The surgery that should be taken out of the field until next week displays acute symptoms of known deformations of the government and power relations in the country. The president’s hospitalization does not pose a major immediate political risk, but it exposes institutional anomalies and domestic weaknesses in the PT administration.
The concentration of political authority in Lula’s hands is the most sung mark of this mandate. It is not a major deformation by the standards of Brazilian presidentialism, but this characteristic conditioned the entire structure of power to be one between the door in and the door out.
The coincidence of the hospitalization with the accelerated race to show how much Lula needs Lula. Even though the president is willing to leave the hospital, the politically delicate moment is a reminder that part of the PT member’s influence is anchored in his public gestures and private conversations in Brasília.
No Lula minister had the will or strength to sweeten the bitter medicine of spending containment in two crucial sectors for swallowing the package: the government’s social base and the . So far, the president has not taken the measures into his own hands, but assistants believe that only he would be able to carry out the mission. In the hospital, its range is limited for a few days.
Inside the palaces, the distortion is even clearer. Hours before his hospitalization, Lula himself had to endorse an agreement to release amendments to try to unlock the vote on the package in a Congress that never considered the word of ministers highlighted by the PT member sufficient. The political aberration appears in the form of blackmail that only works when presented directly to the president.
The size of the possible losses from Lula’s partial absence is yet to be measured. The possible short-term effects on the government’s political operation, however, are more palpable than the early speculation about 2026 and the PT’s succession. Considering , everything indicates that this issue will also depend more on Lula himself than on other characters.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
