While defending the departure of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) from the government and trying to be the vice-president of the right-wing candidate in the next , the president of the PP, senator (PI), has maintained an ally for more than a year as an advisor to the presidency of the .
José Trabulo Junior, from Piauí, has been a consultant to the bank’s president, Carlos Antônio Vieira, since September 25, 2024. He was one of the coordinators of Jair Bolsonaro’s () last campaign for the Presidency, after being nominated by the senator, his friend.
Publicist, Trabulo Junior also headed the communications for the mayor of São Paulo, between March and November 2023, in a move to bring Nogueira’s PP together for the campaign for re-election in 2024.
A trusted man of Ciro, Trabulo was also a member of the Supervisory Board of Caixa Corretora, one of the bank’s subsidiaries, and was director of Conab (Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento) in the Bolsonaro government.
According to Caixa employees, presidential consultants receive almost R$40,000 per month. The report asked the bank about the salary, but there was no response.
Minister of Bolsonaro’s Civil House, Ciro has harshly criticized the Lula government and worked for a right-wing name to face the PT member in the 2026 elections.
During the formalization ceremony of the newly created federation of the PP with the , which will make the parties act together in the next elections, Ciro stated that it was “embarrassing” to be in government and added that, for him, the , would not have even entered.
This Wednesday (8), he stated that the PP “is not and will not be part of the current government, with which it does not have any ideological or programmatic identification”, announcing that it had disobeyed the party’s guidance.
Trabulo’s appointment appears on the list of advisors to the president of Caixa obtained by Sheet based on a LAI (Access to Information Law) request sent on May 9. The choice was kept confidential, and the response was only delivered on September 22 after a determination by the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union).
Ciro did not respond to the report’s questions about Trabulo’s appointment.
When questioned, Caixa stated that “the appointment of consultants complies with the institution’s internal rules and governance, compliance and integrity rites.” “The bank adopts strict mechanisms to identify possible conflicts of interest between its employees and collaborators, ensuring compliance with the standards and values that govern the organization”, he added in a note.
To maintain the opposition speech to Lula, PP and União Brasil defined which members of the government should hand over their positions by the end of September — which did not happen.
Publicly, today the main pressure falls on Fufuca and the Minister of Tourism, Celso Sabino (União Brasil), who resist resigning.
On Monday (6), Fufuca reaffirmed his support for Lula in next year’s elections. This Wednesday, to the federation that prefers, moved by União Brasil, to leave the Ministry of Tourism.
Since Vieira’s appointment as president of Caixa by the federal deputy (PP-AL), at the end of 2023, the bank’s main positions have been divided between centrão and right-wing parties, such as the PP, União Brasil, and the PL.
The decision by Ciro and the president of União Brasil, Antônio Rueda, to determine the departure of members with mandates, but preserve the other people appointed by politicians from both parties, will keep Caixa under the control of parliamentarians from the federation.
The two parties also have nominees in other positions in ministries and state-owned companies, such as the (Companhia de Desenvolvimento dos Vales do São Francisco and Parnaíba), Telebras and directorates at Correios.
In an interview with the newspaper O Globo on Sunday (5), Ciro said that Bolsonaro has already chosen who will replace him and that there are only two options: the governor of São Paulo, , or the governor of Paraná, .
. “So far I haven’t seen any power of attorney that Bolsonaro gave to Ciro Nogueira for him to say who the right-wing candidate, the vice-president, could be… Everyone knows that he wants to be the vice-president”, criticized ruralist Nabham Garcia.
At the end of September, the senator said that he was already crossing all limits: “Either we unify or we are going to throw away an election won again. No matter how much we have differences, we cannot be an electoral supporter for Lula, the PT and the PSOL.”
