Maia promises a meeting to discuss pension reform as early as next week.

Iolando Lourenço and Marcelo Brandão – Reporters for Agência Brasil

Shortly after being elected this Thursday (2) as president of the Chamber of Deputies, deputy Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ) announced that he will install, next week, the special commission destined to analyze the merits of the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) that deals with the Social Security reform. He confirmed that the rapporteur of the commission will be deputy Arthur Maia (PPS-BA) and that the presidency will be held by deputy Sérgio Zveiter (PMDB-RJ).

The committee will have up to 40 sessions to analyze the merits of the proposed constitutional amendment, which will then be sent to the Chamber's plenary for a vote in two rounds. The matter is considered a priority by the federal government, and Rodrigo Maia hopes that the amendment will be processed in the Chamber by mid-year, ensuring debate and transparency.

Maia also promised to expedite the analysis of the labor reform, another government priority, nominating Congressman Rogério Marinho (PSDB-RN) to be the rapporteur for the special committee tasked with analyzing the matter.

In celebrating the election results, the Speaker of the House attributed his victory to the recognition of his work leading the votes on important economic matters of interest to the government, such as the one establishing a ceiling for public spending. Maia assumed the presidency of the Chamber in July of last year, after the resignation of then-Deputy Eduardo Cunha.

"I oversaw the voting on the government's economic matters. This clearly signaled to the base parliamentarians and to society that my continued presidency of the Chamber provided reassurance for this [reform] agenda, and that will happen," he assured. "We will broaden the debate on controversial matters, such as the pension and labor (reforms), and we will move forward with their voting," he added.

Maia said he expected a broader vote in his favor today, but understood that the result of 293 votes he received was due to the vote being secret. "I'm satisfied, whoever wins is always satisfied. I expected around 300 votes, but I knew that with a secret ballot we would have a natural loss. The number of 300 votes was reasonable. [But] the important thing was that I had (at least) 257, which was the guarantee of an absolute majority."