On the first day of the new legislature, members of the Brazilian lower house took office and re-elected Arthur Lira of Alagoas as their speaker for the next two years.
The outcome of the vote came as a surprise to no one, as Mr. Lira never faced any real opposition. The only other candidates, leftist Chico Alencar and right-wing Marcel Van Hattem, were never competitive.
The day began with 20 parties pledging support for Mr. Lira — from Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right Liberal Party to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s center-left Workers’ Party. Together, Mr. Lira’s support base combined for 496 of the 513 House seats.
Not all lawmakers followed their parties’ guidance. Still, Mr. Lira obtained a record-breaking 464 votes. “This result is proof that good politics means that we can disagree and debate, but ultimately find consensus,” Mr. Lira said as he thanked his peers.
“This result pushes me to remain focused on the agile conduction of the projects of interest to this country.”
In a nod to the January 8 riots, Mr. Lira added that “this February 1 is proof that Brazil is a mature democracy, made of a majority of people who fight for freedom.”
“This house will not tolerate or condone any act, discourse, or demonstration against democracy. Those who do so will be met with the revolt of this parliament, the rejection of the Brazilian people, and the rigor of the law. Those who vandalize democratic symbols will be met with the full force of the law.”
Still, Mr. Lira threw a veiled jab at the Supreme Court, saying the branches of government must set an example to pacify the country — and each must stay in its “constitutional corner.”
Accusing the Supreme Court of overstepping its constitutional mandate by going after the January 8 rioters has become a talking point of the far right.
Serving his fourth term in Congress, Mr. Lira hails from a local political dynasty in his home state of Alagoas. His father, Benedito de Lira, served two terms as a congressman and another as a senator. At the federal level, Mr. Lira was a backbencher until getting closer to Jair Bolsonaro — in an alliance based more on mutual interest than political affinity.
Mr. Lira leads a loose coalition of traditional, rent-seeking parties known as the “Big Center.” These parties became ideal allies for the former president in an effort to muffle talk of impeachment after the coronavirus pandemic took hold and exposed his government’s inability to respond to the crisis.
On the other side of the table, Mr. Lira saw an alliance with the embattled government as one that would serve his aspirations.
Now, with his resounding re-election, Mr. Lira has consolidated his position as a major power broker and is, in the words of The Brazilian Report columnist Beatriz Rey, “the most powerful speaker since re-democratization in 1985.”
The ‘secret budget’
Ms. Rey’s claim about Mr. Lira’s influence refers to his role in the strengthening of Congress as one of Brazil’s three branches of government.
The Legislative branch’s opportunity for greater prominence was clear for all to see during the Jair Bolsonaro presidency. Elected in 2018 on a promise to get rid of “old politics” and abandon the transactional give-and-take manner of working with Congress, Mr. Bolsonaro made no attempt to secure a solid base of legislative support and was left to flounder in his efforts to pass key bills from his government’s agenda.
By the time Mr. Lira took over as speaker two years ago today, the far-right president’s position was becoming increasingly untenable as he faced criticism for one of the world’s worst responses to the Covid pandemic.
Instead of piling on Mr. Bolsonaro, Mr. Lira offered his Big Center allies as an off-the-rack base of congressional support for the government — albeit for a high price.
In exchange for backing the Bolsonaro government in the lower house, Mr. Lira helped coordinate what became known as the “secret budget,” a pork-barrel mechanism of opaque parliamentary grants that gave lawmakers unprecedented power over the federal budget.
Before 2019, presidents used the release of grant money to build coalitions, but information about these chunks of the budget was far more transparent. That year, Congress flexed its muscle to make the grants mandatory, taking away the Executive branch’s bargaining power.
The secret budget is largely the same as traditional parliamentary grants, allocating budget money to specific politicians, on request, to fund projects in their constituencies. The crucial difference, however, is that the identity of the recipient is not made public.
While members of the lower house had access to gushing spigots of untraceable budget funds, Speaker Arthur Lira kept the Bolsonaro government in business. Indeed, he sat on more than 100 requests to impeach the far-right president.
Relationship with the Lula government
In his first term as speaker, Mr. Lira was a key ally to then-President Jair Bolsonaro. But while Lula’s Workers’ Party endorsed his candidacy, the relationship between the two sides is not exactly close.
In return for its support, the party will get to head the lower house’s Constitution and Justice Committee — the most important of standing committees, through which all bills must pass. But Mr. Lira’s arrangement includes a yearly rotation at the committee’s helm, which could be a source of headaches for the government in the future.
Regardless of what was said prior to Mr. Lira’s re-election, his support will require a heavy dose of horse-trading.
“The government will have to either surrender executive positions to allies of the Big Center or find instruments similar to the secret budget — given that the Supreme Court last year found the instrument unconstitutional,” Ms. Rey says. “Perhaps it will have to do both.”
The Lula camp gained some leverage with Rodrigo Pacheco’s win in the race for Senate president. Mr. Pacheco is seen as a moderate who may be more flexible in negotiations with the Executive branch. He was facing a former member of the Bolsonaro cabinet, and his win reduces (at least in theory) the dependency on Mr. Lira.
Still, something has to give. Mr. Lira said before the 2022 general election that voters’ choice between Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro was a choice between the “Mensalão” and the “secret budget.”
The Mensalão was a corrupt system Lula used during his first spell as president, bribing congressmen in exchange for support. The secret budget is an opaque system of budgetary grants giving lawmakers boatloads of money to pour into their constituencies — raising their political profile.
So Mr. Lira essentially said that some level of corruption is needed for the government to have positive relations with Congress. “And the speaker has a track record of breaking deals,” Mr. Rey remembers.
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