Explaining Brazil #237: Congressional cold war

In a couple of weeks, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have served 100 days of his third term as head of state. But despite some big promises, little has changed in Brazil.

But it’s not all the government’s fault. Plans for a fast-moving honeymoon period were derailed by the January 8 riots in Brasília, the Yanomami health crisis, and a healthy dollop of infighting in Brazil’s Congress.

On February 1, all attention turned to the elections for House speaker and Senate president. The ideological makeup of Congress meant that an out-and-out opponent leading either of the chambers could have spelled disaster for the Lula government. But disaster was averted when both Arthur Lira and Rodrigo Pacheco were re-elected.

But then, it took an extra six weeks for the lower house of Congress to set up its standing committees, meaning that, by day 75 of Lula’s first 100 days, not much could be done in Congress.

And now, another deadlock in Brazil’s legislative branch.

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This episode used music from Uppbeat. License codes: Aspire by Pryces (B6TUQLVYOWVKY02S), Cymatics by Simon Folwar (OEUKM2ACMTXBHGNV), and All Good Folks by Mr Mischief (5E9SC5V6KAAYDZEP).

In this episode:

• Cedê Silva is The Brazilian Report’s Brasília correspondent. He has worked for O Antagonista, O Estado de S.Paulo, Veja BH, and YouTube channel MyNews.

Background reading on the Brazilian Congress:

• When the current legislature began in February, Arthur Lira was re-elected as Brazil’s House speaker with a record-shattering vote count. Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco got two more years leading the upper house by a much narrower margin.
• It took a month and a half for the House to elect members for its standing committees, which stalled legislative work. President Lula’s party obtained strategic positions in key committees. But his detractors also managed to pick up important seats — notably in the Environment Committee.
• The heads of the House and Senate are locked in a cold war over how Congress should appraise provisional decrees submitted by the federal government. And now the Supreme Court has entered the fray.

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• #congress
• #government
• #lula