Dalagnol proposes a “parallel office” to oversee Lula’s government

02/24/2023

The former Lava Jato attorney general will be part of the opposition in the chamber

Federal deputy from Paraná and former Lava Jato Attorney General Deltan Dalagnole (Podemos) heads the opposition’s initiative to create a “parallel office” to oversee the actions of the Lula government. The information is from the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper.

The idea is to form a group of ten deputies who will be responsible for closely monitoring the work of the ten most important ministries with the largest volume of funds. The proposal is based on the so-called “shadow government” that is common in parliaments in European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain.

In the United Kingdom, group members are decided by the Leader of the Opposition and each parliamentarian is responsible for overseeing a particular region and presents himself as a member of an alternative government for the future. Among the main targets are the health and education portfolios and the Ministry of Finance.

The group intends to start working with ten ministries and then increase the number of portfolios examined. Dallagnol’s office, which has no leadership position in the House, has begun a kind of “mapping” of colleagues to then invite them to participate in the endeavor.

The list of ministries with the largest budgets on the Esplanade includes Social Security, Development and Social Assistance – which administers the Bolsa Família programme – Health, Education, Defense, Labor, Finance, Transportation, Cities and Justice. Together, they take care of R$1.8 trillion.

Outside the largest budgets is the Ministry of Integration and Regional Development. The portfolio is coordinated by, for example, the São Francisco and Parnaiba Valley Development Corporation (Codevasf) and the National Directorate for Action Against Drought (Dnocs), bodies with a billionaire budget coveted by parliamentarians and with a history of allegations of corruption.

The Labor Party attempted to do this in 1990, during the government of Fernando Collor. Among those who made up the group were José Dirceu and Luiz Bengueli Rosa, responsible for overseeing the fields of justice, mines and energy.

In the case of countries with a parliamentary system, such as the United Kingdom, government teams meet weekly with members of the opposition group to discuss public policies. Under the presidential system, there is no provision for this type of operation, which makes it difficult to implement.