President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva dismissed, this Friday (27), the Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro (PSD-MT), so that he could temporarily resume his mandate in the Senate and participate in the final vote on the INSS CPI. The measure was formalized in an extra edition of the Official Gazette of the Union and occurs on the eve of the deliberation on the report that calls for the indictment of Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha.
The move is part of the government’s strategy to reinforce its base in the commission at a decisive moment in the work. In recent days, allied and Centrão parties have promoted a series of replacements in the collegiate to try to ensure a majority and block the opinion of the rapporteur, deputy Alfredo Gaspar (União-AL), considered adverse to the Palácio do Planalto.
Fávaro’s return to the Senate directly impacts the composition of the CPI. Senator Margareth Buzetti (PP-MT), who occupied the position as a substitute and had been participating in the sessions since the beginning of the day, leaves her post on the committee with the change. The replacement generated an immediate reaction from the parliamentarian, who criticized the articulation.
— This is very, very regrettable. Thank you all very much, I respect everyone who is here, but I think that God… I am sure of the fear that whoever sat there in that chair was not a saint. I’ve been a businesswoman for more than 41 years, I know how difficult it is to have a business and make a profit for guys with billions to come here… And I don’t think they can escape. With a totally political STF… I’m sorry, I’m sorry publicly. I think the STF is embarrassing Brazil’s justice system – he said.
The government’s offensive comes amid an open dispute with the opposition for control of the CPI’s final report. Although Planalto’s allies claim to have a majority to reject Gaspar’s text and approve an alternative version, the score is still treated as probable, with the risk of last-minute changes.
The tension was increased after a decision by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) that barred the extension of the CPI, imposing a deadline for completing the work. As a result, voting on the report became the commission’s final act, increasing the level of political mobilization around the result.
Continues after advertising
Behind the scenes, members of the CPI assess that the exchanges promoted throughout the week — both in the Chamber and in the Senate — redesigned the correlation of forces in the collegiate. The replacement of parliamentarians considered independent or aligned with the opposition with names closer to the government was seen as a key piece in the strategy to influence the outcome.
Gaspar’s report proposes the indictment of more than two hundred people and attributes Lulinha’s participation in a fraud scheme involving undue discounts and credit granted to the INSS. The government base, in turn, maintains that the text has a political bias and is preparing a separate vote that seeks to reorient the CPI’s conclusions.
Installed in August last year, the commission reached its end marked by clashes between government and opposition, narrative disputes and intervention by the Judiciary. Fávaro’s dismissal to reinforce voting in the Senate summarizes the degree of mobilization around the report and the political centrality that the CPI assumed in the pre-election scenario.
