Bolsonaro’s grassroots parties consult benches to support the Transition PEC

Leaders of the PP, PL and Republicans began to conduct polls with their respective benches to find out how many votes in favor of the Transition PEC the parties, today from the base of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, would get to approve the PT proposal.

The movement of the parties intensified on Wednesday (1st), after the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), told the president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) that the Chamber will approve the text that is forwarded by the Senate.

According to petistas, it is “pacified” that the PEC will guarantee the release of resources to meet the rapporteur’s amendments as early as 2022, a demand by Lira.

Hours after the meeting with Lula, Lira met with allies from the three parties to report on how the meeting with the petista went. According to interlocutors, the president of the Chamber asked the leaders to carry out a poll to stipulate how many votes each party has guaranteed to the PEC.

This Friday, before leaving for São Paulo, Lula said that the PEC does not have a minimum amount or space to discuss a secret budget.

“Within the transition PEC, there is no room to discuss amendments. I was a deputy, I have always been in favor of a deputy having an amendment, but it is important that it is not secret. It is important that the amendment is within the government’s programming needs And that this amendment be released within the interest of the government. It cannot continue the way it is”, he said.

Lira’s allies count concludes that PP, PL and Republicans need at least 60 votes to give tranquility to the approval of the PEC – the expectation, however, is that the number will be even greater.

They claim that Lula’s base, which includes left-wing and center parties (MDB, PSD and União Brasil) that were part of the alliance with the PT in the second round of the presidential election, should give just over 280 votes to the proposal that removes Bolsa Família from the spending cap.

To approve the PEC, the Chamber needs favorable votes from 308 deputies. The top of the House, however, hopes to achieve a safety margin of 340 parliamentarians.

By initial accounts, the PL estimates that it has at least 30 of the 76 favorable votes. PP leaders believe they have a larger margin, at least 35 of the 56 deputies; and the Republicans see the possibility of getting support from 60% of the bench, that is, 29 deputies.

The polls are preliminary, and the deputies consulted by the Sheet state that it is necessary to discuss what the extract value and duration will be. According to the proposal filed in the Senate, the Transition PEC will have a four-year term, with an impact of R$ 198 billion.

The value is the sum of the Bolsa Família of R$ 600 (R$ 157 billion), the bonus of R$ 150 per child up to six years old (R$ 18 billion) and the release to spend up to 6.5% of the excess revenue expected for the year (R$ 23 billion).

There is still no consensus among Bolsonaro’s base parties regarding the BRL 150 bonus, but they defend the amount of BRL 600, provided that it has a term of just one year. Interlocutors say that, in Lira’s view, the solution would be a period of two years, something that PT supporters privately claim to be possible to accept.

The view of deputies is that the approval of the PEC is almost inevitable, since the president of the Chamber has demonstrated that he will speed up its processing.

The goodwill of members of the bench could increase the tension within the PP between Lira’s wings and that of the party’s president, the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira.

Nogueira, in addition to being critical of the PT proposal, is one of Bolsonaro’s main allies and wants the acronym to be opposition to the Lula government. On the other hand, Lira’s allies, who have been exchanging nods with the future president, understand that the party must take an independent position.

“We will wait for the Senate to define the text, to debate with the bench and find out which points we will approve”, said leader André Fufuca (PP-MA).

“He [Lira] has a commitment to us from the base of the government to help in the approval process of the PEC”, said Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE), who will be leader of the acronym in the next legislature.

In the Senate, the leader of the PT group, Paulo Rocha (PT-PA) stated that the transition agrees to negotiate changes in the PEC to reduce the extract to R$ 150 billion, with a two-year term.

“What we are saying: so take these BRL 23 billion [para investimentos] and leaves the R$ 175 billion. But there are people proposing the R$ 150 billion. Yes, but where are you going to move? We are predicting, in the R$ 105 billion [para despesas discricionárias], R$ 21 billion for investment. This can be relaxed,” he said.

In the Chamber, however, the expectation of PT leaders is that the negotiations move towards something close to the R$ 198 billion initially suggested in the PEC. One of the possibilities for an agreement to unlock R$ 7.8 billion in rapporteur amendments this year would be to anticipate, in the PEC, to 2022, the beginning of the release of expenses with excess revenue.

The leader of the PT in the Chamber, Deputy Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG), said this Friday (2) that he believes there is an understanding of the leaders to leave the value above R$ 150 billion.

“If you have to say if there is a floor, it is actually R$ 150 [bilhões]🇧🇷 It is lower than what the Bolsonaro government put in the 2022 Budget, so it is a very difficult floor to catch up on, that is, readjust what the ministries actually need to run public policies,” he said.

Despite the disagreements, Lira has been telling allies that the negotiations must take place in the Senate because there will not be enough time for the Chamber to change the proposal. Any change would force the text to go back for analysis by the senators, which could delay the vote on the LOA (Annual Budget Law) of 2023.

The expectation is that the proposed amendment to the Constitution will be voted on next week in the Senate and will be on the agenda of the Chamber until the 15th. Lira also admits to extending the work of her House until the 21st, to have time to approve not only the PEC, but also next year’s Budget.