The spirit of the shelter – Estadão

It is necessary to accommodate the “pacifying attitude” of the Defense Minister, who described the protests in the barracks as democratic (and thought it better to wait for them to end on their own), with the Justice Minister’s sense of punishment. .

In addition to the influential legal voices surrounding the president, the head of the newly appointed defense minister was already favored. Considered too appeasing, he had talked with Bolsonaro about appointing military commanders to Lula’s government.

This is a minor episode compared to the difficulty of alleviating the anxiety of economic agents facing the realities of political reality. Lula apparently disagreed with his finance minister on the fuel exemption issue, although he tried to compromise: extending the exemption for 60 days for gasoline, maintaining it for a year for diesel.

The prevailing political criteria for taking this kind of decision has always remained the same. It does whatever it takes to preserve popularity in the short term and waits for the development of events to see how it will do for the next accommodation. The time bought this way turns out to be alarmingly small, and the challenge of accommodating it is increasing.

On the issue of the (temporary?) exemption from gasoline, Lula must reconcile with the environment minister, for whom tax exemptions in favor of fossil fuels are an intolerable conflict with green agendas. As the war in Ukraine forces European governments to postpone the energy transition, Marina Silva will accept accommodation without major incident.

The government is soon promising how it will embrace the need to increase social spending, along with the need to control public spending. It promises tax reform sooner rather than later, which has so far not been achieved, largely due to the political failure of successive governments to balance the complexity of conflicting interests involved in the issue.

Because this is what Lula is, there must be room to stay.