Brazil congress picks leaders as Lula’s challenges mount

Daniel Carvalho, Tribune News Service

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is already staring down rising food prices, deepening investor skepticism and falling approval ratings. Now he’s getting another challenge: A change in congressional leadership that will test his ability to navigate the country’s conservative legislature. Brazil’s lower house and Senate chose new leaders Saturday, and both are centrist lawmakers from parties with uneasy relationships with the leftist government. Veteran Senator Davi Alcolumbre won his leadership race by 73 of 81 votes on Saturday. Lula called him just after his victory and praised the new senate leader in a public statement. “We will walk together in the defense of democracy and in building a more developed and less unequal Brazil, with opportunities for all the Brazilian people,” read the presidential statement.

A few hours later, Congressman Hugo Motta was elected the new lower house speaker by 444 of 513 votes. In congratulating Motta in a public statement, Lula said he was sure that together they will advance in the “construction of an increasingly developed and fairer Brazil, with fiscal, social and environmental responsibility.” Lacking majorities in either body, Lula’s relations with Congress — and former Speaker Arthur Lira, in particular — have often proved difficult over the last two years. Now he will need to build ties to new leaders on whom he’ll depend heavily as he seeks to soothe market fears about public spending and approve proposals meant to shore up support ahead of the 2026 presidential race. That won’t be easy. The agenda is already getting crowded, and while Lula’s Workers’ Party threw its weight behind both presumptive favorites, they also enjoy the backing of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, as it gears up for next year’s election as well. Bolsonaro also called Alcolumbre to praise him and told Bloomberg he would do the same with Motta.

But Lula isn’t waiting to make his own inroads as lawmakers return to work with this year’s budget atop the list of priorities. He will talk to the new chiefs on Monday morning, Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha said, before kicking off a highly-anticipated overhaul of his cabinet aimed at bolstering support in the legislature. In Alcolumbre, he will find a familiar face: The 47-year-old lawmaker who helmed the Senate in 2019 and 2020 served as a powerful figure under now former leader Rodrigo Pacheco, and selected at least three members of Lula’s cabinet. He also spearheaded negotiations with the administration over so-called parliamentary budget amendments — money to fund projects of lawmakers’ choosing that served as a regular source of tension.

Lula’s team expects negotiations with Alcolumbre to prove more difficult than they were under Pacheco, who largely served as an ally, two people familiar with the situation said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Motta, 35, is more of a blank canvas. He has been in office since 2011, rose to prominence by leading a congressional corruption probe into state-run oil firm Petrobras and once enjoyed close ties with Eduardo Cunha — the former speaker who led the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s successor and partymate. Initially hesitant to back the young lawmaker’s leadership bid, Lula was convinced by allies and initial conversations with Motta, according to one of the people familiar.

Those talks will likely help keep channels open with Motta, said Paulo Gama, the political analysis coordinator at XP Inc. He added that the lawmaker has served as the lower house’s rapporteur on economic bills and “demonstrated an ability” for both dialogue and technical issues. The familiarity with Alcolumbre, meanwhile, will likely lead to “continuity of the current model of negotiations” between the Senate and the government, Gama said.