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BrazilThe candidate supported by Lula re-elected as head of the Senate
Senator Rodrigo Pacheco was re-elected on Tuesday as head of the Brazilian Senate. He was the candidate supported by President Lula.
Senator Rodrigo Pacheco, supported by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was re-elected Wednesday as head of the upper house, facing a former minister of Jair Bolsonaro, during a parliamentary return under high security. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, was also reappointed for a two-year term.
Rodrigo Pacheco, elected from the Social Democratic Party (PSD, center), obtained 49 votes, once morest 32 for his opponent Rogerio Marinho, who was Minister of Regional Development under the mandate of the far-right ex-president (2019- 2022). He needed 41 votes to be reappointed for another two-year term. “We must join hands, so that Brazil is pacified and that the differences remain in the field of politics,” Pacheco declared before the vote of the senators.
Without any real opposition, Arthur Lira, of the center-right Progressistas (PP) party, was re-elected hands down, with the votes of 464 of the 513 deputies, a record.
Deputies elected for 4 years
Brazil is emerging from a very polarized election, won by a narrow margin by Lula once morest Jair Bolsonaro at the end of October. But this young democracy remains above all traumatized by the riots of January 8, when thousands of Bolsonarians refusing to accept the return of the left to power invaded and ransacked the places of power in Brasilia. The security system has been reinforced in the capital: access to the Esplanade of the Ministries, which leads to the Square of the Three Powers, where the Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court are located, has been closed to the public, and the area was continuously monitored by drones.
The new Brazilian Congress, resulting from the October legislative elections, leans more to the right than the previous one, and the left-wing president will have to negotiate constantly with the myriad of parties that make up the country’s political landscape. The 513 deputies are elected for four years, a term which coincides with that of the Head of State. That of the 81 senators lasts eight years, and that of a third of them begins this Wednesday.
“We depend on Congress”
The role of the presidents of the two chambers is very important, insofar as they are the ones who determine the agenda. The President of the Chamber of Deputies is the third person in the country, following the President and the Vice-President.
Arthur Lira, 53, is a figure of the “Centrao”, a nebula of centrist parties which have been making rain and shine in Parliament for decades, most often allying themselves with the government in place, by cashing in their support for important positions. Arthur Lira was a close ally of Jair Bolsonaro, refusing to submit dozens of requests for the dismissal of the far-right ex-president to the vote of the chamber.
But he was one of the first authorities to recognize Lula’s election at the end of October and said in a recent interview with Globonews that he had a “serene” relationship with the leftist president. “We have no power over Congress, we depend on Congress,” said the 77-year-old head of state in early January, assuring that he wanted to maintain good relations with parliamentarians, as during his two first mandates (2003-2010).
(AFP)