Brazil Finance Chief’s Closest Allies Are His Fiscal Plan’s Biggest Critics
- Haddad’s austerity plan to calm markets has Lula’s blessing
- But some party allies now see him as too cozy with investors
They have accused him of making “a deal with the devil.” They have slammed him for prioritizing smaller budget deficits over social spending. They fear he is alienating his party and its working class base as he seeks favor with investors.
Four months into his tenure as Brazil’s finance minister, Fernando Haddad’s fiercest critics are no longer the market interests that once expressed reservations about his ascension to the position overseeing Latin America’s largest economy. Instead, they are his ostensible allies in the leftist Workers’ Party, some of whom have come to see his plan to overhaul the country’s fiscal rules as merely another barrier to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s efforts to kick start the economy and expand social welfare programs.