began to fire people from the center who had positions in the government. These are people who were nominated by right-wing parties that have voted against Lula in Congress and should support Tarcísio in next year’s election.
It was as if, in the Bolsonaro government, there were ministers from the PC do B who were openly working for Lula’s candidacy in 2022 and, meanwhile, the PC do B defeated all of Paulo Guedes’ proposals in Congress. It couldn’t last.
Part of the fight is over who will have money to spend on the 2026 campaign.
The right in Congress wants to do the opposite to Lula of what they did to Bolsonaro in 2022. In the last election, the right in Congress blew up the spending cap to allow Jair to spend a fortune during the campaign. This time, the right wants to leave Lula without money in 2026, or force him to balance the books by cutting popular social spending.
As I said in , this is why the conservatives, under the leadership of , dehydrated and , which helped to balance the books with low social costs.
Well, Lula also has the means to leave part of the right poorer in next year’s campaign.
Most of the parties that support Tarcísio have positions in the federal government. They use these positions to distribute kindness to their electoral strongholds: works, resources and opportunities for friendly mayors who can decide an election for deputy.
In other words: the parties in the center planned to use federal government resources to strengthen themselves while preparing to campaign for the opposition.
But then you might wonder: why didn’t Lula fire these people sooner?
Firstly, because the right-wing majority in Congress is so overwhelming that left-wing governments cannot even do without the support of right-wing parties that only deliver 30% or 40% of their votes in Congress in favor of the government. As long as these low-quality allies ensure the minimum functioning of the government, it is worth rewarding them with positions.
The defeat of MP 1303, however, showed that the low-quality allies were not guaranteeing even this minimum functioning. Suspicion in the government even grew that allies of between zero and negative quality were working against the functioning of the government, because they had already embarked on the opposition candidacy.
Furthermore, Lula’s low popularity forced him to give up rings, fingers, forearms and shoulder blades to the center. When, at the beginning of the year, it appeared that Lula would lose the 2026 election, his job offers were valid for two years. The bargaining chip that Lula had at his disposal became worth less.
Now that Lula has recovered in the polls, his promises of office have become more valid again: whoever negotiates with the government can win positions not for one, but for five years, if Lula is re-elected. As a result, the presidency’s bargaining power increased. Lula started to arrive at the table with better cards.
On the other side of the counter, the threat “Lula, do what I want or I will support Tarcísio” became less valuable. After all, Lula can increasingly respond “Go ahead, and good luck living without a job for five years.”
For the center, there is no worse nightmare.
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