There were many analysts who predicted that the Lula government would fail, held back by the “worst Congress in the country’s history”. The approval in the Chamber of the reform – now on its way to the same Senate that has just buried the call – is a good moment to evaluate what has resulted from the relations between an Executive in the hands of a center-left president governing with a very broad coalition and a Legislative dominated by the troubled right-wing family.
Unimaginable for everyone who predicted the worst, both decisions give rise to rethinking the dominant views both about the Executive’s ability to implement its agenda and about the Congress with a right-wing majority and empowered by amendments to the Budget and Party Fund.
What the Lula government managed to approve in just over two and a half years was neither small nor unimportant: the new fiscal framework; tax reform; the taxation of exclusive funds; the policy of increasing the minimum wage; the partial reimbursement of fuels; the new PAC (Growth Acceleration Program); the resumption of Minha Casa, Minha Vida; the policy of equal pay between men and women; the new Carf (Administrative Council for Tax Appeals); and Pé de Meia, which supports students to remain in high school. All measures with an unequivocal progressive pedigree.
Two important projects remain under consideration in the legislative houses: the administrative reform and the constitutionalization of the National Public Security System.
It is true that, under Lula, the Executive was less successful in approving proposals and had more vetoes overturned than in previous administrations. But none of what was achieved would have been possible if this had been a government without direction, without projects, without a government coalition and without the ability to negotiate each proposal with legislators, giving in here, losing there, as is typical in democracies.
In the same way, nothing would be feasible if, as most analysts and opinion makers think, Congress —strengthened by parliamentary amendments and the Party Fund— was nothing more than a cluster of parties populated by crooks, clientelists, patrimonialists or corrupt people in general, who, even when they seem to get it right, would only be playing a game of appearances to hide their true ends.
This is a caricatured view of Congress. The few substantial studies on the allocation of parliamentary amendments reach more nuanced conclusions about their effects: some positive, others perverse. On the other hand, there is no solid evidence that ministries and other government bodies are always —and only— guided by technical criteria not contaminated by political reasoning.
That the distribution of amendment resources, competition for positions and support for government proposals are influenced by electoral calculations is only expected in democracies, where competition for power depends on the ballot box. Those objectives do not impede —but rather clarify— the conditions for cooperation between the Powers. This is what allowed, contrary to predictions, the government’s agenda to prosper.
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