In July, defending an alliance with former toucan Geraldo Alcmin (PSB), then-presidential candidate of the Republic Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) used the phrase, essentially a rereading of excerpts from the statements and publications of the educator Paulo Freire, which served as the slogan of the entire campaign: “I read in a book by Paulo Freire that we must unite the divergent in order to defeat the antagonists. And that’s what you need to know.” The first part of the mission ended with the victory over President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
Dissenters – in this case, the myriad of political forces that have formed to defeat Bolsonarism – now face another challenge: finding a consensus in a transitional government that will provide a minimum of governability starting in January. This stitching turns out to be more complex than it seemed in the heat of the election victory.
At the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (CCBB), headquarters of the interim cabinet led by an elected vice president, work has yet to begin. Many thematic groups still do not have names, and disputes over space are already causing friction between the various parties that form the backbone of the future government. While the alliance between Lula and Alcmine’s allies is portrayed in press conferences, there are already those behind the scenes who complain about the leading role of some and the lack of definition of the directions the new government intends to follow from January 2023. The main controversy concerns a core tied to the PT base, which is feeling the loss of space for the more central political forces represented by Vice President Geraldo Alkmin and Senator Simone Tebet (MDB).
There are also complaints from the allied parties about the massive presence of PT members associated mainly with the government of Dilma Rousseff, which is not well appreciated by most of its leaders. On Friday, information that Guido Mantega, Lula and Dilma’s former finance minister, had asked the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to postpone the election of its new president caused confusion. The former minister, regarded as one of the fathers of the “new economic matrix” that deepened the country’s ongoing crisis and finally shook the then president’s political stability, proposed a delay so that Lula’s government could point to another name for Ilan Goldfein, president of the Central Bank under Michel Temer (MDB ), appointed to this post in the multilateral organization by Bolsonaro’s Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes.
“Who gave Mantega this delegation?” asked the politician, heard by Correio at the CCBB. Yesterday, the IDB confirmed the date of the elections and the preservation of already registered names, ignoring the proposal of the ex-minister.
development advocates
Guido Mantega is a member of the Transitional Government Planning, Budgeting and Management Thematic Group. His appointment also provoked a backlash among the allies and in the financial market, which made the reading more influential of the participation of the so-called “developmentalist” wing in the decisions of the interim cabinet. The presence of another former Dilma Treasury Secretary, Nelson Barbosa, on the economics thematic group reinforced that vision and contributed to market tension on Thursday.
Barbosa and Guilherme Mello, PT’s economic consultant associated with Unicamp, will prepare an economic policy plan for the future government, along with two PSDB experts from Fernando Enrique Cardoso: Percio Arida and André Lara Resende, mentors of the Real Plan that ended the country’s hyperinflation. There is another potential stumbling block in the transition team. Arida and Resende defend fiscal responsibility based on clear grounds and disapprove of unorthodox theories of more government intervention, despite being recognized for their creative approach to solving macroeconomic problems. Transition consultants are betting that Alkmin will play an important role in this group. The last word (or deciding vote) as the main coordinator of the transition remains with him.
The dispute between the left-wing parties that united the broad front that elected Lulu and the centrist allies that entered the PT’s base after the first round of elections – such as the DBR and the SDP (which joined last week) – must be resolved. repeat in other thematic groups. The political capital of Senator Simone Tebet (MDB-MS), a former presidential candidate who is part of the Social Assistance and Hunger Relief Group, is already scaring the far left of the PT. The group deals with topics close to the ideology of the legend, which would not want to lose its leading role in caring for the poorest. But Tebet will not become a minister if she herself does not want it.
The appointment of two former social development ministers from the Dilma era, Marcia López and Teresa Campello, was formulated to increase PT’s influence in the thematic group, which also includes Deputy André Quintao of Minas Gerais, who is associated with social movements. An MDB interlocutor confirmed to Correio that “there’s a hell of a lot of envy in PT” regarding the force with which Simone Tebet entered the transition. “Many are afraid to lose a place for her,” he admitted.
Another area in which the dispute over prominence will be fought will be agriculture, which has not yet been officially named. One of Lula’s top agribusiness sector interlocutors, former Agriculture Minister and Federal MP Neri Geller (PP-MT), was at CCBB on Friday to present names to the transition. He took for granted the participation of Senator Carlos Favaro (PSD-MT) and businessman Carlos Ernesto Augustin, who campaigned for Lulu in Mato Grosso. “We need to bring in those who are more balanced, who are more moderate, so that we can bring the sector closer to the government and take seats for policy discussion in terms of agribusiness development,” Geller said. .
Bringing the “moderates” into the public policy debate on agribusiness will meet with a reaction from the left, among those who advocate greater involvement of social movements associated with family farming and cooperatives in shaping the future of the Department of Agriculture. One of the ideas being analyzed is to divide the thematic group into two, in order to take into account the two currents and avoid friction between them.
PT President and Transitional Political Relations Coordinator Glasey Hoffmann had to send a message to end the main character dispute. “The role of the council is to look for political leadership, to discuss the problems they have, to help find a solution, knowing that the decision process is diagnostic and not propositional, this is not where we discuss the government program,” she said after the meeting. . Transitional Political Council.
