A label that, according to the government, does not hold up
Finance Minister and chief economic interlocutor for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's reelection campaign, Dario Durigan, sharpened his tone against what he classifies as the financial market's premature judgment of the president's fiscal policy. In an interview with NeoFeed, he stated that there is a “fiscal prejudice” directed at the PT leader — a distrust that, in the minister's assessment, finds no support in the numbers delivered by the government.
The statement responds to a recurring demand from business leaders: that the campaign clearly present what the fiscal anchor of a possible fourth term would be. For Durigan, the question starts from an unfair premise.
What the minister calls a record
In the conversation, Durigan maintained that the current government's fiscal trajectory is more consistent than market rhetoric suggests. The central argument is that concrete results have already been presented and that the pessimistic reading relies more on political expectation than on data.
- The minister defended the government's commitment to responsibility in public accounts;
- He pushed back on the idea that there would be tolerance for fiscal imbalances;
- And he called on the private sector for a less biased analysis of economic performance.
Tax benefits in the crosshairs
The most concrete point of the interview was the signal that the government intends to review tax benefits. The idea is not new in economic debate, but it gains weight when accompanied by a promise of detail.
According to the minister, the effort involves separating what is a legitimate incentive from what has turned into privilege without any corresponding return. In this design, the review would work as an instrument of tax justice and revenue recovery — a sensitive topic both for beneficiary companies and for the government's political base.
> The message Durigan is trying to establish is simple: before discussing new rules, it is necessary to audit what is already in force.
Business pressure and the electoral calendar
The setting of the interview is not coincidental. With the election approaching, demands for signs of predictability are growing. Investors tend to treat elections as a risk factor, and the absence of an explicit fiscal design is often read as uncertainty.
Durigan, however, reverses the burden of proof. In his reading, the government has been delivering indicators, and it is the market that insists on disqualifying them in advance. It is a narrative dispute before it is a technical one — and the minister seems to know it.
What is at stake
The discussion about tax benefits directly interests sectors that have operated with tax waivers for years. Any move on this board generates organized resistance in Congress, where the matter depends on case-by-case negotiation.
At the same time, the minister's remarks serve a political function: they position the government as guardian of fiscal balance, without giving up social investment — an equation that the market views with skepticism and that the campaign needs to make credible.
In summary
- Durigan states that Lula is the target of “fiscal prejudice”;
- He defends the government's record as proof of responsibility;
- He announces the intention to review tax benefits;
- And he responds to business pressure for clarity about the post-election scenario.
The interview does not end the debate — on the contrary, it pushes the discussion onto the terrain the government prefers: that of the numbers already presented, not that of promises yet to come.