After the military’s rudeness to Lula da Silva, the vice president of Brazil guarantees passage

The vice president of Brazil, Hamilton Mourao, received his elected successor, Geraldo Alckmin, in Brasilia on Tuesday and guaranteed the willingness of the ruling party to continue the transition process from the government of Jair Bolsonaro towards the assumption, the January 1, by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“The transition is underway. We met with Alckmin and everything is going smoothly. President Bolsonaro is not participating in the transition,” Mourao told reporters after receiving the vice president elected in the framework of the transfer of administrative functions from the executive branch.

The outgoing president decided not to participate in the transition after being defeated in the October 30 elections by Lula, leader of the Workers’ Party, who will assume his third term after having governed two terms between 2003 and 2010.

East It was the first face-to-face meeting between Alckmin and Mourao, elected senator, grappling with the change of government. And it coincided with the spread of versions, which have not been denied, that the commanders of the three Brazilian armed forces, who surprisingly decided to leave their posts at the end of December.

according to the newspaper Folha de São Paulothe decision was allegedly made in a meeting with Bolsonaro, and as a reaction to the future president’s nomination of a civilian to head the defense ministry.

In the midst of a tense climate, with the president almost absent from the public scene and market expectations on who will take over the reins of the economy from January, the two vice presidents – the outgoing one and the elected one – talked about the steps to follow in the month what awaits us

To date, Bolsonaro has not publicly acknowledged Lula’s victory and has maintained a reduced agenda.

“Alckmin called me on the phone, asked if he could come here for a coffee, and he did, everything was normal,” retired general Mourao said after the meeting at Palazzo Planalto, the official seat of government.

“I explained to him what our structure is in the Vice Presidency, the attributions, which are the consultancies on which he has free decision, given that other consultancies are designated by Itamaraty (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and by the Armed Forces,” he said, according to the newspaper . or globe.

The transition is mandatory, is regulated by law and does not depend on the political acceptance of the election result.

The meeting between Mourao and Alckmin has protocol importance, but also functional, since it allows to unite criteria for the delivery of the information necessary for the decision-making process of the future government which he hires in January.

The transition team is working in Brasilia under the leadership of Alckmin – a veteran centre-right politician who was Lula’s rival and now his ally – and has groups working on specific issues such as the economy, justice and the environment, among others.

Wink from the Senate to Lula da Silva

Meanwhile, after weeks of negotiations, the Senate has given the green light to a project that will allow for the expansion of the 2023 budget, as requested by the Workers’ Party.

This is the Draft Constitutional Amendment (PEC) sent by the president-elect, which contemplates increase in social spending in the future administration.

The PEC, which provides for an increase in funds of the order of 18 billion dollars, was sent to the Senate on Monday evening and this morning obtained the 27 signatures of lawmakers needed to be processed in that chamber.

The text proposes to amend the constitutional provision which set a ceiling on public spending during the government of President Michel Temer (2016-18), for 20 years.

With these funds, Lula intends to pay for the social assistance program called Bolsa Família, a sign of his previous governments, and which, as announced, will benefit about 50 million citizens, as well as other initiatives aimed at caring for the most needy population. .

Because it is a reform of the Magna Carta a special majority of 3/5 of the Senate will be needed and after 3/5 of the Chamber of Deputies, a quota that the coalition of parties that supports Lula is very far from reaching.

Faced with this political disadvantage and the need to add votes for the PEC, Lula proposed supporting his opponent, the head of the lower house, Arthur Lira, for a new term.

Lira, of the Progressive Conservative Party and member of the Center (the bloc of parties that dominates the government’s economic and political agenda in exchange for managing part of the national budget), is allied with Bolsonaro and has not guaranteed that it will shift its parliamentary influence for the PEC to garner the necessary votes.

If the PEC is not approved until mid-December, it will be left out of the legislative calendar and the next government will start without that crucial provision for the implementation of social policies which many believe cannot be postponed.

Given this picture of the situation, the market reacted with suspicion, with repeated delisting from the San Paolo Stock Exchange.

Private investors believe that this almost 20,000 million dollar overrun on the spending ceiling proposed by Lula’s PEC is excessive and put your tax debt at risk.

The financial world has been asking Lula for weeks to announce who his future economy minister will be, but so far the president-elect has kept it a secret.

The name of Fernando Haddad, leader of the PT who was mayor of São Paulo, candidate for the presidency in 2018, and to whom a developmental economic conception is attributed, is cited as probable.

Source: agencies

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