Rui Costa leaves government with a series of frictions and far from being Lula’s successor

On Thursday, he resigned from command of the Civil House without being able to nationalize his name in the national political game, despite the importance of the position he held, and, because of this, at a disadvantage in the dispute for the position of successor to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Over the course of three years and three months in the post, there was a series of frictions with colleagues at Esplanada.

At the head of the department responsible for articulating and coordinating the actions of the other ministries, Rui Costa adopted a style focused on monitoring the government’s actions and focused on harsh demands on members of the first echelon, similar to what was seen during the time of Dilma Rousseff (2005-2010). At the beginning of his term, Lula even said that the head of the Civil House was his “Dilma in pants”.

PT members who participated in both governments assess, however, that the former head of the Civil House who later became President had more of a strategic vision of the government, while Rui became a kind of “check list minister”, with an almost exclusive focus on checking whether project schedules were being met.

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The head of the Civil House also failed to transform the new version of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), which was under his umbrella, into a major brand of Lula’s administration recognized by the population. Budget cuts meant that investment was directed towards local interventions that could yield electoral dividends for the PT member. Instead of railways, hydroelectric plants and refineries, emblems of previous editions of the PAC, the bets became the opening of health centers and daycare centers or the delivery of ambulances. When contacted, Rui Costa did not respond.

Even so, the former governor of Bahia gained Lula’s trust. The two had no prior coexistence and their nomination for the position, at the end of 2022, was endorsed by the government leader in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA). According to members of the government, the president was won over by the minister’s dedication to work and for having managed to position himself as a buffer, blocking inconsistent projects drawn up by the departments. With an office on the fourth floor of Planalto, Rui had countless meetings interrupted throughout his 39 months in office to immediately respond to calls to go down to the presidential office on the floor below.

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The head of the Civil House had as his main antagonist within the government the then Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, who at one point even avoided meetings with him, without Lula’s presence. In these cases, the person responsible for the economic team sent the then executive secretary, Dario Durigan, to represent him. Rui Costa also had friction with colleagues Carlos Fávaro (Agriculture), Márcio França (Entrepreneurship), Silvio Costa Filho (Ports and Airports), Wellington Dias (Social Development) and Carlos Lupi (Social Security).

According to an influential PT leader in Bahia, the former governor of the state arrived in Planalto with a plan to repeat the trajectory of Dilma, who was elevated from the Civil House by Lula to become presidential candidate. In 2020, when the current president’s political rights were revoked due to the Lava-Jato convictions, the then governor of Bahia even launched a project to run for Planalto. The annulment of the sentences against Lula by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) at the beginning of 2021, however, buried the Bahian’s plans.

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Now, once again, the president prevented Bahia from moving forward with his national plan by failing to fulfill his promise, made during the 2022 campaign, not to seek a fourth term. Rui also did not seek to use the position he held to nationalize his name. He concentrated his agendas outside Brasília in Bahia and also prioritized vehicles in his state when he decided to give interviews. The head of the Civil House had, over the course of three years and three months, events in Bahia on at least 76 days, as well as in his departure from office last Thursday, when he accompanied the president in an announcement of funds for the subway and VLT in Salvador.

The retrospect in the Civil House, especially the accumulated friction, does not today place Rui Costa as a PT name for Lula’s succession from 2030 onwards. In the party, today, Haddad and Camilo Santana are considered the most viable alternatives.

Rota recalculated

With no space on the national political scene, Rui Costa recalculated his route. He will run for the Senate now and intends to return to the government of Bahia in 2030. With this in mind, he tried to influence the choice of vice-president for the current governor, Jerônimo Rodrigues, but ended up defeated with Geraldo Júnior (MDB) remaining in the post. The emedebista had criticized Rui Costa in a WhatsApp group that became public.

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With the departure of Rui Costa, the expectation is that the Civil House will, with former executive secretary Mirian Belchior, follow the same line of action, with the maintenance of tough demands on the other ministers. For an experienced PT member, the new minister, because of her experience as head of Planning and other positions in the previous governments of Lula and Dilma, has a deeper knowledge of the federal structure.