The government () noticed an increase in dissatisfaction among self-employed people and entrepreneurs after the Pix crisis last week, and is now preparing a campaign focusing on this audience.
In the opinion of the president’s allies, dialogue with the segment was already difficult and became even worse with the dissemination of fake news about the taxation of these operations.
Last Friday night (17), Secom (Communication Secretariat of the Presidency) notified the agencies in charge of government advertising about the ordering of an information campaign.
The advertising concept will still be forwarded, but, according to what has already been informed, it will be aimed at the segment most sensitive to the measure, which are entrepreneurs.
This is not the first time that Lula has been forced to deny false information addressed to the segment. In 2022, the PT member had to deny the statement, reproduced by the then president, (), that he would end the category of individual entrepreneur (MEI).
At the time, the (Superior Electoral Court) ordered the removal of posts from Bolsonaro’s allies that repeated disinformation.
Now, with the Pix crisis, the government sees that it has lost the debate. Therefore, he decided to retreat. But there is still an assessment that the damage to this public was not just a result of the retreat.
A wing of Lula’s allies says that the Revenue measure should not have even been made, that it was bureaucratic in nature and that there was no due political calculation.
The assessment is that not even the economic team had any idea of the impact there would be. The topic was not discussed with the Civil House or even with the Ministry of Micro and Small Business, led by Márcio França.
Another wing says that the way it was publicized was wrong. It was first necessary to coordinate with people or institutions that could help in this dialogue with the population.
A member of the government mentions, for example, the name of influencer Nath Finance, who is a member of the Council.
Before taking over Secom, on Tuesday, Sidônio Palmeira had commissioned the agencies in charge of government communication to carry out a clarification campaign on the issues.
One day before Sidônio’s inauguration, the ministry asked agencies to present a digital communication strategy to combat fake news around .
On Thursday night (16), after the measure was revoked, however, Secom informed Calia, the agency chosen for the project, that the campaign had been cancelled. Agencies were instructed to wait for a new request.
Since the electoral campaign, communication and the implementation of measures for entrepreneurs and self-employed people, today close to the discourse of Bolsonarism, has already been considered a challenge.
A Lula assistant recalls the episode involving, for example, the regulation of transport app workers. It was a campaign promise from the PT member, but the measure faced strong resistance.
The program was launched even after warnings from government members that the proposal might not be well accepted by the segment. The assessment of these interlocutors of Lula is that the government still has difficulty in dialoging with this new profile of worker.
Last year, once again the government found itself faced with the difficulty of communicating with this public during the São Paulo electoral campaign.
The then candidate Pablo Marçal (PRTB) performed better in the outskirts because he had a platform with a speech focused on entrepreneurship.
During the campaign, Lula went to the capital of São Paulo to hold a balance sheet ceremony and new announcements for Crédito, a program that expands the offer of credit to entrepreneurs and low-income families.
Sanctioned the previous week, the measure did not have a launch event due to lack of an agenda, but was called by Lula the “largest credit program ever created in the history of this country for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs”.
The opposition explored, in the case of Pix, precisely the possibility of micro-entrepreneurs falling into the Federal Revenue’s fine mesh with the new measure.
Members of the Treasury sought to disarm this information by reinforcing that the focus was on crime and irregularities, not on small traders. But this version gained traction, especially after the video by the federal deputy (PL-MG).
The warning to organize the opposition came from the marketer of Bolsonaro’s 2022 campaign, Duda Lima. He set the tone for attacks on the measure to focus on entrepreneurs.
