Former BC (Central Bank) president Henrique Meirelles criticized President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and said that the reelection of the current head of the federal executive would be a “disaster” for Brazil. In an interview with the newspaper Correio Braziliense published today, Meirelles also said that Bolsonaro “demoralized” Brazilian fiscal policy and that the reason for this was populism.
The former BC president’s criticisms were made after he was asked whether the spending ceiling, which had its calculation rule changed last year by the government, was broken. Meirelles denied that this had happened, but said that the ceiling needs to respect fiscal policy – this, for the BC president, was the one that was unstructured.
“It didn’t disrupt the ceiling. It disrupted fiscal policy. Let’s not confuse the disruption of fiscal policy with that of the spending ceiling. […] The spending ceiling continues with the same force. Now, of course, fiscal policy needs to respect the spending ceiling. This is what is fundamental”, said the current coordinator of the economic area of João Doria’s campaign (PSDB).
At a time when all these things are done, such as changing the spending ceiling, changing the inflation verification period for calculating the rule limit, all this leads to this effect. The spending ceiling fails to show results. Henrique Meirelles, former president of BC
As a result, Meirelles said that “the country is doing poorly, and in several ways” and added that Brazil “would suffer a lot” if Bolsonaro were reappointed to the Planalto Palace.
“I think the country would suffer a lot if that happened. It would be a disaster. And the problem is that history tells us that everything that is bad has room to get worse. That’s the point. We have to prevent that from happening.” without a doubt,” he said.
Meirelles: 3rd way still has a chance to grow
In Meirelles’ assessment, the so-called “3rd way”, a group that proclaims itself as the “democratic center” that will oppose the campaigns of Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, can still improve its performance in the electoral race. .
“The electorate is not paying attention to the election. If the person is not thinking about it and the researcher arrives and asks who you would vote for president today, he says one of the two names he knows. One who has been president for many years and Brazil grew at that time and I was even president of the Central Bank; the other, who is president now”, he said.
“Most mention one of the two and are not following the campaign and are not even informed about the third way candidates. This is the fundamental point that, I think, tends to change when people pay attention to this”, added the former president of BC.
Asked about his political future, whether he will be a candidate for vice-government of São Paulo or if he will run for the Senate for the state, Meirelles said that he will define “in the next 30 days”.
