Freire: "Dilma's government aged too quickly"

Rodolfo Borges_247 – In his six terms as a parliamentarian, federal deputy and former presidential candidate Roberto Freire has never seen such a tumultuous start to a government. “The Lula government, which faced many corruption allegations, took more than a year to confront its first crisis, with the Valdomiro case. The Dilma government aged prematurely,” said the national president of the PPS in an interview with Brasil 247. “The Dilma government is perhaps the one that has had the most ministers denounced and turned into defendants. It aged too quickly because it is a continuation of the Lula government,” he added.

The congressman believes that Dilma faces more difficulties due to her "inability to lead, including within her own party." But not only that. Freire points out that, unlike what happened with Lula, the president also needs to deal with the repercussions of the global economic crisis in Brazil, which has led her to take unpopular measures such as vetoing the increase in pensions. "Now it's the wrinkled guys who are going to the streets," the congressman jokes. All this with a larger, but less cohesive, support base.

“The difficulty lies in knowing when Dilma’s government will begin. She hasn’t had her own agenda since the Palocci case,” analyzes the congressman, who instead of lamenting the government’s paralysis, opts for criticism. “Brazil is a little better off without this legislative volume. The country doesn’t suffer from anything, because the government already didn’t want to vote on important issues, such as Amendment 29 (which increases mandatory spending on health), and it would be a better country if it hadn’t voted on provisional measures like the one that instituted the Differentiated Bidding Regime,” he quips.

In response to the mounting corruption allegations within the government, Freire's PPS party is collecting signatures to establish a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) into the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), but the opposition is also working on another front to open a CPI on Corruption. When questioned about the effectiveness of trying to establish more than one commission, Freire is pragmatic: "There are PR deputies, for example, who don't support a CPI on Corruption, but have already signed the PAC CPI."

The president of the PPS is betting on the discomfort of the allied base to secure one of the two commissions. “This support that allied senators are giving to the fight against corruption is the worst thing that could happen to the government. Now they are subject to societal pressure and will have to sign the CPIs,” assesses Freire, referring to the movement led by Senator Pedro Simon (PMDB-RS), although he doesn't believe that President Dilma is actually cleaning house. “If she does a clean house, she'll be cleaning up Lula's mess. And she also participated in that mess (as Chief of Staff).”