At Gleisi Hoffmann’s dinner with around 30 great businessmen and executives from the financial sector this Monday (4), information was received with little repercussion in the room, but considered the highlight of the event by some of the participants.
When asked about an eventual PT invitation to Henrique Meirelles, who was president of the Central Bank during the eight years of Lula’s government (2003-10), the PT president said that Roberto Campos Neto will remain in the post.
Last year, Campos Neto assumed the first fixed term since the creation of the monetary authority to be in charge of the BC until 2024, with only one possible renewal. The audience’s impression of Gleisi’s speech is that she was not committed to renewing her mandate, not least because 2024 seems far away in this turbulent 2022, but the signal that the law is not intended to be broken, in the words of one of them , cherished.
One of the businessmen was encouraged by the possibility that Lula would call Campos Neto to talk.
Among other gestures that may have pleased part of the audience, she said that an eventual return of the Lula government would enhance the dialogue with the business community, recalling the formation of the former Conselhão, created by the PT in 2003.
With the official name of Council for Economic and Social Development, the group functioned as a kind of belt of political support from the private sector to the PT government and had important participations such as Abilio Diniz. Also at dinner this Monday, Abilio commented to those present that the impression that Brazil’s economy is in such a bad way is not true.
The speech is a counterpoint to the description of the scenario of inflation, weakening of income and employment that the country faces today.
The dinner, held at the home of businessman João Camargo, from Esfera Brasil, had a list of guests with strong names from the private sector, some of them with strong proximity to Bolsonarism, such as Flavio Rocha (Riachuelo) and Eugenio Mattar, brother of the former president. Bolsonaro’s secretary Salim Mattar (Localiza).
Even so, the conversation was considered friendly, with praise for the presentation of new faces in the party and some criticism about the PT’s mistakes and the expected movement to the center. The biggest charge was for a definition of the economic line.
Gleisi was accompanied by young economist Gabriel Galípolo, 39, former president of Banco Fator.
What some of them did not like at all was to hear her indicate the resumption of public investments in oil refineries as an alternative to soften the price of fuel in the Brazilian pocket. It did not go down well with the audience that appreciates the movement of sale of Petrobras refineries after the end of PT governments.
One of them dubbed the idea the “big Petrobras comeback”.
Gleisi’s signal that the state-owned company’s prices would not be frozen in an eventual PT government, but softened, was interpreted as a form of delay in readjustments, similar to what was practiced in the Bolsonaro government, according to the impressions of another businessman who participated in the dinner.
Joana Cunha with andressa Motter and Ana Paula Branco
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