“I ask for a vote for whoever I think is right. I voted and will vote with a clear conscience for Jair Messias Bolsonaro. We have a mission not only here, but throughout Brazil to give him an absolute majority on October 30.” Here, in a campaign speech from less than a year ago, André Fufuca, Lula da Silva’s new minister.
Fufuca, from the PP, a party that is part of the so-called Centrão, a group of formations mainly from the center right and right that supports any government as long as it is rewarded with positions and budgets, is, together with Sílvio Costa Filho, from the Republicans, the political branch of the IURD, one of the two new faces of the Lula government. On the other hand, Ana Moser, a left-wing figure loyal to the current president, is leaving the government. Márcio França, from the centre-left PSB, was demoted.
The anger and disillusionment on the left over the first reshuffle of Lula’s ministers are, according to the President of the Republic’s own calculations, compensated by governability: now the PP and the Republicans, two parties in Bolsonaro’s circle, have the tendency to approve the projects of Palácio do Planalto in the National Congress.
‘It is good to remind the most idealists that there is a limit to all strategies and speeches. The limit is that of realpolitik. In this, Lula is a master and doctor,” wrote Elder Dias, a columnist for the newspaper Choice. ‘Lula, in government, is not surprising. He does what a born politician would do: he builds alliances and transfers his rings so as not to lose his fingers. In this way he forms a majority to approve laws that set his government in motion. moving forward and achieving results.”
“Actually,” says the journalist, “he was never exactly a left-wing figure.” “In an extremely unequal Brazil, protected by the military since the end of the empire, Lula is ‘possibly left'”.
In an editorial last month about Lula’s then only likely alliance with the Centrão newspaper The State of S. Paulo he argued that “the pact is in the interest of the country”, but only “if it is formed around a virtuous agenda”, in an editorial entitled “Brazilian apparatus”, referring to António Costa’s first government.
Before the final terms of the renovation were announced, Lula admitted that “it is always very difficult to call someone to say ‘look, I need the ministry because I have made an agreement with a political party and I have to respond’ . But that’s the policy.”
In a live broadcast, he added that “the government must build a majority vote in Congress to approve priority projects” and that “sharing power through the appointment of ministers is one of the ways to support from parties in the legislature”.
With the reform, Lula would have 389 guaranteed votes in Congress, out of a total of 513, if the PP and Republican benches fully join the government. But most observers estimate that the executive will now have 317 guaranteed parliamentarians on its side, while the rest must remain in opposition. In the Senate he will have about 60 allies out of a total of 81.
Lula, who said he felt like “a coach forced to replace players in the middle of the match”, removed a starter from the left flank, moved another left-footed player to a more discreet position and introduced two right wingers.
Ana Moser, according to her, “sadly and dismayed” left the Sports portfolio, which the President of the Republic had promised during the campaign would be safe for political exchanges, to make way for Fufuca, who, in addition to asking for votes for Bolsonaro, 2022, served as the mentor’s right-hand man impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the then head of deputies Eduardo Cunha.
Costa Filho, who praised Bolsonaro and Paulo Guedes, his Economy Minister, at the beginning of the last term, will move to the Ports and Airports portfolio, until then occupied by Márcio França, from the left-wing PSB. However, France remains in executive power thanks to the creation of a new ministry, the 38th, for micro and small businesses.
“A long and tasteless soap opera, only in Brazil…,” said Carlos Siqueira, the president of the PSB, one of the backers of the candidacy of Lula and Geraldo Alckmin, also of the PSB, in 2022.
With the changes, the current government becomes the second largest in Brazil’s democratic history, behind only Dilma Rousseff’s 39 ministers between 2013 and 2015. And it welcomes 11 parties, instead of the previous nine, with the arrival of the PP, the formation where Bolsonaro spent the longest time, and the Republicans, home of Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo who is assigned the role of Bolsonaro’s presidential candidate in 2026, given the unsuitability of the original.
Lula’s PT will continue to head ten ministries, MDB, PSB, PSD and União Brasil will continue to have three ministers each. PDT, PSOL, PCdoB, Rede and the aforementioned PP and Republicans get one. The other ten ministries are occupied by ministers without party ties.
As before the renovation, the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro, had already given up her seat to Celso Sabino due to internal reasons for União Brasil, their party. Since January, female representation in the Lula government has fallen from eleven to nine ministers.
However, the reform will continue at the second level in the coming weeks or months: Margarete Coelho, also from the PP and also a Bolsonarist (or former), will be appointed president of the state-owned bank Caixa Económica Federal.
CHANGES
Enter
André Fufuca (PP)
The new Sports Minister, son of a mayor, Fufuca Dantas, and therefore also called Fufuquinha, was a protégé of Eduardo Cunha, mentor of Dilma’s ouster and supporter of Bolsonaro.
Sílvio Costa Filho (Republicans)
The new holder of the Ports and Airports portfolio had a relationship with the Bolsonaro government and married the Lula government. He is a member of the IURD party, but the son of an ally of Dilma during the ouster.
TO LEAF THROUGH
Ana Moser (no party)
As a bronze medalist in the volleyball tournament at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he was guaranteed protection from political permutations by the Ministry of Sports, but he did not last ten months.
TO WIN
Arthur Lira (PP)
The President of the Chamber of Deputies is not only a member of the PP of Fufuca, but is also the face of Centrão, the group of parties that today joins the Lula government, as yesterday they joined the governments of Bolsonaro, Temer and others .
LOSS
Geraldo Alckmin (PSB)
Márcio França, dauphin of Alckmin, was demoted from the coveted Ministry of Ports and Airports to the newly formed portfolio of micro and small companies, in a sign of discredit for the vice president and for the PSB, PT’s old ally.
Source: DN
