Explaining Brazil #289: Lira’s latest Lula feud

House Speaker Arthur Lira (L) and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (R). Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil

On Tuesday morning, Brazil’s federal government fired Wilson César de Lira Santos from his position as regional superintendent of the national agrarian reform institute Incra in the state of Alagoas.

While that sounds like a completely innocuous decision — certainly not worthy of a podcast introduction — it becomes more curious when you consider that Mr. Lira Santos is the cousin of Brazil’s current House Speaker, Arthur Lira.

In Brazil, the speaker of the House holds one of the most important and powerful positions in politics, and governments can sink or swim based on their relationship with the head of the lower house of Congress.

And it looks like the Lula government and Arthur Lira are on a collision course.

The main flashpoint of this crisis between House Speaker Arthur Lira and the Lula government has been the speaker’s falling out with Alexandre Padilha, the Institutional Relations Minister, who is also the administration’s liaison with Congress.

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This episode used music from Uppbeat and Envato. License codes: Sci-Fi Dystopia por Orchestralis (TDLGFWAR52), Aspire por Pryces (B6TUQLVYOWVKY02S), Minimal Emotional Mystery por Orchestralis (3GDBJ2MPSN), and Tension Hip-Hop por TheQLon (6NRWD95KTB).

In this episode:

Beatriz Rey is a political science Ph.D., an Incoming Research Fellow at the University of Lisbon, a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Brazilian Policy Agendas Project at the University of São Paulo, and a Fellow at POPVOX Foundation.

Background reading:

Arthur Lira and Alexandre Padilha were never a match made in heaven. But their relationship has soured to the point that it could lead to a very rocky 2024 for the government.
Much of the friction between Messrs. Lira and Padilha stems from the vote to keep member of Congress Chiquinho Brazão in jail. Mr. Brazão was arrested for obstruction of justice and is accused of being one of the masterminds behind the 2018 murder of Marielle Franco.
The feud may be escalating, as Mr. Lira decided to discuss tax reform regulation bills this week, before the federal government submitted its proposals on the matter. This puts significant pressure on the Lula administration.
Arthur Lira was easily re-elected as speaker back in February of last year. But he won’t be able to run for re-election again, and will have to try and appoint a successor.

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