Key Points
— Former Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema (Novo) launches his presidential economic plan in São Paulo on Thursday, structured around five pillars: eliminate the R$1.7 trillion “custo Brasil” drag, deregulate labor with unlimited workdays and hourly pay, privatize every federal state-owned enterprise including Petrobras, Caixa, Banco do Brasil and Correios, reduce interest rates through fiscal discipline, and pivot trade from BRICS to the OECD.
— The plan is coordinated by Carlos Da Costa, ex-secretary to Paulo Guedes in the Bolsonaro Economy Ministry. His opening line to Gazeta do Povo: “Brazil is broken because of the government’s fiscal irresponsibility. Without fixing that, nothing else works.” The labor model is explicitly patterned on Javier Milei’s Argentine reform.
— The launch landed awkwardly: the Instituto Tomie Ohtake sent Zema’s campaign an extrajudicial notification demanding he stop associating the institute with the event, forcing a venue clarification to the Casa Capim Santo restaurant in the same Ohtake Cultural complex. The timing—one day after the 3rd Marcha da Classe Trabalhadora against the 6×1 workweek—could not be more confrontational.
In a cycle dominated by Lula’s reelection bid and Flávio Bolsonaro’s pre-candidacy, Zema is betting that the 2026 opposition vacuum can be filled by the most economically radical platform since redemocratization. The market is watching. The Instituto Tomie Ohtake is not.
The Zema economic plan 2026 reaches São Paulo on Thursday as the Brazilian opposition’s first fully detailed platform of the cycle, and it does not soften its edges. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the pre-candidate of the Novo party is presenting a five-pillar program at the Casa Capim Santo venue in the Ohtake Cultural complex, coordinated by Carlos Da Costa—formerly Paulo Guedes’s special secretary for productivity in the Bolsonaro Economy Ministry—and modeled, in its labor chapter, explicitly on Javier Milei’s Argentine reform.
Five Pillars, R$1.7 Trillion, Zero Exceptions
Da Costa structured the plan around the elimination of what he calls the R$1.7 trillion “custo Brasil”—the estimated annual production drag versus an average OECD economy, driven by tax complexity, labor costs, and capital costs. The second pillar flexibilizes labor: unlimited workdays, direct employer-employee negotiation, hourly pay without minimums, and full payroll tax exoneration. Da Costa cited Milei’s reform as the template.
The third pillar reduces the size of the state by privatizing every federal state-owned enterprise without exceptions: Petrobras, Caixa Econômica Federal, Banco do Brasil, Correios, and all others. A “definitive” pension reform would install an automatic trigger tying retirement age and contribution rates to life expectancy, eliminating the need for recurring political reforms. The public-sector salary ceiling would be enforced by extinguishing “penduricalhos”—indemnity bonuses that today push federal salaries above the constitutional limit.
The fourth pillar, interest-rate reduction, is framed as a consequence of the first three rather than a direct intervention. Da Costa explicitly rejected Lula’s Desenrola program: “When the government unrolls on one side, it enrolls on the other with spending that pushes rates up.” The fifth pillar pivots Brazilian trade policy away from the BRICS framework and toward OECD integration, reversing the Lula government’s geopolitical alignment.
The Awkward Launch: Tomie Ohtake Says No
The Instituto Tomie Ohtake, a cultural foundation honoring the late Japanese-Brazilian abstract artist, sent Zema’s campaign an extrajudicial notification this week demanding the immediate suspension of any materials associating the institute with the political event. The press invitation had listed the Casa Capim Santo restaurant inside the Ohtake Cultural complex—an architectural project by Ruy Ohtake that houses both the institute and independent tenants.
The institute, which receives public funding and maintains institutional political neutrality, demanded a clarification note. The Instituto Libertas, the Novo-linked think tank organizing the event, complied and reissued invitations naming only the restaurant. CNN Brasil had earlier reported the event as taking place “at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake”—an association the family explicitly rejected.
The 2026 Positioning: Presidential Candidate or Flávio’s VP?
Zema resigned the Minas Gerais governorship on March 22 to focus on his presidential bid, handing the state to vice-governor Mateus Simões. The economic plan launch is his attempt to differentiate his candidacy from the Bolsonaro family, which remains the dominant force on the right despite the former president’s coup conviction. Flávio Bolsonaro’s supporters have floated Zema as a possible vice-president, but Zema has publicly reaffirmed his presidential ambitions.
The timing against the labor movement is deliberate: Tuesday brought the 3rd Marcha da Classe Trabalhadora to Brasília demanding the end of the 6×1 workweek, and Wednesday saw Lula’s government install new Congressional leader José Guimãraes, whose first test is the 5-day, 40-hour workweek bill. Zema’s plan proposes the opposite: no workday limit at all. On the STF front, he pairs the economic program with calls for amnesty for the January 8 defendants and has flirted with impeachment of Supreme Court ministers.
What Markets Are Hearing
The plan lands with the Ibovespa at record highs above 198,000 points, foreign inflows at R$65 billion year-to-date, and the dollar below R$5 for the first time in two years—meaning Zema’s platform becomes the first credible opposition reference point for an investor community that has been pricing a Lula-victory-or-Flávio-defeat binary. Whether it translates into polling traction depends on whether the Novo party’s minimal electoral infrastructure can carry a message this radical against the workweek-reduction majority now organized in Congress. The market wants the plan; the electorate, according to every poll since November, wants the opposite.
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