Brazil starts presidential transition

As part of the presidential transition, confidantes of Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro have started preparation meetings.

Vice president-elect Geraldo Alckmin, Workers' Party chief Gleisi Hoffmann and campaign coordinator Aloísio Mercadante will coordinate the transition with Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira. 

"The most important task of this transition team is to have access to all figures about the situation of public accounts and to define what room for maneuver will exist for economic policy," Luciano Rostagno, chief Latin America strategist at Banco Mizuho, told BNamericas. 

"During the campaign, many promises were made from a social point of view, such as the maintenance of the Auxílio Brasil [welfare program] and a real increase in the minimum wage. Now it will be important for the transition team to understand how much room there is in the budget to fulfill these promises," added Rostagno. 

The transition period also ensures the functioning of the federal administration and enables the incoming government to collect information on existing projects. 

By law, the incoming government may form a 50-member transition team, while members of the outgoing administration, including bureaucrats and ministers, must pass on all required information.

The transition is tense. Bolsonaro-supporting truck drivers have maintained roadblocks since Sunday’s election and called for a coup d’état. Slowly, the barricades are being dismantled, however.

Pictured: Alckmin (left) and Lula