Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Signs of an early turn for a Lula government 3

The useful vote, the risk of some violence, the cuteness of the ballot box fiscal generals and a couple of state disputes are the subjects of this end of the campaign. An early stampede for Lula da Silva (PT) begins to emerge in the conversation, although a decision as early as October 2 is still in the realm of randomness.

The subject is not exactly motivated by adhesions such as that of Henrique Meirelles to Lulismo and other symbolic figures. Meirelles was elected federal deputy for the PSDB in 2002, president of Lula’s Central Bank from 2003 to 2008, finance minister of Michel Temer’s “Bridge to the Future”, of the MDB “with the Supreme, with everything”, from 2016 to 2018, and Secretary of Finance of the terminal toucanate of João Doria, 2019 to 2022.

Meirelles is now in União Brasil, an unstable union between the DEM, the old PFL, and part of the party that Jair Bolsonaro rented in 2018, the PSL. The other bunch of original Bolsonaristas, so to speak, ended up in the PL. The almost chaotic enumeration of these acronyms is no accident.

The issue of the stampede appears because, surreptitiously or openly, there are new adhesions to Lula. There are people from the PL itself, there are people from the PSDB who do not see a future in the ruins of the party and other adherents to the União Brasil. Part of the MDB that did not adhere to Lula in the first wave is already “sending signals”. The split will be kind of ugly, but part of Gilberto Kassab’s PSD will adhere to a Lula 3.

And? Even in this country that is more broken than ever, the stampedes of adherents are not surprising. After 2002, in the election of Lula 1, a fat slice of the then great PFL jumped into the boat of smaller parties in order to dock in some position in the PT government.

Although all this is still speculative and uncertain (as is a Lula victory on the 2nd), the matter is relevant because the first task of a new government, Lula or Bolsonaro, is to patch up the 2023 Budget. Always a fiction, the table spending is now a fantasy squared because of “firm” promises of extra spending presented in this campaign.

Lula and Bolsonaro promised an Aid Brazil of R$ 600, for which there is no money provided. Lula suggested that he can correct the minimum wage and that of civil servants as early as 2023 (there is also no money planned).

For example, there is a lack of money forecast for the Popular Pharmacy. Who knows what will be done with the fuel subsidy, perhaps with precatories and compensation for states and municipalities (who complain about the loss of revenue with the reduction of ICMS rates), cases that are or will be tangled up in court.

This is not even the tough, difficult, fundamental debate over tax reform (what kind of “ceiling” or cap will there be, if any). It’s just the patching up of the Bolsonaro government’s final and messed up accounts. However, a slight electoral fraud, the breaking of these campaign promises, would be a bad start for the government — not as much as the disaster that practically sealed Dilma Rousseff’s fate in 2015. But it won’t be good.

In addition, an eventual stampede for a hypothetical Lula 3 and the party composition to amend the Budget will be a first test of the political viability of the coalition that will govern from 2023.

There are several doubts. The center of the center, now governed by the PP in collaboration with the PL, burned ships and bridges with Lula, although they can always float to the other shore, as with so much waste. There is a fierce, anti-Lulist extreme right and there is even this new PDT by Ciro Gomes. Etc.

If the election ends soon, the new government will have to start even earlier.