Gene Frieda on BizNews: Lula’s re-election puts Brazil’s shaky finances to the test

President Lula da Silva’s re-election leaves Brazil facing a familiar choice: fix its public finances now or wait for markets to force the issue. Public debt is set to reach 86.6% of GDP by the end of 2026, campaign promises could cost up to 0.6% of GDP next year, and a fragmented Congress resists new taxes. Lula’s power to reshape the central bank and Supreme Court adds institutional risk. For South Africa, a fellow BRICS member competing for the same emerging-market capital, the warning will sound familiar: when fiscal credibility slips, borrowing costs rise, investment falters and growth stalls..By Gene Frieda*.LONDON—Brazil has an unfortunate habit of disappointing. Despite the country’s exceptional natural-resource endowment, its growth trajectory resembles what Brazilians call the flight of a chicken (voo de galinha): a brief flutter followed by an inevitable fall back down to Earth. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s surprise re-election raises the risk of another letdown.By the time he leaves office in 2030, Lula will have occupied the presidency for 16 (non-consecutive) years. Today, Brazil’s public finances are already precarious, following nearly four years of loose fiscal policy. Public-sector debt has risen from 73.8% of GDP in 2023 to a projected 86.6% by the end of 2026.Stabilizing debt at this level would require a sustained primary fiscal surplus of at least 1.5% of GDP. Instead, Brazil is expected to run a primary deficit of around 0.5% of GDP this year. The government’s fiscal targets exclude some expenditure that contributes to borrowing requirements. Adjusting for the economic cycle and temporary fiscal measures, the International Monetary Fund puts Brazil’s structural primary deficit at an estimated 1.3% of potential GDP in 2026.Without fiscal adjustment, Brazil’s debt could increase by another ten percentage points over the next four years. But there is no sign Lula will pursue the necessary changes. In the final weeks of the campaign, he promised additional benefits, subsidies, and tax relief that local estimates suggest could cost 0.4–0.6% of GDP in 2027. Some measures can be implemented without new legislation, but their continued financing will require parliamentary agreement.With the government’s “expenditure ceiling” already fully allocated, new spending requires offsetting cuts, additional revenues, or further exceptions to its fiscal framework. None will be easy. Congress, with more than 20 parties represented, has expanded its influence over budget allocations in recent years. Legislators have strong incentives to defend existing benefits and spend any additional resources.Furthermore, at 32.4% of GDP, Brazil’s tax burden is already unusually high for an emerging economy. Congress has repeatedly resisted the government’s revenue-raising efforts over the past two years, and the newly elected legislature is substantially more right wing.Lula faces a choice between adjusting fiscal policy proactively or waiting for financial markets to force his hand. The political incentive to delay is considerable. Former President Dilma Rousseff’s attempt at fiscal tightening following her 2014 re-election alienated parts of her political base and failed to prevent her impeachment in 2016. Lula may prefer to let market pressure provide the political justification for unpopular measures. But markets have an incentive to test that reluctance, raising borrowing costs and potentially forcing a more painful adjustment later.The new Congress will also test Brazilian institutions. Over the next four years, Lula can nominate replacements for four of the Supreme Court’s 11 justices and fill all nine seats on the central bank’s governing board. These appointments all require Senate confirmation. Historically, this has been little more than a formality, but the Senate’s rejection of Lula’s Supreme Court nominee, Jorge Messias, in April—the first such rejection since 1894—suggests that the days of rubber-stamp confirmations may be over.Both institutions will be subject to intensifying political tensions. The Supreme Court will adjudicate disagreements over executive authority, congressional spending powers, and constitutionally protected expenditure. The central bank will face pressure to accommodate a fiscal position that the political system appears unwilling to correct.This pressure is already evident. The central bank’s Lula-appointed governor, Gabriel Galípolo, frustrated elements of the ruling party by resisting faster interest-rate cuts before the election. Lula now has an opportunity to reshape the bank’s leadership. Yet financial markets have moved in the opposite direction: following Lula’s victory, interest-rate futures began pricing renewed tightening, rather than the cuts expected before the election. The conflict between political demands for lower rates and market demands for tighter policy could become a major test of the bank’s independence.Inflation has exceeded the upper bound of the central bank’s target range for nearly two-thirds of the months since it was granted operational independence in 2021. Deteriorating fiscal credibility could raise inflation expectations and real interest rates, while weakening the currency. The resulting pressure on the banking system is also growing, with non-performing loans already rising. Further monetary tightening could aggravate credit losses and constrain lending..Read more:.Lula’s historic comeback spooks markets. South Africa should take note.Brazil’s floating exchange rate, substantial foreign-exchange reserves, and strong commodity exports, together with the fact that its debt is denominated predominantly in its own currency, reduce its exposure to a balance-of-payments crisis. But these do not eliminate the domestic costs of fiscal deterioration. As investors demand higher compensation for inflation and fiscal risks, borrowing costs will rise, worsening debt dynamics. Persistently high real interest rates depress private investment and weaken growth.Political polarization makes consensus around fiscal restraint especially difficult. Brazil might face a prolonged period of high inflation, currency weakness, high real interest rates, and mediocre growth. As in the past, the Brazilian chicken will be unable to gain any lift, no matter how hard it flaps its wings..*Gene Frieda, a former global strategist at PIMCO, is a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and a non-resident fellow at Bruegel.Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026.www.project-syndicate.org.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Gene Frieda on BizNews: Lula’s re-election puts Brazil’s shaky finances to the test

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