São Paulo governor since April and candidate for re-election, Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB), has maintained the practice of his predecessor João Doria (PSDB), of whom he was deputy governor, to multiply transfers of political funds to serve parliamentarians.
From January this year to the end of July, according to data obtained through the Law on Access to Information (LAI), the administration of Rodrigo e Doria allocated 1.28 billion reais to deputies in the form of resources to supplement its political base with benefits such as jobs and expenses.with health.
Like last year, even federal deputies were noticed in an unusual action.
BUT Sheet revealed that Doria had authorized BRL 1.05 billion (BRL 1.17 billion as adjusted) for parliamentarians for the same period in 2021. In 2020, the amount transferred was BRL 182.9 million (BRL 213.7 million as amended).
There has been a leap promoted by Doria and Rodrigo in pivotal years, from the Toucan primary in 2021 and the election in 2022.
Among the 14 parties under consideration, 9 make up Rodrigo’s coalition. The first six positions in the budget rating are occupied by the legends of this allied group.
The Tucana campaign hopes that, with the support of the public machine, the actions of mayors and deputies of the interior will contribute to a turn that will take Rodrigo to the second round in this last stretch.
The governor scored 19% in the latest Datafolha poll, behind Fernando Haddad (Portugal) with 34% and Tarcisio de Freitas (Republicans) with 23%.
The transfer of this amount, called a parliamentary demand, follows the logic of additional or voluntary amendments. That is, payment is optional and occurs at the discretion of the Tukan government, which ultimately benefits the allied base.
Impositional amendments are mandatory and are distributed equally among the 94 state deputies. The cost, however, is well below the budget allocated to the Allies. This year, each deputy is entitled to about 6.6 million reais (about 620 million reais in total).
The TCE (State Audit Court) in its analysis of public accounts for 2021 cited evidence of a political distribution of values, as well as a lack of control and transparency regarding transfers.
Toucan opponents see the use of public funds as an electoral trump card to win the support of mayors, deputies and parties, which could lead to suspicions of abuse of power or administrative offenses, lawyers say. However, the introduction of additional amendments is common and legal in the system of public administration.
Last week, Rodrigo’s campaign began distributing a newspaper listing the government’s accomplishments in each city.
State MP Carlos Giannasi (PSOL) has already proposed a CPI on the issue, but has not received the required signatures from peers. “They’re replicating the same practices that Bolsonaro did,” he says of the speaker’s amendments supporting congressional support for the chief executive.
“This is an open way of co-opting deputies. So the government can take such unpopular measures. And it works very well because the mayors depend on the amendments,” he says.
Also, according to Giannatsi, what he calls clientelism creates unequal competition in elections between grassroots MPs, who have more storefronts, and opposition MPs. PSOL, for example, did not receive additional money.
The government stated that the service to parliamentarians is legal and that the requests are subject to technical analysis. The press service said that the appeals are about claims sent for processing, and that “this does not mean that all of them were actually paid.”
Parliamentary demands have been filed in 639 of the state’s 645 municipalities. In the elections, Rodrigo enjoys the support of the majority of mayors – according to the campaign, 511 mayors and more than 2,000 councilors attended a rally in the capital on Monday (19).
“Get up a little earlier and stay up a little later to ask for votes,” the governor urged while speaking at the event. “I need every one of you in your city,” he said. Rodrigo also stated that he would be able to find out who was on his side.
The resource was used by 59 state deputies and 24 federal deputies, including the chairmen of the parties (Podemos, Solidariada and MDB) that are members of the Tukano coalition. Federal MP Guilherme Moussi (PP-SP) received the most funds with 74.9 million reais. He did not respond to the report.
Even Rodrigo’s allies claim that there was an attempt to attract the PP. The party supports Jair Bolsonaro (PL) at the national level, but in São Paulo, instead of supporting Tarcisio, it has merged with the PSDB.
Among the state winners was Leo Oliveira (MDB) with 49.5 million reais. The MP says that he uses technical and transparent criteria to determine the amendments. “The indication of these resources was mainly for public health, […] affecting the efficiency of public service delivery”.
Haddad’s campaign coordinator, State MP Emidio de Souza (PT) donated 2.5 million reais, the same amount as other members of the PT. In total, PT received 28.6 million reais.
Emidio told Sheet that the MP’s task is to deliver resources to the cities, and that he indicated amendments to “requirements that the government did not prioritize”. “Fortunately, some of them have been taken into account, and who benefits from this is the population,” he says.
Abbreviations for the PT and Tarcísio coalition, such as Republicans (30 million reais) and PSD (25 million reais), are at the bottom of the rankings. At the top are PSDB (292.6 million reais) and União Brasil (215 million reais).
Rodrigo’s deputy, federal deputy Geninho Zuliani (União-SP), released 19.1 million reais. He also did not respond to the message.
The cost of each demand varies from 15,000 to 20 million reais – two additional amendments to this amount were intended for federal deputy Renata Abreu (Podemos-SP). Renata’s adviser states that Podemos was already at the heart of the government before and that if she had “a prominent position in obtaining resources, this is synonymous with the effectiveness of the mandate.”
The details of parliamentary demands are not published by the government on the transparency portal. After being requested through LAI, management sent thousands of PDFs corresponding to each request – there is no systematization and public transparency regarding these data.
Last year, the data was published after only seven requests through the LAI and physically delivered. More than 5,000 sheets of paper had to be photographed for the reportage.
The transfer is legal, the joint venture government believes
The government stated that “legitimate assistance to elected parliamentarians” was not irregular and that “the newspaper reproduces the speech of the PT candidate”. “In his opinion, the government should stop serving the municipalities and paralyze payments that support medical services until the electoral process is completed.”
The government also says it evaluates demand proposals made by citizens, organizations or through representatives and mayors. “All requests are subject to technical analysis by the secretariats, which assess the possibility of service. The criterion is the public interest. The process is transparent,” he says.
The note also said that, as PT and the Republicans suggested, “it is not true that non-base parties are not served.” “It is impossible to make any comparison with 2020, an atypical and especially relevant year,” he concludes, referring to the pandemic.
