President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday confirmed that Congresswoman-elect Marina Silva and Senator Simone Tebet will be part of his upcoming administration. He also unveiled another 14 future ministers. Lula’s cabinet will have a total of 37 members, more than Jair Bolsonaro’s 23.
Marina Silva, a former senator who won a House seat this year, will head the Environment Ministry, the same office she held from 2003 to 2008. Her policies led to a drop of almost 80 percent in illegal deforestation between 2004 and 2008.
Senator Simone Tebet will lead the Planning Ministry, responsible for coordinating and evaluating public policies. The office was extinguished by the Bolsonaro administration and absorbed by Paulo Guedes’ Economy Ministry, which in turn will be broken down into different departments in the Lula government.
The agencies under the umbrella of the Planning Ministry include the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which is responsible for carrying out the census.
After delays created by the pandemic and budget cuts, IBGE began conducting the 2022 census in August. The agency expected to finish it by October but admitted earlier this month that the endeavor will not be completed this year. Census takers still have to reach roughly 17 percent of households.
During the Michel Temer administration (2016-2018), the Planning Ministry also oversaw Brazil’s development bank (BNDES), but that is unlikely to be the case in the Lula administration.
Bruno Dantas, head of the Federal Accounts Court, said on Twitter that the pick is “the right name, in the right position, at the right time.”
Senator Tebet ran for president this year, finishing in a distant third place with about 4 percent of the vote. A moderate conservative, the senator endorsed Lula in the runoff, saying he is committed to democracy and the Constitution, unlike the current president.
Despite her support for Lula, most of her first-round voters migrated to Mr. Bolsonaro. Still, in what was the tightest presidential race ever, the fraction of her voters who picked Lula in the second round was crucial to defeating Mr. Bolsonaro.
Ms. Tebet played a large role in Lula’s campaign during the runoff, even starring by herself in a television ad. She also campaigned for Lula in events with finance and agribusiness executives. A daughter of late Senate President Ramez Tebet (1936-2006), she has strong links to agribusiness and is a landowner herself in her native state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
On the night he was elected president, Lula delivered two speeches. Simone Tebet was the first person he thanked in the second speech, on Paulista Avenue, to a crowd of his supporters. Lula called Ms. Tebet “a companion with a lot of value, quality, and competence.”
Ms. Tebet began her campaign to win a cabinet seat soon after the election. In late November, she was interviewed by Fantástico, a traditional Sunday night show on Globo, Brazil’s leading television station.
During the interview, the reporter asked her husband, Eduardo Rocha, if she would be a good cabinet member. Mr. Rocha is also a career politician and currently serves as government secretary in Mato Grosso do Sul.
Though she made no public comments about which office she would rather get, Ms. Tebet reportedly eyed the Social Development Ministry, which is in charge of the government’s flagship Bolsa Família program. She was a member of the social development working group in the transition team.
However, last week, Lula announced former Piauí governor and Senator-elect Wellington Dias, a longtime member of the Workers’ Party, for the job.
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