In his newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo of July 2, 2025, political scientist Carlos Pereira argued that the responsibility of is. In his words, “who fails today is the executive, not knowing how to play the coalition presidentialism game.”
It is always enlightening to debate with Carlos, one of the great Brazilian political scientists. But he is wrong :. It is not very clear if the game still has rules, or at least the same rules.
In previous discussions we had on the pages of this Sheetwhen the ten -year political crisis was still beginning, I argued that Carlos’s model underestimated the role of ideology in the management of presidential coalitions. Not by chance, he only gives high notes in coalition management for right -wing presidents.
Now, the Brazilian Congress in the New Republic has always been right, by project; Our democracy began with the political class of dictatorship, from which the left had been practically banned. And it is entirely expected that right -wing presidents approve more things to a right -wing congress.
But these were the problems of the left when coalition presidentialism worked. After it stopped working, it worsened a lot.
In his classic work “Making Brazil Work” (Palgrave, 2013), Carlos and his co -author wrote, on page 51, that “in terms of direct and immediate political impact, the main (Primary Tool) tool available to the Brazilian executive is for individual legislators” (mine translation).
Well, it was exactly this “main instrument” that has lost traction in the last decade as it without depending on the executive branch.
Carlos also argues that coalition presidentialism “was never vertebrate by ideology” and that this was precisely what allowed the president to set up his coalition with amendments, positions and other tools. In fact, this is how Lula got the support of parties as Oeo in his first governments.
It also changed. Bolsonarism has radicalized the right -wing electorate, and now many Centrão deputies are reluctant to approach a leftist government.
Carlos assumes that the reduction in the number of parties should help Lula, but the opposite has happened. There are large right -wing parties that have not yet decided whether they want to continue selling support to any president or, more ambitiously, to run for the presidency. In the second case, they need to preserve at least some right -wing ideological credentials. That .
It is possible that, in the ever -uncertain long term, all this has a happy ending. Brazilian politics may be organized into large right and left machines that, by electoral dynamics, moderate each other. These machines may have the strength to return the power of the presidency or to establish some other stable arrangement.
But for those who have to rule in this transition, as is the case of Lula 3, life is hard.
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