain dehydration of the government on multiple fronts. Last Wednesday (7), for example, Lula was booed and called a ‘thief’ when he participated in the Bahia Farm Show, the largest agricultural fair in the North and Northeast of the country and the second largest in Brazil. It is important to note that the state is governed by the PT and during the 2022 elections it delivered 72% of the votes to the Chief Executive.

The government’s recent cut in the Bolsa Família program, the flagship of the PT campaign, is one of the factors that may explain Lula’s drop in popularity in the region.

In April, the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger announced a fine-tooth comb in the program, suspending the benefit of 1.2 million people who reported living alone – the “unipersonal” registrations. The argument was to remove the “irregular registrations”.

On the 26th of the same month, the Minister of Planning, Simone Tebet, estimated that the Executive would cut up to 5.5 million “one-person” registrations. The calculation was that up to R$ 7 billion per year would be saved.

According to data from the General Register of Employed and Unemployed People (Caged) and the Ministry of Personal Development, the program registered 21.9 million beneficiaries before the cuts. Of this total, more than 12 million were concentrated in the North and Northeast regions.

Due to high unemployment and poverty rates in the country, the program took root. Of the 27 states of the federation, 13 have more Bolsa Família dependents than workers with a formal contract. The state that most stands out is Maranhão, with 1,255,565 dependents and 580,556 workers.

Other events that marked the first five months of the Lula government also help to explain the drop in popularity: high unemployment, the return of taxes on gasoline, the threat of taxation of Chinese retailers, disarticulation in Congress for the approval of guidelines and the worsening scenario economic.

Unemployment in the Northeast

The Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), pointed out in May that the economic situation for northeasterners is serious. The unemployment rate in the first quarter reached 12.2% in the region, more than double what was registered in the South in the same period (5%) and 1.2 percentage points more than in the previous quarter, which ended in December from 2022.

The number is higher than the national average, which recorded 8.8% in the first quarter of this year. In the whole country, 9.4 million Brazilians are unemployed.

In this context, two states in the Northeast recorded the highest rates: Bahia (14.4%) and Pernambuco (14.1%).

Fuel taxes and taxation of Chinese retailers

The return of taxation on fuel and the attempt to levy it on products purchased from Chinese retailers also brought strong pressure on the government.

In April, the Executive tried to end the tax exemption for orders of up to US$ 50 on the grounds of “preventing tax evasion” by companies such as Shein and Shopee. After the negative repercussion of the proposal, the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, withdrew from the measure.

In the case of fuel, the government is working to resume the full rate of PIS (Social Integration Program) and Cofins (Contribution for the Financing of Social Security) on gasoline and ethanol. According to the government, the price of both fuels should rise by around R$ 0.22 per liter.

To counterbalance the increase, Haddad announced that Petrobras may further reduce fuel prices to absorb the increase in federal taxes.

Artistic class imposes pressure on environmental agenda

In addition to the common man, Lula is also pressured by a vital sector for the PT structure: the artistic class. Due to the vote on the Marco Temporal and the dismantling made by Congress in the ministries of the Environment and Indigenous Peoples, artists released a video to put pressure on the government. It features celebrities such as Mateus Solano and Thiago Lacerda publicizing a petition that will be delivered to Lula this month.

“The National Congress wants to destroy socio-environmental policies in Brazil. Temporal framework approved by the Chamber. Dismantling of the Atlantic Forest Law, in addition to the weakening of the Ministries of the Environment and Indigenous Peoples. A true package of destruction”, states the video.

The recording with several artists adds: “And then I ask you: how are we going to end hunger if we don’t even have the mood to put food on our plate? There’s still time. The President of the Republic can prevent this disaster. Therefore, we are going to put pressure on Lula so that he does the right thing and honors our vote”, they add.

The increase in deforestation registered by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) also brought wear and tear to the Executive. According to the survey, between January and March, the destruction of the Cerrado was a record, reaching almost 1,400 square kilometers. In the case of the Amazon biome, around 845 square kilometers were deforested.

Defeats in Congress

The difficulty in articulating Lula’s politics, recognized by himself, and the clashes with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), gave the first six months of the government a collection of defeats – a factor that makes it difficult to approve policies public. In addition to the emptying of ministries, the Executive will need to deal with the CPMI of January 8 – although it managed, at the last minute, to obtain a majority in the composition of the collegiate –, the CPI of the MST, the approval of the Temporal Framework in the Chamber and suspension of the vote. of the Fake News PL.

In addition, the Legislature prevented Lula from reviewing projects approved during the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, such as the revision of the Sanitation Framework. During a lecture in New York, in May, Lira alerted the government that Brazil has changed.

“The main reform that Congress will have to fight for on a daily basis is not to let everything that has already been approved in Brazil go backwards, in the sense of what is more liberal”, said the parliamentarian. The statement was interpreted as a direct message to Lula, not to try to reverse matters recently approved by Congress.

“A decree, in the hierarchy of laws, cannot change a law passed by the Chamber and the Senate attacking a point that was widely discussed, as was the landmark of sanitation in our country. Before that, [houve]
10 or 12 days of a lot of negotiation so that the government could review parts of the decree. It was not possible”, added Lira.

Lula rehashes old programs

The lack of novelties in Lula’s government programs may also explain the drop in the president’s popularity. Despite having inherited a polarized country, different from his previous administrations, the PT member revisited social programs created 20 years ago as a novelty in his government platform, such as the re-readings of “Mais Médicos”, “Farmácia Popular”, “Programa Nacional de Public Security with Citizenship (Pronasci)”, “Water for All”, “Food Acquisition Program”, “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” and the new Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), which has not yet been relaunched.

Brazil has changed and Lula has not

Lula’s troubled relationship with Congress at the beginning of his third term attests that the country he currently governs is not the same as in 2003. According to Doctor of Political Science Elton Gomes, professor at the Federal University of Piauí, the head of the Executive seems not understand the current political situation in the country.

“[Em 2003] It was new, it came from a capital vote, it arrived with a lot of support from Congress and the political environment was much less polarized and much more conducive to the development of income transfer programs. Today, the scenario is completely different: Congress is much more fragmented, the Legislature has much more strength vis-à-vis the Executive due to imposing amendments, such as individual amendments”, says Elton.

He even mentions that the rise of the right in recent years has also brought profound changes. “This situation – added to the redefinition of time and space and information technology, the rise of liberal and conservative groups, which supported the Bolsonaro government – ​​makes the government much more exposed. Mainly because it didn’t come from a crushing electoral victory, but from a very tight victory”, he recalls.

Questioned about Lula’s decline in popularity in the Northeast, Elton explains that the government’s slowness in approving campaign promises weighs on public opinion.

“Since he arrived, almost six months ago, he has not been able to carry out any rigorous management act. No new initiatives, public works, large engineering projects, in short, everything that is usually seen by the typical Brazilian citizen as defining the government’s capacity to act”, points out the professor.