Mônica Bergamo: Mercadante will meet with businessmen and bankers to iron out disputes

The new president of the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development), Aloizio Mercadante, will meet with the main businessmen and bankers in the country next Wednesday (21st), in São Paulo.

The idea is that the petista can trim edges with the market, which did not receive the nomination of his name for the institution.

The meeting will be held by the Esfera Brasil group, which promotes meetings between representatives of the public and private sectors. Banker André Esteves, from BTG, Benjamin Steinbruch, from CSN, Luiz Carlos Trabuco, from Bradesco, and Rubens Ometto, from Cosan should participate.

Mercadante was nominated for office by President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). The choice is criticized by sectors of the financial market and even among economists and allied politicians. On Tuesday (13), the Stock Exchange fell 1.71% after its name was announced.

For investors, Mercadante’s appointment would signal a more developmental economic policy by the elected government, with a possible expansion of public spending to boost growth.

After the backlash, Lula came out in defense of the former minister. In conversations with allies, the president-elect said that he is being “persecuted” and that “they are putting into Mercadante’s account” things that are not the responsibility of the economist, such as the change in the law of state-owned companies.

This week, the Chamber of Deputies approved an amendment that reduces to 30 days the quarantine required for politicians to be appointed to the positions of president and director of public companies. Today, the norm prohibits for three years the appointment of those who participated in the decision-making structure of parties or worked in electoral campaigns.

Both Mercadante’s nomination and the swift action by Congress, which benefits the former minister, displeased market agents. The proposal still needs to be voted on in the Senate.

In Lula’s understanding, however, the future president of the BNDES could assume command of the bank without the change in the rule, since he did not occupy a position in the PT’s leadership.

Lula accepts the analyzes that Mercadante was inept and made mistakes during the period in which he was minister of Dilma Rousseff (PT), commanding in succession the portfolios of Science and Technology, Education and Civil House, and being considered a strong man of her government.

But he says that he “changed” and that he now shows a much greater ability to exercise power in key government posts, such as the BNDES.

Mercadante distanced himself from Lula already in the first term of Dilma Rousseff, who took over the Presidency in 2011.

In the backstage dispute between those who defended her running for re-election and those who preferred Lula’s return, the economist sided with the then president.

After Lula got out of prison, however, the two got closer.

Mercadante chairs the Perseu Abramo Foundation, linked to the PT, and in this capacity he coordinated the formulation of Lula’s government program.

In the future government, the BNDES will be under the responsibility of the recreated Ministry of Industry and Commerce, which will become a powerful portfolio coveted by allies. The ministry should also inherit issues related to future planning, which would normally be in charge of the also recreated Ministry of Planning, which will be more dehydrated.

There will also be the Ministry of Finance, which will be occupied by Fernando Haddad (PT).

_{with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS and MANOELLA SMITH}