By Silvio Ribas
House Speaker Arthur Lira (PP-AL) has experienced the first decline in his considerable clout in just one week.
Lira’s failure to keep his promises to parliamentarians resulted in forming the Chamber’s largest party bloc, with 142 representatives, from the MDB, PSD, Podemos, Republicans, and PSC parties.
The bloc formation, which took place on Tuesday (28), was also partly caused by an earlier defeat.
On Thursday (23), the president of Congress, Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), forced the immediate installation of mixed committees to analyze provisional measures (MPs) issued by the Lula government.
Lira opposed and threatened to sabotage the commissions but eventually gave in.
His defeat ended an arm wrestling contest of almost two months between the House and Senate.
Lira wanted to keep the express rite for processing MPs, adopted in the pandemic, which favored the House.
Lira still holds the greatest political dominance ever obtained by a president of the Chamber, built with his reelection on February 1.
At the time, he received 464 of the 513 votes in the House and support from 20 parties, with opposition restricted to PSOL and Novo extremes.
But he could not share the promised extra power spaces to internal supporters in the form of more positions in the Chamber itself or appointments in the government machine and more money from the Federal Budget.
For this reason, he had to witness the unexpected creation of a majority party bloc in the Chamber, formed by MDB, PSD, Podemos, Republicans, and PSC, which will be outside his direct control.
Through social networks, Lira congratulated party leaders that formed the new bloc.
“I have always defended unity so we can reduce the number of parties, strengthening them and giving society confidence in our party system,” he posted along with a photo taken on Wednesday (29) with the leaders of the parties Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), Isnaldo Bulhões (MDB-AL), Antonio Brito (PSD-BA) and Fábio Macedo (Podemos-MA), the latter elected to lead the bloc.
He intended to show that he did not feel threatened by losing relevance after the novelty.
The grouping of legends detaches itself from the so-called ‘blocão’ (big bloc), forged in the articulation to reelect Lira to the presidency of the House.
The leader Fábio Macedo, who also leads Podemos and PSC, is linked to the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino (PSB).
He will autonomously negotiate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) agendas.
His vice-president is the leader of the PSD, Antonio Brito.
The change also reflects the desire of the leaders Baleia Rossi (MDB-SP) and Gilberto Kassab (PSD-SP) to detach their groups from the center-left party.
They were joined by Congressman Marcos Pereira (SP), president of the Republicans, first secretary of the House, and an ally of Lira.
MDB, PSD, and Republicans have 42 representatives each; Podemos has 12, and PSC (in the process of merging with Podemos) has four.
MDB and PSD are formally part of the government team.
In his first term as a federal congressman, Macedo is one of the few people from Maranhão who stands out in the House of Representatives precisely because of his achievements in articulating with the government and the opposition.
“I had the honor of being elected leader of the largest block in the Chamber, composed of large parties, whose leaders reached consensus around my name.”
“With humility and firmness, I assume the commitment with the social and economic values of this group of parliamentarians, and I hope that we all work with unity and strength”, he told ‘Gazeta do Povo’, without anticipating any position on future votes.
The expressly ruling base in the Chamber is composed of the left-wing bloc PT-PCdoB-PV (81 representatives), PDT (17), PSB (14), PSOL-Rede (14), Avante (seven), and Solidariedade (five), totaling 138.
If the new bloc comes to act favorably to the government, Lula could, in theory, reach 280 votes, enough to approve projects.
With this, the issue warned by Lira himself, that the government “does not have the votes to approve even a simple matter” in the House, would be solved.
The consensus behind the scenes is that Lira is no longer the only guarantor of governability.
However, he continues to be responsible for defining the agenda of the House and being a key factor in the approval, for example, of amendments to the Constitution during his two-year term.
But after the creation of the new bloc, there are rumors that Lira wasted no time and has already started negotiations with leaders of other legions, even outside the ‘Centrão’, to react and create another bloc that may be even larger than the new grouping.
LONG ARM WRESTLING WITH PACHECO CAUSED WEAR AND TEAR
The formation of the new bloc is also a reflection of Lira’s clash with Pacheco.
The conversation between them was stalled because of Lira’s rigidity, who still wanted to end the parity of committees to analyze provisional measures and establish the proportion of three representatives for each senator, which has the full rejection of the Senate.
Pacheco does not want the change, which would alter the rules in force for two decades.
Even so, he submitted Lira’s proposal to the group of Senate leaders, which immediately rejected it.
“All MPs will be sent to the mixed committees without any conditions. We evaluate the reasonable consideration of the House to modify the deadline for consideration in these collegiate committees,” said Pacheco at a press conference on Tuesday (28).
He referred to a change limiting the time the commissions have to analyze provisional measures to speed up the process.
Worried about the loss of validity of his MPs if they were not voted, – talked to Lira and Pacheco to try to mediate an understanding.
The president of the Chamber took advantage of the war climate to send a message to the Planalto: congress members do not have the representation that the senators have in the government.
The agreement so far is that Lula expects the approval in time of three sensitive provisional measures, like the one for the Family Allowance and the one that defines the organization chart of the Ministries Esplanade, exchanging the rest for urgent bills.
“It is not fair that Congress is immobilized by a question that could be treated as it has always been treated, with ample, democratic debate, obeying the regimental and constitutional rites,” protested Eduardo Braga (AM), leader of the MDB in the Senate and an ally of Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), Lira’s rival at the state level.
THE MAJORITY BLOC CHANGES THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GOVERNMENT
Analysts consulted by Gazeta do Povo evaluate that the party rearrangement in the House reflects only the adjustments resulting from the clearer definitions of the new centers of power.
After the change of command in the country – from the right wing to the left -, the renewal of Congress, and Lira’s attacks in search of additional spaces, the political center works to re-accommodate the relationship between the Legislative and Executive branches.
“Lula has always been the main actor of the political composition in his governments and, naturally, the physiological core of Parliament adapts to survive the context and establish governance models,” explains Eduardo Galvão, professor of Public Policy and Institutional Relations at Ibmec-DF.
He assesses that Lira “bet too high, playing all the chips for the greatest possible gain. “By testing the limits of his influence, the mayor had his weight in the game updated,” he summarized.
For the specialist, Lira and the Chamber may be closer to the institutional contours that will fit them in the current petista management of the country.
The advance of the Legislative over areas of the Executive involved proposals to adopt a semi-presidential regime and authorizing parliamentarians to be appointed ambassadors.
“Lira was shooting all over the place, day after day, to see how far he could get,” he recalled.
The strategist of one of the parties in the new bloc, who requested anonymity, recognizes that the ideal for Lira would be that the majority bloc would be the one his party was in.
Not by chance, he strove to confirm until March the alliance or federation between the PP and União Brasil, frustrated due to regional impasses.
Together, the parties would add 108 representatives, surpassing the other benches.
The observer sees the emergence of Lira’s indirect rival bloc as a risk to the mayor’s plan to succeed him.
And the challenger that begins to appear on the horizon is his coreligionist Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB), rapporteur of the tax reform project. H
e was Minister of Cities in the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government and the Michel Temer (MDB) government leader in the House.
For him, Lira promised more than he could deliver to get reelected, and the bill is being charged.
And to the extent that he delays in meeting demands, the intramural reaction begins.
The objective is to seek space in the nominations for the MP commissions.
Although all analysts agree that the emergence of the new bloc has weakened Lira, some disagree that the arrangement will bring their legions closer to Lula.
For them, the internal movements only reflect the dispute for power within the Chamber itself, without necessarily generating benefit or loss to the government.
Besides this, the dispute within the plenary is overtaking the importance of the relationship between the Legislative and the Executive, above all due to the omission of the Executive, which is not managing to set the legislative agenda.
Analysts also point out that the articulation of the base is finding it difficult to gain the loyalty of even the congress members traditionally closest to Lula.
With this, the number one mission of the government leaders in the House, Senate, and Congress, and of the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha – to create a solid ruling base – is still not completed.
With information from Gazeta do Povo