The (PT) accelerated the payment in May to guarantee support in Congress for the project that foresees the end of the 6×1 scale and also to comply with a new rule included in the Budget, which requires the transfer of the majority of these funds by the middle of the year.
In total, Planalto transferred R$16.1 billion to parliamentarians in May to allocate to their political strongholds. This is the record transfer of this type of funds in a single month during Lula’s term. The data was obtained by Sheet through the Siga Brasil platform, a budget transparency page maintained by .
According to Lula’s assistants who work in articulating the Planalto with Congress, the jump in payments in May was due to the calendar of amendments introduced in this year’s Budget, but also to the need to guarantee the approval of the.
The “amendment calendar” is a . It obliges the Executive to pay 65% of mandatory parliamentary amendments by the end of the first semester. This mechanism was a long-standing demand from congressmen, who would like to see their electoral bases irrigated by this funding before the campaign.
The R$16.1 billion paid by the Lula government in May includes R$11.2 billion in individual amendments and R$3.3 billion in amendments from state benches — a modality in which the Executive is obliged to pass on the funds to parliamentarians, but can define the moment of release, with some rules.
In addition, there is R$1.5 billion from committee amendments and R$25.2 million in arrears from rapporteur amendments. Payment of this amount is not mandatory, but the government usually makes transfers for political reasons.
In these R$16.1 billion paid in May, Lula prioritized the Senate’s Social Affairs Committee. With R$888 million released, the collegiate appears as the “author” who had the most amendments paid last month, even without Planalto’s obligation to execute them.
The May ranking is followed by the Chamber Health Committee (R$354 million) and a series of state benches and other Congressional bodies. The first individual authors to appear on the list are base senators Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM), with R$65 million, and Giordano (MDB-SP), with R$61 million.
The total amount paid in May represents a jump compared to the R$1.4 billion paid in April. Until then, the month with the highest release of amendments in 2026 was February, with R$2.5 billion sent by Planalto.
By the end of May, the government had paid R$14.5 billion of the R$37.8 billion in mandatory amendments authorized for 2026. In other words, to comply with the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law) rule, Planalto still needs to release around R$24.5 billion from these items by the end of June.
According to members of the government, the idea was to wait for the middle of the year to concentrate the transfers and have coins for negotiation with parliamentarians at this time of year, at the door of the electoral campaign.
On the eve of the end of the 6×1 scale, on May 27, the Lula government paid R$2.9 billion in amendments. Two weeks earlier, on the 12th, when Planalto and the Chamber were reaching an agreement to vote on the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution), R$3.4 billion was paid. Before May, the last billion-dollar release in a single day occurred in December of last year.
In a historical series of 10 years, the value is second only to what was transferred in June 2022, when the government (PL) paid R$17.8 billion in parliamentary amendments in a single month, in amounts adjusted for inflation.
That year, Bolsonaro did not have a payment schedule obliging the transfer of amendments, but was in “campaign mode”, counting on Congress on the eve of the election. In addition, in 2022 calls also exploded, which receive this name because they are deposited directly to city halls and other entities.
The disbursement made by the government in May includes other moves to improve the political climate in Congress. In addition to the commission amendments, which are optional for payment, around 7% of the amounts paid in the month are from previous years and are not subject to the transfer calendar included in the legislation.
The government still needs to cultivate a good relationship with Congress at the end of the semester, despite the pace of voting tending to slow down due to the elections. The PEC that ends the 6×1 working day was approved by the Chamber, but still needs to go through the senators.
For deputies and senators, paying for amendments is an electoral survival tactic. Many parliamentarians are elected thanks to a base of allied mayors to campaign in their political strongholds, an asset known to politicians as a “structure vote”.
In this method, parliamentarians send resources directly to allied city halls and, in return, these mayors help them in their re-election. It is a different logic from ideological voting, with which deputies and senators are elected based on identification with specific agendas or tendency to align with progressive or conservative ideals, for example.
