In an interview, the Finance Minister criticizes Bolsonaro (PL) and says that the former president “outsourced” the government to the Legislature
The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, said he agreed with the criticism that the government “It’s very analogous on social media” is that “combating fake news is a problem”. In Haddad’s assessment, the country will face “a long winter” until this issue is resolved.
“I agree with critics who say that we are still too analog on social media. (…) Combating fake news is still a problem for us”, acknowledged Haddad in an interview with the newspaper Newspaperpublished on Saturday (April 27, 2024).
“We also have to better calibrate our communication, our speeches. We need to learn to deal with this rise of the far right”, he added, citing that this is a new problem, which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) did not face in previous governments.
According to Haddad, the government does not want a “authoritarian exit” for disinformation, such as banning social media platforms from operating in the country.
The topic has been on the rise in recent weeks because of the clash between the owner of X (former Twitter), Elon Musk, and the minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) Alexandre de Moraes. Musk accuses the minister of promoting censorship through judicial decisions. In response, Moraes included the businessman in the digital militias investigation.
In the interview, Haddad made several criticisms of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). According to the minister, “There wasn’t exactly a Bolsonaro government that preceded us. He outsourced to the Legislature and did not govern”.
The government faces difficulty in approving its agendas in Congress. At the beginning of this month, Haddad asked for commitment to public accounts after the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), dehydrated MP (provisional measure) 1,202 of 2023, by maintaining the tax exemption for municipalities with up to 156 thousand inhabitants .
The answer came on Saturday (27 April). In a statement, Pacheco said that Congress does not need to share the same vision of economic development as the Ministry of Finance and classified Haddad’s demands as “unnecessary, not to say unfair”.
The minister stated that “Lula is rebuilding a lot of things that were in decomposition”, because during the Bolsonaro government “we talked a lot about nonsense”. He cited as an example the former president’s statement that people could “turn into an alligator” if they took the anti-covid vaccine and the tax cut for jetskis.
Read other topics covered in the interview:
- Lula 3 – “At the beginning of this government, I felt [Lula] more eager for deliveries. Because it’s one thing for a young man in his early 50s to become President for the first time. Another thing is a gentleman who has already lived everything he has lived. (…) Another thing that I felt, and that I don’t see anymore, is that he had a certain hurt, you know? Of the friends who disappeared during difficult times. But this was also getting diluted”;
- Janja – “I firmly believe that Janja [Lula da Silva, primeira-dama] It’s good for Lula, she wants Lula’s good, she wants to participate, as anyone in her position would like. Respect the work of ministers. The 2 are always together, well. It’s a good climate”;
- religion – “Bolsonaro Family It is very far from any religious value (…) The president [Lula] He is a religious man. But it has a democratic culture. He doesn’t put religion on the stage. He finds it in bad taste, and terrible from a political point of view, to use this for his own advantage.”;
- far right – “I regret to say that I consider Bolsonaro a good translation of what many people think about Brazil. I’m sorry because it shocks me that this [organização da extrema-direita] took place around this figure who has a very archaic, almost medieval mentality”.
