Zema rediscusses the federative pact and influences the 2026 election game

The speech by the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo), in favor of the articulation of the seven states of the South-Southeast consortium (Cosud) to defend the interests of the two regions within the scope of the Federation, starting with the tax reform, triggered several and intense reactions from politicians last weekend. For analysts, however, the Minas Gerais governor initiated a bold strategy to mobilize the opposition in the 2026 presidential election.

Most reactions quickly classified Zema as separatist and prejudiced, especially with the Northeast. In response to the criticism, he explained that the South-Southeast coalition proposed in an interview with the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo aims to “join efforts” and not “reduce regions”.

By apparently abandoning the conciliatory tradition of Minas Gerais politics and investing in an articulation based on blocks defined by geography, Zema starts from the natural link around demands from the more developed states to test traditional narratives around regional inequality, which are always used in favor of of populism, especially on the left.

When he explicitly defends cooperation between two regions that account for 56% of the population, 70% of the economy and more than half (256) of the 513 votes in the Chamber, Zema is still trying to rebalance the Federation itself. “Dialogue and management are essential for Brazil to have more opportunities. The distortion of facts brings division, but the strength of the country is in working together”, he underlined.

For political scientist Ismael Almeida, Zema’s speech does not embrace the separatist idea, as leftist politicians exaggeratedly imputed, but rather highlights inequalities in the Federation and issues always avoided due to its politically sensitive nature. He clarifies that the incentives given to the North and Northeast, since the Constituent Assembly, were justified due to flagrant regional disparities.

“The reality of these regions, however, has improved in general, while the South and Southeast face losses, largely due to deindustrialization”, he pointed out, recalling that pockets of poverty can be found today in Rio Grande do Sul, for example. “Zema pointed to the need to reassess the federative pact, because, if inequality persists, all states will suffer the consequences”.

Map of ballot boxes replicates ideological division at regional level

On a less explicit level, the governor’s strategy validates the regional aspect of the country’s political-ideological polarization and seeks a new approach for electoral strongholds dominated by left-wing governments that are also priority targets for federal investments, especially in the social area.

Zema lays bare the unequal treatment of the Union towards the majority of the population, especially those located in the three largest electoral colleges – Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro – and takes the lead in a debate previously carried out by São Paulo governors. Analysts question, for example, why the Nordeste Consortium, which displayed a strong political stance against the previous government, cannot also be interpreted as a divisive arrangement. The discussion will be reopened.

Zema’s bet on Cosud also poses difficulties for Lula’s political strategy announced at the beginning of his term, of seeking a closer relationship with the governors, regardless of the party affiliation of each one, as opposed to the policy of thematic caucuses in the Chamber idealized by Bolsonaro. A new logic of discussion around federal discourses may relativize Lula’s dominant role in linking state governments to make state and regional projects viable.

Electorate of Minas Gerais has been the faithful of the electoral balance

According to Arthur Wittenberg, professor of public policy at Ibmec-DF, Zema’s approach introduced a new perspective in Minas Gerais politics, which traditionally was characterized by the search for broad consensuses. This characteristic is a reflection of the diversity present in Minas, a state that is home to both prosperous and poorer regions.

However, he identifies in the governor’s strategy the exploitation of latent regional, ideological and political tensions. “Proof of this are politicians and voters from Minas Gerais and São Paulo who occasionally express the feeling of contributing more than they receive in the context of the Federation”, he said. He points out that, despite Lula having won in all the states of the Northeast, in Minas the victory was by a narrow margin. On the other hand, Bolsonaro won in the states of the South and Midwest, and in the rest of the Southeast.

With his bet on Cosud, Zema embraces the main decision factor of the last presidential elections, summed up precisely in his own state. Minas Gerais was responsible for the narrow defeats of Aécio Neves (PSDB) against Dilma Rousseff (PT) and of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) against Lula (PT). The electoral map for the 2022 election consolidated a kind of national secession between the blue half on the right in the South, Southeast and Midwest regions versus the red half on the left, in the North and Northeast. In this North-South dichotomy, only Roraima and Minas Gerais differ.

The portrait that enshrines the Northeast as an electoral power of the left and Minas as the tip of the balance can also enliven the debate on the national development model that did not overcome the high dependence of the populations of the less developed regions on assistance and income transfer programs, reinforcing Zema’s liberal convictions in favor of productive activity and free enterprise.

As an indirect balance, Zema’s discourse of aggregating the most industrialized and economically dynamic states can strengthen his own image in the Minas Gerais electorate, which values ​​the national protagonism of its leaders associated with the appreciation of its roots. With the challenge of overcoming the left-wing electoral phenomenon that is replicated in municipalities in the north and northeast areas of his own state, the governor challenges the logic of transferring federal revenues as an instrument of economic progress and sheds light on the problem of underrepresentation electoral majority of the nation. Not by chance, the governor is a constant target of misinterpretations of his speeches.

Finally, by identifying the parliamentary majority of the South and Southeast in the Chamber, it puts pressure on the left-wing benches in each of its states to defend the interests of their electorates and adds a new defining factor in the Legislative House with more weight in defining budgetary issues. As in the Senate, the Northeast represents a third of the votes and reaches the majority in conjunction with the North and Midwest, regions also served by regional development funds, the focus on the Chamber serves to strengthen the counterpoint to the developmentalism that has dominated politics since Getúlio Vargas, intensified after the Juscelino Kubitschek government, with contributions from the military governments, especially Ernesto Geisel, and appropriated by the left.