Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM, center-right) was elected head of the Brazilian Senate on Monday with the backing of the president, who now hopes to place another of “his” candidates in the Chamber of Deputies to facilitate the second half of his term and his possible re-election.
Rodrigo Pacheco on February 1, 2021 in the Senate in Brasília.
AFP
Rodrigo Pacheco won the election with 57 votes against 21 votes for his main rival, Simone Tebet, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB, center right). The 44-year-old MP has achieved the feat of having both the support of Jair Bolsonaro and the Workers’ Party (PT, left), the formation of former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff.
The PT thus chairs two committees in the Senate, that of human rights, which it already manages, and the environment committee. In the Lower House, where 513 deputies sit, Jair Bolsonaro, now without a party, supports Arthur Lira, of the Progressive Party (PP, right).
The only one of his seven opponents capable of challenging Arthur Lira is MDB’s Baleia Rossi, who can count on the support of outgoing House of Representatives leader Rodrigo Maia (DEM).
Like Rodrogo Pacheco, Arthur Lira belongs to the “Centrao”, a heterogeneous group of conservative parties that negotiate their support according to the advantages they can derive from it and that the president has done everything to accommodate in recent months. The name of the new president of the Chamber of Deputies should be known before midnight (Tuesday 3:00 am), or even Tuesday morning in the event of a second round.
66 requests for “impeachment”
In Brazil, the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate determine the legislative agenda. Moreover, it is up to the head of the lower house to decide on the admissibility of complaints of “impeachment”, of dismissal.
The Chamber of Deputies has received 66 requests for “impeachment” from Jair Bolsonaro, due to his management deemed calamitous of the coronavirus epidemic, which has left some 225,000 dead in Brazil, the second most bereaved country behind the States -United.
Rodrigo Maia, who will leave the perch after two years of tensions with Jair Bolsonaro, was irritated by the president’s maneuvers to elect “his” candidates. He even threatened to accept this Monday, the last day of his mandate, one of the requests for dismissal, before changing his mind. The markets expect the executive and the legislature to work together to embark on a solid program of reform and privatization.
The São Paulo Stock Exchange closed on Monday up 2.13%, encouraged by this prospect and the appeasement on Wall Street. Analysts believe that Jair Bolsonaro’s opportunistic rapprochement with the “Centrao” will make him a hostage of this group in Parliament for the end of his term.
Posted today at 01:45-
