The criticisms that the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann (PT-PR), made against the spending cuts, this weekend, exposed a new point of tension within the government between the more social wing of the party and the economic team – more precisely to Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance).
One of the main exponents of the PT, Haddad leads the economic team to execute the package requested by the market as proof of the government’s commitment to public accounts. Both the party and other allies see resistance, which is increasingly exposed.
Gleisi’s criticism was mainly based on editorials published over the weekend in favor of spending cuts, which she classifies as a “sacrifice of retirees, workers, health and education, which may even combine with the frenetic neoliberalism of the last government, but not with the government that was elected to rebuild the country”.
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In the recently published manifesto against the cut, the PT signs through a local party leader, Jardel Lopes, while allied parties are more exposed, such as PSOL, PC do B, PCB, among other social movements.
“The financial power, the markets and their spokespeople in the media raise the specter of a non-existent fiscal crisis, when what we are experiencing is the recovery of economic fundamentals, destroyed by the previous government”, says an excerpt of the text.
In another, the manifesto states that “now they want to cut the flesh of the majority of the people, advancing their machete on historical achievements such as the real readjustment of the minimum wage and its link to pensions and the BPC, unemployment insurance, worker rights about the FGTS, the constitutional floors of Health and Education”.
The government has been trying to close the package for three weeks, but is constantly encountering resistance from at least five ministers against the cuts: Wellington Dias (Social Development), Luiz Marinho (Labor and Employment) and Carlos Lupi (Social Security) have already come to public to express dissatisfaction with the possibility of their departments losing resources.
Privately, Nísia Trindade (Health) and Camilo Santana (Education) also resist possible changes to the constitutional floors of their areas, including linking the Basic Education Fund (Fundeb) to the fiscal framework.
This weekend, Força Sindical threatened to attack the government if the package affects workers’ benefits. The president of the federation, Miguel Torres, said he sent a letter to Lula asking for a meeting about the cuts.
“I’m not saying that there doesn’t need to be a correction, that there doesn’t need to be spending control, but we are taking it from those who need it most, the unemployed worker”, he pointed out.
Among the most criticized changes is that of unemployment insurance, which provides for the discount of installments in the amount of the FGTS termination fine paid by the employer in the event of unfair dismissal. It is added to other possibilities, such as review and cuts in the Continuous Payment Benefit (BPC).
These two benefits are classified by the government as “acquired rights” that Lula’s leader in Congress, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (PT-AP), has already said will not be changed.
The expectation is that Lula and the ministers most resistant to the package will meet again this week to negotiate the cuts, while the financial market cautiously awaits what should be adjusted in the public accounts.
