The National Congress converted into law only 23% of the provisional measures of the third Lula (PT) government. It is the lowest rate recorded since Constitutional Amendment 32, of 2001, which prohibited the reissue of MPs and set a maximum period of 120 days for each measure, ending the practice of keeping provisional rules in force indefinitely through automatic renewal.
The data comes from the Ranking of Politicians survey based on Planalto’s official platform and shows that the federal Executive’s main legislative instrument has lost effectiveness over the last two decades, regardless of the party in power.
Of the 192 MPs published by Lula in his third term, 38 were converted into law. Another 26 were still in progress at the end of the survey. Of the 166 with a defined outcome, 128 – or 77% – did not become law. In most cases, the mechanism was expiry: the maximum period of 120 days, made up of two consecutive periods of 60 days, ended without Congress deliberating on the text.
By not submitting an MP within the deadline, Congress bars it without assuming the political cost of a formal rejection. The study describes the phenomenon as a “silent veto”, a strategy that has been consolidated in recent years and allows the Legislature to exercise concrete power without direct confrontation with the Executive.
The historical series collected by the Ranking of Politicians begins in the post-EC 32 period of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s second term, which covers the last year and a half of his government: 102 MPs edited, 84 approved, a rate of 82.3%. In Lula’s first term, from 2003 to 2006, the rate rose to 90.4%, the highest in the period analyzed: of the 240 MPs published, 217 were approved. From then on, the general trend is downward.
In the second term, the rate fell to 83.2%, with 149 approvals in 179 MPs published. In Dilma Rousseff’s first government, it fell to 74.4%, with 108 approvals out of 145 MPs. In her second term, ended by impeachment, the rate was 78%, with 46 approvals in 59 published MPs. Michel Temer recorded 75%, with 108 approvals in 144 MPs and Jair Bolsonaro reached 68.3%, with 194 approvals in 284 MPs edited, the highest volume of the period, partially explained by the intensive use of the instrument during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The contrast with the period before the constitutional reform is even more significant. During the Fernando Collor government, the Collor Plan was implemented through 17 provisional measures, including the confiscation of savings. All were approved by Congress without changing any device, a portrait of a time when the Executive legislated with almost no parliamentary resistance.
The survey points to two structural factors for the reversal of this pattern. The first is the strengthening of Parliament’s budget, especially after the institutionalization of mandatory parliamentary amendments, which gave deputies and senators the ability to directly deliver public policies to their electoral bases, reducing dependence on federal government intermediation.
The second is the political polarization that began in the 2014 elections, which fragmented traditional coalitions, culminated in the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and produced an environment of persistent distrust between the Powers.
Added to this is a change in the behavior of the presidents themselves. From Lula’s second term onwards, governments began to resort more frequently to other legislative instruments, such as bills, proposed constitutional amendments and complementary bills, sent by the Executive itself or by leaders of base parties. MPs were no longer the Executive’s main means of legislative production.
The process intensified after 2022. The polarized dispute between Lula and Bolsonaro produced a heterogeneous Congress, with part of the bench structurally inclined to oppose the elected Executive, not due to conjunctural strategy, but due to electoral composition.
The study concludes that Brazilian presidentialism preserves its capacity for action, but the decision-making center has shifted. The provisional measure, an instrument that originally symbolized the unilateral strength of the Executive, began to measure the capacity of each government to reach consensus with Parliament before acting.
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