Dilma defends broad coalition

Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the new minister of Fish (“Aquicultura e Pesca”), Marcelo Crivella, a PRB senator from Rio de Janeiro, who replaced deputy Luiz Sergio, of the PT, president Dilma Rousseff emotionally thanked Luiz Sergio, who has been shuffled from the Ministry of Institutional Relations to Fish and now back to Congress, for his service and sacrifice.

“Many times, it is a fact, as we move along this winding road, we have to leave behind (“prescindir”) great helpers,” the president lamented.

 Then Dilma went straight to the heart of the matter: that is, why Crivella of the PRB: “The building of political alliances is fundamental for Brazil to be administered and governed democratically by a government that represents the nation’s interests…. There is no contradiction in government based on coalition. The only contradiction lies in the minds of those who do not understand the need for an elected government to speak for all Brazilians.”

According to Dilma, the presence of Crivella in the cabinet is recognition of the PRB as a part of the grand coalition that supports her administration. It is also a kind of homecoming for a political party that, during the Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration, was represented by Lula’s vice president, the late José Alencar, she pointed out.

[Background note: Senator Marcelo Crivella is a nephew of Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of one of Brazil’s largest Pentecostal Christian (“evangélica”) churches, the multinational Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (aka UCKG) (“Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus”). As a pastor of that church on a leave of absence, Crivella is one of the main leaders of the evangelical caucus in Congress]