Michel Temer: ‘It would be ideal for Lula to concede an amnesty to Bolsonaro – but I don’t think he will’

At a key moment for political institutions in Brazil, the nation’s former president Michel Temer discusses the challenges to governability, the urgency of national conciliation after the elections and the importance of having a government working in harmony with Congress in an interview with Modo Fontevecchia via +Perfil, Radio Perfil (AM 1190).

With the experience of having headed the institutional transition after the impeachment of 2016, Temer discussed the reforms of his administration, analysed the country’s fiscal panorama and proposed parliamentary channels for unblocking the current polarisation.

Temer, 86, is a lawyer, constitutional expert, professor and politician who served the country’s 37th President between 2016 and 2019, taking office after the ouster of then-president Dilma Rousseff. 

His previous track record was in parliamentary politics as well as being a state prosecutor and Public Security secretary in the state of São Paulo. As a deputy he also played a key role in the National Constituent Assembly which drafted the Constitution of Brazil in 1988.

Michel Temer, a pleasure and muito obrigado for being with us. Given Lula’s extremely tight re-election over Flávio Bolsonaro, the country is again facing the challenge of pacifying political life. As a lawyer and as an ex-president who headed the institutional transition after the impeachment of 2016, what is your balance of the maturity of the Brazilian democratic system and its institutions to guarantee the continuity of peaceful government?

Firstly, muito obrigado for the invitation to participate in this conversation. But I’d like to say that, in reality, democracy in Brazil is very consolidated. There is not the least possibility of altering the democratic system. We had elections last Sunday. The researchers revealed that the candidate Flávio Bolsonaro would win but victory went to President Lula, who was re-elected. At this time I personally have said in several interviews – and I’m publishing an article right now – saying that Brazil needs harmony and internal pacification. Feeding hate and resentment is not possible. 

In the final analysis, the victor in particular knows that he is going to govern for all Brazilians. He thus has to seek conciliation, especially when getting the Legislative branch to govern with the Executive. And we know that here in Brazil, as in Argentina and several countries, you’re the president of the Republic but depend a lot on Congress. So, especially in our Constitution, the country is governed by its Executive branch plus the Legislative. I have even proposed that the re-elected president summon a meeting of the three branches of government – Legislative, Executive and Judicial – [along with] the organisations of civil society and the opposition for a great movement of national conciliation – i.e. a dialogue at national level. Further down the road, each will follow their path. But at this time I feel that Brazil needs a message of conciliation, calm and harmony. As we saw, the Stock Exchange yesterday [Monday] had to paralyse its activities because the value of the shares of several of the country’s financial entities fell enormously. So I say, in conclusion, that this movement of conciliation is of extraordinary importance at this time.

As President, you managed to approve key reforms by linking up a broad parliamentary majority in Congress, where the Liberal Party and the Centrão [bloc] conserve a dominant presence. How does a government construct consensus without diluting its programme of government?

I spent 24 years in the Chamber of Deputies and was Speaker on three occasions. When somebody comes to power and thinks of re-election, they do not move against certain sectors because their votes could be unfavourable for a possible re-election. Since I did not have that worry, I made sure of carrying out reforms for the country. One of them, fundamental for national development, was labour reform. Another, also fundamental for the public accounts, was the reform of social welfare. And what is more, from the fiscal standpoint, we capped public spending via a teto [ceiling] whereby each new Budget could only add the inflation of the previous year, nothing more. That prevented populist measures, so-called electoral goodies sought by the President or Parliament, bringing a certain economic calm to the country. It was no accident that we reduced interest rates from 14.5 to 6.5 percent and inflation from 10.6 to 2.75 percent while turning a Gross Domestic Product contraction of almost six percent into 1.8 percent growth. And I have to say that I did all that in 30 months of government. Evidently with plenty of dialogue with Congress and society. Otherwise I could never have clinched these reforms which are a true mirage for any administrator.

As you said, your administration pushed fundamental structural reforms like the public spending cap and labour modernisation. Given the demands for greater social spending in this new term of President Lula, do you consider that fiscal balance and labour security will take a back seat or be jeopardised?

I believe that the re-elected president will face a major fiscal problem, created by himself. As you know, just before the election he pledged almost US$350 billion, which are promises that he will have to keep and this will have its impact on the Budget next year and beyond. But he was re-elected and I believe that he will attempt a certain balance so that these accounts do not increase the public debt. According to my conception, when you can lower the public debt, you reduce the interest payments and that reduction can go towards education, health, etc – first point. Second point: it is indeed necessary to attend to social questions. Here we have the Bolsa Família assistance programme, which is now more or less 700 reais, (around US$120-130). That is a reasonable value for the poorest and destitute but at the same time it is necessary to give them an exit. You cannot go on and on throughout time always talking about this assistance programme. There must be a way out feeding a certain entrepreneurial spirit on the one hand and opening up new jobs on the other. When I was President, via the Social Development Bank, we allocated five million reais to micro-credits – for hairdressers or manicurists, for example – so that they could open up their own small business and find a way out of the welfare system.

After the run-off polarised between the Partido Trabalhista (Workers’ Party, PT) of Lula and Bolsonaro, what should be the role of the forces of the centre to avoid the extremes and guarantee institutional stability?

The focus of our Constitution is on the idea of a peaceful solution to all conflicts. We have innumerable constitutional dispositions to tell us that a calm and peaceful solution should always be sought, both in domestic and international relations. What you call the centre should be attentive of this circumstance, I think. Now, in all frankness, I take the liberty of saying something which I affirm all the time in my lectures: I have a certain scorn for the concepts of right, left and centre. What interests the people are the results a government produces. If I ask somebody who is eating whether they belong to the right, left or centre, they will tell me that they want bread. If I ask an unemployed person, he will tell me that he wants a job. If I ask a businessman, he will say that he wants reasonable  financing and not to be overtaxed. It is thus always the results which governments produce that matter and not their labels, which divide people and countries. What is needed today is a convergence of the various trends. There will be ideological disputes and clashes over programmes but there cannot be disputes of a personal nature, name against name. I always ask for disputes of programmes against programmes, bills against bills. And there, in all frankness, the concepts of left and right cannot prevail.

Talking of international relations, when you were president, you maintained optimal relations with the then-president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri. Today we have no Brazilian ambassador in Buenos Aires and vice-versa. What do you believe would be necessary to put the relations between Brazil and Argentina back on track?

I believe that both Argentina and Brazil should seek dialogue. We both form part of Mercosur and have to work together – this division of concepts is not good. I had very good relations with Argentina thanks to President Mauricio Macri – I visited him and he visited me. The two nations are divided by ideological questions, when it is currently the commercial relations which unite them. And we have very fertile commercial relations with Argentina, we cannot lose sight of that. 

I hope that the re-elected president of Brazil and President [Javier] Milei of Argentina promote very soon a dialogue based on multilateral ideas. In our current Constitution there is a clause which says: "Every Brazilian public policy should take into account a union of Latin American nations." On one occasion in Lima with President [Sebastián] Piñera [of Chile] and President [Enrique] Peña Nieto de Mexico, I proposed to them the ideal of a union between the Pacific Alliance and our Mercosur trade blocs. Peña Nieto immediately convoked a meeting in Puerto Vallarta where we signed a protocol of unity. My desire is that within a certain time the Latin American countries come to an understanding, forming a single bloc to face the world.

President, news has it that Flávio Bolsonaro has travelled to Argentina, with the intention of catching a plane to the United States. Beyond that, and taking into account your vision of political pacification, do you think that President Lula should concede an amnesty to Jair Bolsonaro? Should he grant a presidential pardon to contribute to the pacification of the country? How do you consider that the situation of Jair and Flávio Bolsonaro should be judicially resolved?

I understand that Congress would have difficulties granting amnesty to those invading public buildings but I proposed toning down the punishment. A crime of violence against the democratic state and the rule of law carries a sentence of between four and eight years – if there were a new norm saying that aggression against the state carries one or two years, as does the depredation of public norms, as a retroactive penal norm this would favour the convicted of January 8 and the ex-president could appeal to the Supreme Court to request its application. That would be a very natural path towards beginning to leave prison.

Now if you ask me if President Lula will concede an amnesty, I believe not, I regret to say. The ideal would be national pacification as a gesture of extraordinary grandeur but I do not believe that the current government will spontaneously promote an amnesty.

Michel Temer, thank you very much for this interview. 

I’m grateful. Muito obrigado.