Sunday, January 1, 2023 | 9:36 p.m.
The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that begins this Sunday has 37 ministries, of which 11 will be led by women, a record number, but in the cabinet, with representatives of nine parties, there will also be the search for the correlation of forces that the Executive Branch will need to achieve majorities for its projects in Congress.
With Lula, the coalition presidentialism that had been presumed dead with Operation Lava Jato and the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 returned, especially since the real discussion will be how the partner parties in the Executive Power will respond in the necessary votes in the Congress.
That is why Lula included novelties, such as the creation of the Ministry of Original Peoples, with an indigenous leader as minister, Sonia Guajajara, but he also opened the door to the right of the Unión Brasil party, which has a Bolsonaro wing that obtained nothing less than the portfolios of Communications, Tourism and National Integration.
Two “star ministers” stand out for the support they gave in the ballot: the third placed in the elections, with 4.2% of the votes, Simone Tebet, from the Brazilian Democracy Movement (MDB), stayed with Planning , in charge of discussing and distributing the budget and public-private partnerships, while Marina Silva, from Rede, returns to the Ministry of the Environment after leaving with a slam in 2007.
After a big bid by Lula with the so-called financial market, which was pushing to place an orthodox of the sector in the Ministry of Finance, the leader of the Workers’ Party opted to maintain control of finances.
There will be his right hand and advisor Fernando Haddad, former Minister of Education, former mayor and former Secretary of Finance of São Paulo.
Electoral stronghold and charges
Lula’s victory was based in the city of São Paulo, in the state of Minas Gerais, Greater Rio de Janeiro, and the northern and northeastern Amazon region. This equation, plus the policy of alliances, took Lula two months to appoint ministers.
Two of the champions of votes for Lula from the PT obtained prizes in the upper echelon: Haddad and the former governors of Bahia, Rui Costa, who will be the chief of staff, and of Ceará, Camilo Santana, head of Education.
The PT obtained 10 of the 37 ministries, while the MDB, Union Brazil, the Brazilian Socialist Party of Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) of leader Gilberto Kassab obtained three each, while another 11 have no party affiliation. . The Democratic Labor Party has one, Previsión Social, the same amount as the PSOL and Rede.
The agreement with Unión Brasil was reached at the last minute last Thursday, with the negotiation of Senator Davi Alcolumbre, a former ally of Bolsonaro: this pact led Lula to announce that it will be the Minister of Communications Juscelino Filho, a deputy from the state of Maranhao who was a promoter of the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff and a defender of the arrest of the future president in 2018.
In addition to being vice president (a position that in Brazil the presidency of the Senate does not grant), Alckmin will be minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, due to his transit as former governor of São Paulo with the main captains of the business community of the state of São Paulo, the main engine of the country’s economy.
The foreign minister will be the former ambassador in Buenos Aires Mauro Vieira, a career diplomat who was recommended by former minister Celso Amorim, who will be a personal adviser to Lula. Vieira won points because, being from the Itamaraty Palace family, he stood up against Lula’s arrest when it meant a threat against his career, to the point that he ended up at the Croatian embassy during Bolsonarism.
Lula granted the Socialism and Freedom Party the Ministry of Original Peoples and placed Flavio Dino, from the PSB, former governor of the northeastern state of Maranhao and a former judge, who is one of the flags of the guarantism against Operation Lava Jato and former judge Sérgio Moro.
In Human Rights, Lula ranked the philosopher and lawyer of the black movement Silvio Almeida, one of the most respected figures in Brazil in the area both nationally and internationally.
*Source: Télam news agency.
