How big is Bolsonaro’s coalition?

From Brasília, by Erich Decat

Since the day after the presidential election in Brazil, held last October, we have seen a growth in optimism about the future of the country.

This phenomenon can be noticed in many different sectors of society.

Just to provide some data, according to the latest XP-Ipespe poll, 59% of Brazilians expect the new government to do “well”.

The Brazilian stock exchange has also been boosted by this positive outlook. On Thursday, the Bovespa stock market index reached 93 points, registering a new record.

Parallel to the national expectation, Jair Bolsonaro’s government has been working on an economic agenda, which will have a lot of proposals affecting different economic and social sectors.

Although most of the ideas are still drafts, we can highlight for instance the pension and tax reform, the health care overhaul, privatizations, improvements to sanitation and infrastructure in general.

However, questions start arising when we realise that most of these structural proposals must be voted on by the Congress.

The key point is: currently, nobody knows how big the Bolsonaro coalition is. And when I say nobody, this also includes some advisers of the president Jair Bolsonaro, who have been nominated to negotiate with the new Congress.

Bear in mind that during the election, Mr Bolsonaro was supported only by his party, the PSL, and by his vice president’s party, the PRTB.

Currently, the PSL is the second biggest party in the Lower House. It has 56 elected lawmakers. The PRTB has none.

Despite the PSL’s good election results, we have to remember that the House is composed of 513 members. It means that the PSL and the PRTB alone won’t go too far.

A solution that the PSL is working on is to join the group of parties that support the current speaker, Rodrigo Maia (DEM), in keeping his position in the new Congress, which will be decided on 1st February.

Currently, Maia’s re-election is supported by 12 parties, that is 262 lawmakers. The PSL is one of them.

Although Bolsonaro’s party has pledged support for re-electing Maia, the reciprocal support of this Congressional group for the new government could not be automatic.

The first test for the government on the floor of the Lower House will be the proposal which redefines the shape of the federal administration. The vote on this bill will give us some idea about the reciprocity of the support.

Anyhow, we will have to wait to see how the group behaves in other controversial issues, such as the pension reform.

I believe that in the midterm, the new government will have enough support to pass its main proposals.

Why? Because as we saw at the begin of this article, Jair Bolsonaro enjoys big support among different sectors of society and normally the lawmakers tend to act based on pragmatism.

Proofread by Akos Gerold