Lula to start unveiling cabinet names on Friday

Workers' Party Chairwoman Gleisi Hoffmann and President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photo: Antonio Cruz/ABr

Gleisi Hoffmann, chair of the Workers’ Party, said President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will reveal “some of the names” of his future cabinet on Friday. Lula will be certified on December 12, next Monday, the last bureaucratic hoop he must jump before taking office on January 1.

“He wanted to leave it until after the certification, but there has been too much speculation around it,” Ms. Hoffmann told reporters. “Now he wants to take the picks he is certain about to the public.”

Lula is scheduled to speak to the press at 10 am on Friday. The timing is odd, as the country will essentially grind to a halt soon afterward as the Brazilian national team takes the field to play Croatia in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals.

Granted, making major political announcements while the country’s attention is elsewhere could be a strategy to divert attention, as not all of Lula’s expected cabinet members have been well-received.

No name is more anticipated than Lula’s choice for finance minister. The presumed pick is Fernando Haddad, a former education minister and mayor of São Paulo who ran for governor of São Paulo state in October — losing the runoff to Tarcísio de Freitas, who served as Jair Bolsonaro’s infrastructure minister.

Mr. Haddad has represented the future administration in recent meetings with Febraban, a federation of banks, and with outgoing Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.

“We need to sit down with each department so that we know their work routine, which agendas are in progress, what has been delivered, what needs to be continued,” Mr. Haddad said earlier this week.

While he formally met with Mr. Guedes as a member of the transition cabinet, the meeting was interpreted as Mr. Haddad vetting the office he will soon occupy.

Twenty years ago, when Lula won his first election for president, it took him more than a month to announce his first cabinet appointees. “My role is that of a conductor”, he said at the time. “If it were up to me, I’d announce one cabinet minister per day.”

His first picks in 2002 were Antonio Palocci (Finance) and Marina Silva (Environment). The complete cabinet (with 25 ministers and eight secretariats) was only announced two days before Christmas.