President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that he hopes the announcement of his nominee to replace Roberto Campos Neto as president of the Central Bank could “cool down” the current head of the monetary authority, but he said he is not in a hurry to make that decision.
In an interview with Rádio Itatiaia, in Belo Horizonte, Lula again criticized Campos Neto, stating that the Central Bank president has taken the wrong path, and he also praised the Director of Monetary Policy of the Central Bank, Gabriel Galípolo.
“I have to appoint the president of the Central Bank, obviously I am not in a hurry, the person who is there has a term until December. I think he (Campos Neto) has taken the wrong path, that is not the role of the Central Bank,” said Lula, who has been criticizing the Central Bank president for the level of interest rates in Brazil.
Lula said he intends to play a “coordinated game” with the Senate and the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), when appointing a successor to Campos Neto, so that the name can be quickly considered and approved by the senators when presented.
“I also do not want to appoint someone to be shot at for life, they might die before taking office… Appoint, vote and done, because then maybe we calm the other down, he realizes he already has a successor,” he said.
Regarding Galípolo, who was the executive secretary to the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, before being appointed to the Central Bank board by Lula, becoming one of the top names to succeed Campos Neto, the president said he is “extremely competent.”
“Galípolo is a golden boy. If there is a golden boy, it’s Galípolo. Extremely competent, with unsurpassed honesty. So obviously, he has all the conditions to be president of the Central Bank, but I have never talked to him, never spoken to him,” he said.
Lula also criticized the model of autonomy of the Central Bank, approved during the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, and called it “absurd” to win elections and then have to govern for two years with a Central Bank president “appointed by an opponent.
“And even before he leaves, he will present a strategy for the following year, he will try to present things for 2025. In other words, that means I will have a Central Bank president when? When my term is over. This is not correct,” he complained.
“The President of the Republic is the one who goes to the streets, fights for votes, asks for votes, is insulted, insults. He wins the elections, he has to govern the country,” he added.
