2023-06-01 14:29:33
The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) has been facing, in recent days, an unusual situation for a management with little more than five months to live.
It had to wait, until the last hours before the deadline, for the deputies to decide to approve the provisional measure that restructured the Esplanada, increasing from 23 to 37 the number of ministries.
The vote in the Chamber was expressive, with 337 votes in favor, 125 against and one abstention. But it occurred at the deadline — the text needs to be approved by the Senate this Thursday (1/6) in order not to lose validity. The delay in approving the important measure for the government was read as a message from the Chamber of dissatisfaction with the political articulation of the Planalto.
This occurs days after the government saw the Chamber of Deputies approve the bill that establishes a time frame for the demarcation of indigenous lands, an agenda rejected by government members.
Lula was elected by a slim margin over former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the first time that a president in power has lost a re-election. But the consensus among analysts is that the political composition of the National Congress, markedly more conservative, would create difficulties for Lula’s governance.
In recent months, consecutive defeats (see the main ones below) sent a “yellow signal” to the Planalto Palace and made President Lula call an emergency meeting with those responsible for his political articulation in the National Congress. In the midst of all this, a question began to circulate among political analysts: Is Lula walled up by Congress?
Experts interviewed by BBC News Brasil estimate that the president faces, today, much more difficulty in obtaining governability than in his first two terms. According to them, this happens due to a combination of factors that involve structural changes in the functioning of Parliament and failures in the government’s political articulation team.
losing streak
The Lula government managed to advance some of its main proposals, such as the new fiscal framework, which establishes the new fiscal rules that the government will have to follow in the coming years. It passed the House last week.
Despite this, in recent months, Lula also suffered a series of defeats, which raised doubts about the capacity of political articulation of the current government.
The main defeats were:
Overthrown by the National Congress of presidential decrees that changed parts of the Basic Sanitation Framework, approved in 2020
Withdrawal from the agenda of the bill that created rules for the operation of social networks, known as “PL das Fake News”
Withdrawal of the demarcation of indigenous lands from the purview of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples
Removal of the rural environmental register under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment
Approval by the Chamber of a bill that creates the time frame for indigenous demarcations
The approval of the change in the structure of the ministries by the Chamber very close to the end of the term is emblematic in showing how the current management has been trying to balance itself in the articulation with the deputies.
By law, provisional measures are valid for 180 days and must be approved by the National Congress within that period. Otherwise, they lose their validity. The MP that restructured the government needs to be voted on by the Senate by this Thursday (1/6) so as not to “lapse” and cease to have effect.
The practical impact of this is that, if the MP is not approved, the Lula government will, in theory, have to adopt the same structure left by former President Jair Bolsonaro. This would imply the extinction of some ministries, such as the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and Racial Equality, which would represent a major defeat for the government.
The MP’s report approved by the rapporteur, Deputy Isnaldo Bulhões (MDB-AL), removed attributions considered strategic from the ministries of the Environment and Indigenous Peoples.
Despite the public reaction by Marina Silva and Sônia Guajajara, the report was endorsed by the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha.
The fear in the government was that reacting to the changes in the two folders could result in something worse: the non-approval of the MP.
“We are going to defend the report the way it is, we are going to defend the approval of this report. I am not saying that it is the ideal report for the government, because that would be the original text, but there is no such thing, there is a construction made with the Houses”, said Padilha on Tuesday (05/30), after a meeting with parliamentarians .
In addition, during the vote on Wednesday, the government relented and deputies approved the recreation of the National Health Foundation (Funasa).
Lula sandwich?
Political scientist Sérgio Abranches, who formulated the concept of coalition presidentialism in the 1980s, told BBC News Brasil that Lula is not a “hostage” of the National Congress as a whole, but, at this moment, he would be in the condition of a “hostage” by Arthur Lira (PP-AL), the President of the Chamber of Deputies.
“He is Arthur Lira’s hostage because Lira got a lot of power in this disarray that exists today in relations between the Executive and the Legislative. Arthur Lira has serious problems with the government because he doesn’t feel prestigious, he doesn’t feel his demands are being met,” said the political scientist.
Lira has been pointed out by analysts as Lula’s main obstacle to achieving governability in the National Congress.
The president of the Chamber supported Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential elections, promised that he would not hinder Lula’s actions, but openly criticized the PT’s team’s ability to negotiate politics.
He has already stated, for example, that distributing ministries to parties to try to build a parliamentary base would not be enough. The way out, according to him, would be greater agility in the release of parliamentary amendments.
Abranches claims that Lula could not be considered a hostage of the National Congress because, in the Senate, the president still seems to be in a better position to negotiate due, among other reasons, to his proximity to the president of the House, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG). .
“With (Rodrigo) Pacheco, with the Senate, Lula manages to put together agreements. The situation there is different. But with the Chamber, the scenario is totally different,” he said.
Political scientist Beatriz Rey, a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, says that the difficulties faced by the current government in its relationship with Congress are the result of the following factors:
Structural changes that have reduced the government’s ability to exert influence over parliamentarians, such as imposing parliamentary amendments, whose payment is mandatory, reducing the government’s negotiation margin
Current composition of the Chamber of Deputies, markedly more conservative and ideologically right-wing than the Lula government
Failures in the action of the president’s political articulation team
“We are facing an institutionalized turn, a strengthening of Parliament and a difficulty for the government to deal with a new scenario of the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative. Also, we see some mistakes being made since the beginning of the year, ”he said.
Professor of Political Science at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) Graziella Testa says that, historically, all Brazilian presidents elected since redemocratization have had to face problems in their relationship with the Legislative Power.
Testa points out, however, that Lula is now facing a different scenario than he faced in the past.
“Until 2018, this mediation between the Executive and the Legislative was carried out between the government and party leaders. Now, this mediation is done by the presidents of the Chamber. That scenario has changed and the answer as to how things will play out is still uncertain,” he said.
According to her, another reason that made the room for maneuver with Parliament even smaller is that ministries, traditionally used to attract allied parties, are no longer considered as interesting.
“Today, folders are not so attractive because, with such a tight budget, the available resources are very compromised. Occupying the position of minister does not give the freedom of action that can be transformed into votes as it used to be”, said the professor.
Is Lula’s reaction possible?
Sérgio Abranches points out that although the scenario is unfavorable for Lula in his relationship with Parliament, there are measures he can take to try to get around the situation. According to him, three actions would be necessary: redistribution of ministries; change your team of political articulators; and establish clear priorities for his government.
“Lula needs to have more ministers from other parties. The PT is disproportionately represented on the Esplanada dos Ministérios. There has to be greater representation of parties that are not part of the government’s hard core,” he said.
Currently, the PT has 68 federal deputies in the Chamber, equivalent to 13% of the total. Despite this, Abranches points out, the party has 10 ministries out of a total of 37 portfolios, equivalent to 27%.
“I think that, for there to be a reaction, the government has to change its articulation structure. Today, Alexandre Padilha (Institutional Relations) and Rui Costa (Minister of the Civil House) have not been good political consultants. All dialogue with Congress is through PT ministers. It’s not a coalition government talking to Congress. It makes a difference,” said Abranches.
Abranches also claims that the government needs to get more directly involved in negotiations with parliament and establish clear guidelines.
“He (Lula) needs to have priorities and negotiate them. He has to do this in a conversation with Lira and Pacheco and say: ‘Look, these guidelines here I need to be approved. The rest, we talk. No one is interested in the impasse,’” Abranches said.
Beatriz Rey also defends that the government makes changes in its way of interacting with Congress.
“The government has to give less weight to the PT and rethink who its main articulators will be. I think one way would be to put someone who had more traffic with Centrão”, said the political scientist in allusion to the center-right party block known as Centrão, composed of parties such as the MDB, PSD, PP, PR, among others.
Another point defended by Beatriz Rey is that the government “stop making mistakes” in its political articulation. She points out, for example, that the government made a mistake when trying to overturn points in the Basic Sanitation Framework via decree. According to her, this caused the government to “burn” part of its political capital.
“This is not a government that arrives with a lot of original political capital. He finds that he plays against, and, on top of that, he is still burning part of his political capital ”, he evaluates.
Beatriz Rey also defends that the government objectively defines what are its priorities in the parliamentary agenda.
“I wrote an article recently in which I said that the government had to have between 10 and 15 priority agendas. Today, I think it might not even be possible to talk about that number. But it is necessary to sit down with the interlocutors and establish a list of priorities. I think it’s a good solution. Even so, the scenario is uncertain,” he said.
The political scientist points out, however, that the government needs to change its expectations in relation to what it can approve in Congress.
“You can’t expect to pass many guidelines to the left. This is a more right-wing Congress from an ideological point of view. I think this is something the government has to incorporate into its modus operandi,” he said.
Graziella Testa says that the future of governance in Lula’s current term is still uncertain due to changes in the way it was carried out, for example, during the government of former President Bolsonaro.
According to her, governance during the former president’s term was obtained from the so-called “secret budget”, a mechanism for distributing parliamentary amendments in which those directly responsible for nominating the amendments did not have their names disclosed.
One of the main supporters of the mechanism, known officially as “reporter’s amendments”, was, precisely, Arthur Lira.
The mechanism, however, was prohibited by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in 2022.
“I am skeptical of the idea that there will no longer be a coalition or a parliamentary base. It may be that the instruments that will be used in the construction of this governability change, but the scenario is still uncertain due to the prohibition of rapporteur amendments. We have to think about new paths”, said the teacher.
By Leandro Prazeres
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