Brazil’s First Female Saint Delays Pension Bill in Final Stretch
Brazil’s First Female Saint Delays Pension Bill in Final Stretch
(Bloomberg) --
The late Sister Dulce of the Poor, who is about to become Brazil’s first female saint, has suddenly found herself among the obstacles to final approval of the country’s pension reform.
While there may be deeper reasons for lawmakers to delay the second-round vote on the flagship bill, the nun’s imminent canonization provides a convenient excuse to frustrate the government’s plans. Many senators are angry at the executive branch because they disagree about how a massive cash bonanza from an upcoming oil auction will be shared between states and municipalities.
A deal to appease lawmakers is unlikely to be reached in time for a vote early next week, before many of them fly to Rome for Sister Dulce’s Oct. 13 canonization. At least 10 out of the 81 senators intend to join a large delegation of Brazilian authorities to the Vatican, including Vice President Hamilton Mourao, Supreme Court top justice Jose Dias Toffoli, and the heads of the lower and the upper houses. The reform needs the backing of a minimum of 49 senators to be approved.
“I don’t know if 10, 15 or 20 senators will travel to the Vatican, but that has an impact and obviously there will be no voting,” said Chico Rodrigues, the deputy government leader in the Senate.
That means the pension bill, a key piece of legislation years in the making, could go to a second and final vote on Oct. 15 or 16, if senators return from Italy right after the Vatican ceremony. But even that may be unfeasible, with Rodrigues saying no vote will happen before Oct. 22.
To contact the reporters on this story: Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.net;Samy Adghirni in Brasilia Newsroom at sadghirni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Walter Brandimarte
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