Rousseff Gives In to Lula da Silva and Removes Mercadante as Chief-of-Staff

10/01/2015 - 09h07

President Rousseff has bowed to pressure from her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as the PMDB, and decided to replace her Chief-of-Staff Aloizio Mercadante with Jaques Wagner, the current Defense minister.

This change, alongside Rousseff giving the PMDB control of seven ministries, up from six, should guarantee the support of at least 50 of the PMDB's 66 deputies, thus preventing the opening of a process of impeachment against the President.

She needs at least 172 deputies onside to block an impeachment request, which needs 342 votes in Congress out of a possible 513 to pass.

Mercadante will return to the Ministry of Education. He had been criticized by figures from within both PT and PMDB for failing to promote harmony between the government and its allies.

Lula had campaigned for his removal since the beginning of Rousseff's second term, but complained that his entreaties fell on deaf ears. His preferred choice had always been Jaques Wagner, also PT, but seen as a more skillful operator and with greater influence with the PMDB.

There are now three Lula allies close to Rousseff: as well as Wagner, there is Ricardo Berzoini, who will assume the new government secretary position, and Edinho Silva, minister of Social Communication.

Lula also finally managed to convince Rousseff to increase the power of the PMDB, thus at least postponing an eventual collapse of the government. In November, the party will hold a conference to discuss the solution to its current crisis.

On Thursday (1), Lula will meet Rousseff in Brasília to iron out the final details of the ministerial reform. Rousseff had promised to abolish ten ministries; the most recent reports suggest that she will manage to abolish nine.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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