Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: With ministry ready, Lula builds base in Congress, but votes are still missing

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave nine ministries, or practically that, to MDB, PSD and União Brasil. Together, these parties will have 143 federal deputies starting next year.

As was to be expected, the core of the Bolsonarist base, PL, PP and Republicans, did not take anything — until now. Together, they have 187 deputies. In a simple calculation, the coalition supporting Lula 3 has 283 deputies.

You don’t get party support behind closed doors, as a block, as you know. There will be recalcitrants in the Lulian center. There will be those who vote with the government even in parties like the PL, marriage of the extreme right with the crudest physiology, as well as in the PP and the Republicans. The negotiation, moreover, is not over.

There are positions to distribute, some even to honor a more senior leadership of Bolsonarist parties. There will be arrangements for the division of positions of power in Congress. There are vacancies in directorates, superintendencies and other smaller fiefdoms. There is more work to be done to gain support through power and money sharing.

In addition to the Bolsonarist trio, there is an opposition block, small parties on the right, which count votes that may be missing on an important occasion. This is the case of the PSDB-Cidadania federation, Novo and the Podemos-PSC and Patriota-PTB assemblies. There are 43 deputies.

However, even this party framework is not stabilized. The formation of the government, the recomposition of power in Congress or the elections for the commands of the Chamber and Senate, all of this can result in new support, defections and, who knows, in even some new party merger.

Therefore, the formation of the government’s support base in Congress continues. Obviously, this jam always moves, depending on money, the crucial issues under discussion and the prestige of the President of the Republic. But the first movement of this opera is not over.

The ministry can come to help. Lula appointed a very experienced politician. Governors, in addition to the former mayor of São Paulo, Fernando Haddad, make up a quarter of the team. There are former ministers and parliamentarians with some hardening. It should be noted, in passing, that it is a cabinet with a large North-Northeast weight.

In party-political terms, it is a reasonable team to start the negotiation championship. In terms of social coalition, of a “broad front” in fact, much less.

On the “broad front”, in addition to the ministers in the political bargain with Congress”, there is not much more than Geraldo Alckmin, who was already on the bill, and Simone Tebet. See if the “center” of society (in practice, the civilized elites) will feel represented in some way. It seems not, also because of the economic upheaval of the transition.

In addition to the PT (it’s a PT-led government, right?), historic travel companions and vaguely left-wing parties (PDT and PSB, for example), Lula put people in the ministry who represent social movements (it’s a left-wing government , right?).

Now, it is necessary to see how the machine will be set up, the secretaries who actually operate, technically and politically, the ministries and relevant government agencies. It’s a generally less noisy or symbolic lineup; it is then that groups are defined that can plan policies or make them operational. It is from there that one can glimpse a little of the real functioning of the government.

The next definitions are: what are the policies that Lula will give priority to, who will run these boats and if they are capable of doing so. In politics, it remains to be seen how the government still intends to neutralize the potential danger of the Bolsonarist bloc. In addition to being large in Congress, this group of parties is based on a large constituency of the ideological right or extreme right.