The president of the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) of Brazil, the deputy Gleisi Hoffmann, requested the resignation of the head of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, a bolsonarista with a mandate until 2024. Hoffman considers that the policies of Campos Neto are recessive and threaten the government program and economic growth of the president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“Campos Neto should have the minimum of shame, decency, grab his things and leave, leave the presidency of the Central Bank”, said Hoffmann last night in an act.
The head of the Central Bank became one of the main enemies of the Lula government, especially because has maintained the economy’s interest rate at 13.75% per year to meet an inflation target of 3.25%something that the president himself considered a “shame” in favor of rent-seeking and against policies to encourage the economy.
Campos Neto was put in office by the former president Jair Bolsonaro and, by virtue of the Central Bank independence law voted in 2021, his term is until 2024 with the aim that each president-elect cannot decide who will command the country’s monetary authority.
Da Silva said he was very concerned about the resumption of economic growthsince high interest rates affect the financing costs of companies and families.
In the act held in Rio de Janeiro, Hoffmann and other PT allies promoted the mobilization to remove Campos Neto, a bolsonarista with a career in the financial market, and for repeal the law on the independence of the Central Banksomething almost impossible due to the existing relationship of forces in Congress.
“Today we do not have a majority in Congress but politics changes, if we do nothing we will not have a chance, we must mobilize to organize ourselves. The mandate of the president of the Central Bank should at least coincide with that of the president elected by the people,” Hoffmann said.
The act was organized by the most leftist wing of the broad front that supports Lula and also participated Guilherme Boulosdeputy of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) who is the ruling party’s candidate for mayor of the largest city in the country, San Pablo, in the 2024 municipal elections.
“We have to mobilize to lower the interest rate”assured Boulos, who called a protest on Tuesday the 21st in front of the Central Bank, in Brasilia.
President Lula had said that Campos Neto wants to keep the country “hostage” with the interest rate supposedly high to control inflation although in the government considers that current inflation is supply and not demandwith which the measure of the Central Bank prevents the expansion of credit and consumption.
Deputy Lindbergh Farias, of the PT, maintained that Campos Neto represents a threat to the Lula government. “It’s a trap, they try to tie up President Lula, they want Brazil to fall into an economic recession,” he denounced.
The finance minister, fernando haddad, had said that he considered it more important to review the speed and levels of interest rates before inflation. Campos Neto, for his part, said that he refused to review the rate levels.
Source: Ambito
