President Jair Bolsonaro (Alan Santos / PR / Flickr)
Assistants to the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, see the risk that he will be prevented from running for reelection, if this year’s government accounts are disapproved by the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU). The assessment is based on the Budget approved last week by the National Congress, marked by accounting maneuvers to underestimate mandatory expenses and increase parliamentary amendments, and which now depends on the president’s sanction.
Complementary Law 64, of 1990, says that those who have their accounts related to the exercise of public positions or functions rejected due to an insurmountable irregularity that constitutes a willful act of administrative improbity, and due to an unappealable decision of the competent body, are ineligible for the elections that are held. carry out in the following eight years, counted from the date of the decision. Still under the current rules, a decision contrary to the TCU has to be evaluated later by the Congress itself.
This fear has stalled negotiations between Palácio do Planalto, Senado and Câmara to resolve the impasse surrounding the sanction of the budget law and cutting part of the extra R $ 31 billion in parliamentary amendments that the rapporteur Márcio Bittar (MDB-AC) included in the law.
According to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, there is a political understanding that Bittar would need to increase the cut of amendments by another R $ 5 billion, in addition to the R $ 10 billion that he already waved in a letter sent to the Plateau on Wednesday.
If this is done, the amount of more amendments that the Bolsonaro government agreed to accommodate in this year’s Budget would be limited to R $ 16.5 billion, as a counterpart to the approval of the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) for emergency aid. Economy Minister Paulo Guedes should not oppose the restoration of the initial agreement, according to sources participating in the negotiations.
The question is how to do and meet both the needs of the economic team and the political convenience of redoing a Budget that was approved a week ago.
The President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), does not want the veto and has opposed the technical position of the economic area that recommends it, even if it is partial. A source said Lira was “pragmatic” and said he did not need the veto.
As R $ 26.5 billion of the new amendments were obtained based on a cut in mandatory expenses (Social Security benefits, unemployment insurance and subsidies), a portion of them would still be underestimated, maintaining the risk that the TCU would point out irregularities.
The economic area recommends a partial veto and the edition of a project (PLN) to redo budget allocations with new sources of funds. The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
