President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Sunday (27) that Brazil's National Congress, which combines the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, "contributed a lot" to the country's governability during his third term. He spoke on Canal Livre, the long-running Sunday interview program of TV Bandeirantes, in a conversation recorded at the Alvorada palace and broadcast on Sunday night, in the closing stretch of his reelection campaign.

"From the point of view of governance, the Congress contributed a lot to the things we did," the president said, according to the news agency Agência Estado. In a passage quoted by G1 and by Correio Braziliense, he made the same point in other words: "The Congress contributed a lot to the changes we wanted to make." Among the central proposals approved by the legislature over the past four years, he highlighted the tax reform.

Praise with reservations

The praise came with criticism. Lula questioned the control that deputies and senators hold over the federal budget and linked the current political model to what he called "political promiscuity", according to Correio Braziliense. In his assessment, the current balance of power around the budget is unsustainable, and any change would depend on the legislature itself.

"It is not possible to continue with a National Congress that holds 50% of the federal budget. So all of this will have to change. Will I manage to do it easily? No. But if I don't do it, nobody will. That is the concrete fact," the president said.

Lula also shifted his position on public money in politics. A historic defender of the party fund and the election fund, both paid for with federal money, he now says he opposes the two mechanisms. "I was a defender of the party fund, I was a defender of the election fund. Today I am against them, because this has rotted politics," he said. He then criticized the number of parties in Brazil: "How many national parties do you have with a program, with a manifesto, with a cause?".

In the same interview, Lula called for political and judicial reform and said he is the only candidate able to lead those changes, according to Agência Estado. He gave no details on how the proposals would work. According to G1, the president also said the criteria for appointing justices to the Supreme Federal Tribunal, Brazil's top court, should change, through a committee that involves civil society. Campaigning continues until the first round, and any political reform approved in a new government would have to pass through the same Congress the president praised on Sunday.