Ex-President Lula Defends New Austerity Package and Will Hit the Streets in Support of Rousseff

09/18/2015 - 09h46

Former president Lula's primary mission, in a talk with his successor Dilma Rousseff on Thursday (17), was to help build a strategy to shield the PT and avoid the initiation of an impeachment case against her.

According to PT interlocutors, he will advise Rousseff to use next week's administrative and political reforms to secure the support of allied parties, primarily the PMDB, in order to keep them from abandoning the government during this delicate moment of political crisis.

Lula arrived in Brasília in the evening and met with the President at the Palácio da Alvorada. She had scheduled a dinner with her closest PT ministers for the night.

The evaluation made by the lulista group is that the crisis has reached a worrying point and any new mistakes by the government could provide the push that is missing to trigger the lower house of Congress and approve the case for Rousseff's deposition.

That is why, Lula, despite not having been consulted–the PT member learned about the new measures from TV– and in disagreement with some of the points in the austerity package released by the government, decided to defend the actions, such as the redesign of the CPMF and spendings cuts for social programs.

According to what Folha learned, the former president has decided to make the sacrifice.

Close interlocutors say that he will "hit the streets" in favor of President Rousseff's initiative to save the economy. Allies claim that the PT knows the only alternative is to support the government.

Last week, he made his first public criticisms of the first version of the fiscal adjustment.

Translated by SUGHEY RAMIREZ

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	Rogerio Cassimiro/Folhapress
	Lula's primary mission, in a talk with Rousseff, was to avoid the initiation of an impeachment case against the president