The new minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Guilherme Boulos, will take office in a ceremony on Wednesday afternoon at Palácio do Planalto in the presence of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will arrive in the country on Tuesday after his trip to Asia.
Boulos took over from Márcio Macêdo. The main mission that the new minister received from the president is to put the “government on the streets” and, to this end, he intends to soon begin a travel itinerary across the country’s 26 states. The plan is to take one trip a week.
Last week, the new minister took care of the transition with his predecessor and discussed setting up the department’s team.
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The strategy of traveling around the country aims to propagate the government’s actions with an eye on Lula’s re-election bid in 2026. During his visit to Indonesia, the president stated, for the first time categorically and without reservations, that he will run for a new term, contrary to the commitment he had made during the 2022 electoral dispute.
Boulos began his political career in the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), which operates on the outskirts of the country’s large cities.
The new minister has had a close relationship with Lula since the last decade. The then homeless leader was with the PT member at the time of his arrest in 2018. Boulos was even a defender of the unsuccessful thesis that Lula should resist and not hand himself over to the Federal Police after the decree of the arrest order by judge Sergio Moro due to the conviction in the Guarujá triplex case.
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That year, Boulos was a candidate for President of the Republic for PSOL. Lula sent a video to the launch event of his pre-candidacy, despite, at that time, still placing himself as a candidate for the same position (the PT leader was subsequently replaced by Fernando Haddad).
In 2020, Boulos ran for mayor of São Paulo for PSOL. A few days before the first round, Lula tried to force the then PT candidate, Jilmar Tatto, to leave the race to support the psolista. Boulos ended up going to the second round and lost to Bruno Covas (PSDB).
Four years later, Lula got the PT to support Boulos’ new candidacy for mayor of the capital of São Paulo. The PSOL candidate reached the second round again, but lost to Ricardo Nunes (MDB).
