The month of May ends with an arithmetic realization: after a year and a half, Lula da Silva’s administration is weaker than expected. For the first time since Brazil’s redemocratization, which includes two impeachment procedures against presidents, the Planalto Palace does not even have the minimum number of votes to pass a bill or support a presidential veto. In other words, if not pre-negotiated through the distribution of resources as parliamentary amendments or positions for friends in state-owned companies, nothing is approved in the National Congress. And this was the week when the government lost everything.
This week, the Lula-Supreme Court Consortium failed to turn fake news into a crime, didn’t succeed in creating loopholes for convicted criminals to continue leaving penitentiaries on festive dates – the so-called saidinhas – and so it went regarding projects on abortion, sex change, and shooting clubs. What happened? This was due to a society that has been increasingly realizing its greatness in the face of an authoritarian government and learning to use their cell phones to close ranks through social media. No wonder this power Consortium and a large share of the press – reliant on public funds – are terrified at the magnitude of the challenge to impose censorship by force. So far, they haven’t accomplished anything.
Since January of last year, there have been three frustrated attempts to do so: an explicit bill, No. 2630, which remained in the Trending Topics on X/Twitter for days; another one, nicknamed the “Globo Bill” as it taxes streaming platforms like YouTube but exempts Globo Play (TV Globo’s streaming service); and a resolution from the Superior Electoral Court itself – 23.732/24 – created by justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has completed his four-year term in office.
“The resolution is a cut-and-paste of PL2630/20, the “Fake News bill.” It is also unconstitutional as it violates Article 19 of Brazil’s Civil Framework of the Internet, which prevents platforms from restricting content without a prior judicial decision,” said constitutional lawyer André Marsiglia, a specialist in freedom of speech, on his X/Twitter account. “After the elections, we will still have the Supreme Court pressuring Congress to urgently vote on a legislation on the matter; otherwise, it will initiate procedures to address the responsibility of social media platforms and, indirectly, fake news. In other words, the message to lawmakers is ‘approve any law on the subject, or the Court will handle the job’.”
The Lula administration agrees and also wants to impose a gag rule. Justice Alexandre de Moraes himself has publicly called the Attorney General’s Office, headed by Jorge Messias, the “legal arm” of the Integrated Center for Combating Disinformation and Defense of Democracy (CIEDDE) – an initiative created to fight against fake news during the electoral rally. As a result, two other serious problems emerge: there is no constitutional provision for the Attorney General’s Office to serve as an accessory body of the Judiciary – Article 131 of the Charter – and much less is the functioning of CIEDDE clear: after all, who will command it now that Moraes has stepped down from the Court? Who composes the technical body? Does this group have legal backing to override the rules of the Civil Framework of the Internet?
However, even according to the Supreme Court, the Lula administration has a mathematical problem that has been impossible to solve for more than 500 days. It doesn’t have votes in the Chamber of Deputies. Therefore, it has been relying on in the Supreme Court’s offices. Even in previous administrations by the Workers’ Party (PT), the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Michel Temer (who took office when Dilma Rousseff was impeached), and Jair Bolsonaro, there were never frequent dinners between Supreme Court justices, the President of the Republic, and the Attorney General as there are now. Such kind of meeting used to gather only party leaders in Congress.
Lula’s only victories so far have been on economic agendas, which not only cost billions of reais in amendments but also coveted positions, such as the presidency of Caixa Econômica Federal (state-owned financial services company), the command of Banco do Nordeste (regional development bank), and the ministries of Tourism, Sports, and Ports and Airports. That’s really something.
The failure of the parliamentary engineering began with the so-called “federation” in the Chamber, which is similar to a “coalition,” created by the Electoral Justice in 2022. This new modality involves a “marriage” between parties that must last four years – with severe punishment in case of infidelity. The old “coalitions” now only exist to run for office (mayor, governor, senator, and president) and no longer for deputies and councilors.
Lula’s “federation,” baptized as “Brazil of Hope,” has 80 deputies – 68 from the Workers’ Party (PT), seven from the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), and five from the Green Party (PV). According to PT’s own parliamentarians, it was the biggest blunder made by the party’s president, Gleisi Hoffmann (PR). Afraid of having to vote in block for four years and wary of future regional complications, medium-sized parties like the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) and the Labor Democratic Party (PDT) did not join PT’s “federation.” Therefore, Lula’s nominal base has only these 80 names. After the distribution of ministries, PSB, the Sustainability Network (Rede), and the Socialism and Freedom Party (Psol) (28 deputies) began to accompany the government. PDT has 18 seats but is considered unstable due to the fight in the state of Ceará between the Gomes brothers – Ciro and Cid – career politicians.
The final count does not exceed 130 or 140 parliamentarians – with the help of other tiny parties – meaning it is the thinnest base since the Fernando Collor de Melo administration (160 deputies). It is important to note that the votes of the Centrão (the Centrist Bloc) are negotiated on a retail basis for each agenda presented by the House president, Arthur Lira (member of the Progressives party, PP, in the state of Alagoas).
For comparison purposes, in 2003, Lula took office with more than 200 allied deputies, but when he faced obstacles, he quickly doubled that count with the money from Mensalão (the Monthly Allowance Scandal). According to the rapporteur of criminal action No. 470 in the Supreme Court, retired justice Joaquim Barbosa, when he requested the conviction of the Mensalão mafia, votes like the Pension Reform and the Bankruptcy Law were bought with cash, withdrawn at the counter from the accounts of advertiser Marcos Valério de Souza.
In turn, Dilma Rousseff took office in 2011 with the largest base in history: 350 seats. The reason was the arrangement built by the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), with the strong arm of former deputy Eduardo Cunha (from Rio de Janeiro). Later, she had a falling out with him, tried to prevent his election to lead the Chamber, and ended up being impeached. Michel Temer had a similar number to hers, so he managed to pass the “mini” Labor Reform and the State-Owned Companies Law. Jair Bolsonaro had 250 votes at the start, did not face major setbacks in the Legislature, but spent most of his term with Congress stalled by the pandemic.
Today, Lula doesn’t have as much as 171 votes, the minimum necessary to propose, for example, a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry (CPI). He did not even come close to the 257 deputies needed to overturn Bolsonaro’s veto No. 46 on a bill that would turn fake news into a crime.
“Right-Wing” Congress
The two humiliating smackings for Lula and the Supreme Court were the votes on prison leaves and the maintenance of Bolsonaro’s veto on the National Security Law – a ruse created during the Covid-19 pandemic to criminalize fake news in the country, with a penalty of five years in prison. In the case of prison leaves, the Chamber and Senate had already deliberated on the matter, but, at the request of former justice Ricardo Lewandowski, now minister of Justice, Lula picked this fight. It didn’t work, as it also happened with the demarcation of Indigenous lands (the Temporal Framework) – a matter the Supreme Court tried to legislate on –, the legalization of marijuana, and rules for the operation of shooting clubs and for abortion.
Besides the enormous strength of the electorate on social networks, in direct contact with deputies who will either try to get elected as mayors in October or return to the polls in 2026, the success of the opposition is due to the structure set up by the Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA). The list of deputies and senators sympathetic to agribusiness reaches 300 names.
The group has existed for decades but registered its name in 2008 and has increasingly strengthened. It holds weekly meetings in a house in the Embassy Sector of Brasília, where it frequently receives visits from former president Jair Bolsonaro and governors like Ronaldo Caiado (Goiás) and Tarcísio de Freitas (São Paulo). It maintains a technical body to monitor hundreds of propositions in progress in both Houses, an updated website, social networks, and WhatsApp groups.
Another crucial point in the diagnosis that Lula has nowhere to run is the poorly chosen ministry. For example, Alexandre Padilha, the political coordinator, has already been called “incompetent” by the Chamber president. In Brazilian democratic history, no government has made progress without interlocution with the Chamber. Lula himself has resorted to politicians outside PT to weather tempers in tough times, such as Aldo Rebelo, after the Severino Cavalcanti storm in 2005, or José Múcio Monteiro, now minister of Defense, who led PTB, in addition to former president Michel Temer himself.
Arthur Lira even asked Lula to fire Padilha in a meeting at the Planalto Palace. He said the minister is not received by almost anyone – much less by him – when he goes to Congress and suggested the name of PT member José Guimarães (Ceará) to replace him. At the time, traditional press columnists wrote that Padilha would not leave because he was a personal friend of the first lady, Janja da Silva. It was also reported that, at her request, the minister adopted the bizarre neutral language – “todes” (a nonexistent gender-neutral pronoun in the Portuguese language) – in speeches.
As politicians in Brasília say, what remains for the power Consortium is some “muscle” in the Senate, but there is a high possibility that this scenario will change in 2026, which also concerns the Supreme Court. The warning came from the likely future president of the House next year, Davi Alcolumbre (Amapá). If each federation unit elects just one conservative senator – two seats will be at stake –, adding up to those elected in 2022, the Senate’s composition will change.
The math is simple: the Supreme Court has time until 2026, but Lula doesn’t. The PT member will have to rely on the Chamber until then. However, for the taxpayer’s good, apparently no one in the government has any idea how to overcome this dilemma.
