Guimarães defends a return to the Workers' Party's style of governing.

Benilde Rodrigues, from the PT party in the Chamber of Deputies - Congressman José Guimarães (PT-CE) has undertaken numerous tasks. In addition to leading the Minority Caucus in the Chamber of Deputies, he has assumed the National Secretariat for Institutional Affairs (SNAI) of the Workers' Party's National Directorate, tasked with revitalizing the department. The PT member stated that one of the secretariat's responsibilities – which serves as an interface between PT administrations at all levels – is to promote meetings, debates, and the exchange of experiences and information between the party leadership and the 256 municipalities governed by the PT.

According to Guimarães, SNAI aims to revive the Workers' Party's (PT) style of governance among the mayors elected in 2016. He recalls the difficult moment the party faced that year, at the height of the parliamentary coup against President Dilma Rousseff, who was legitimately elected.

“This is an effort we are making. In reality, we are conducting a true active search. The mayors are disorganized, adrift, without any support, and this is happening during a period of intense social, economic, and moral crisis that the country is going through. We have to rescue the mayors in every Brazilian municipality where the PT governs. We have a history, a trajectory, and positive experiences that the Lula and Dilma governments implemented in the country,” observed Guimarães. Among the flagship programs of this experience are Zero Hunger, Light for All, Water for All, and My House, My Life.

In addition to dialogue and the recovery of municipal experiences, the meeting with the mayors also aims to deepen the discussion on public policies. "We want to recover the policies that were part of the PT's way of governing, refine them and improve them based on this new context. We want to take stock of all this and create conditions so that the party can, based on this legacy, help municipal administrations," he stated.

Pact 

Guimarães also pointed out that discussing a pact to confront the crisis of Temer's coup government is a priority. "This government is dismantling the municipality, destroying the federal pact, severely reducing the resources allocated to municipal legislators, and we need to organize the struggle and discuss a pact with them to confront this," he emphasized.

The congressman believes that the exchange of experiences that the National Meeting of PT Mayors will provide should generate knowledge and constitute, through the SNAI (National Secretariat for Institutional Support), a political monitoring of the administrations where the PT governs. "We will pass on to them a kind of database of everything we produced during the most important moments of the PT's way of governing," he added.

Guimarães advocated for closer ties between the parliamentary group and the mayors. According to him, this relationship will be strengthened in the workshop scheduled for this Tuesday (3). The course, which will be taught by advisors from the Chamber and the Senate, he believes, can point out ways for mayors to access federal resources, regardless of amendments.

The legislator also stressed that, at the meeting, the group will hear from the mayors what their priorities are for 2018.