Pre-candidates for the Presidency talk about the privatization of Eletrobras

The plenary session of the Federal Audit Court (TCU) approved, last Wednesday (18), by 7 votes to 1, the Eletrobras capitalization . The model adopted by the government provides for the offer of new shares of the company on the stock exchange, without the monitoring of the Union. Thus, it will cease to be a controlling shareholder, in a model similar to that adopted with the privatization of Embraer.

With the approval, the government expects to carry out the company’s share offering by July.

The measure was corroborated by the seven ministers. The only vote against was by Minister Vital do Rêgo, who pointed out alleged illegalities in the process.

THE CNN asked the pre-candidates if they are in favor of privatization of Eletrobras.

Check out the answers below:

Lula (EN):

The former president is against the privatization of Eletrobras.

Jair Bolsonaro (PL):

The president did not respond at the time of publication, but the company’s privatization plan belongs to the government.

Ciro Gomes (PDT):

In response, the pre-candidate sent a publication on his social networks in which he stands against privatization.

MORE EXPENSIVE ENERGY, POOR COUNTRY AND MORE MISERABLE PEOPLE. The sale of Eletrobras is a crime against Brazil. A blow against our heritage and sovereignty – which will not improve the lives of Brazilians! We cannot let pirates plunder our national wealth. Wake up Brazil! pic.twitter.com/aYpG5TQhUo

— Ciro Gomes (@cirogomes) May 20, 2022

João Doria (PSDB):

The pre-candidate did not respond at the time of publication, but, in interviews, he has defended privatization.

André Janones (Avant):

At a time when Brazil is seeing a surge in the value of electricity tariffs, I am against the privatization of Eletrobras. The company provides an essential service to the country and we cannot take the risk of increasing the people’s bill at such a difficult time as the current one. The privatization of companies can be positive, however, in strategic areas the Union must continue as a majority shareholder to preserve the interests of Brazilians.

Simone Tebet (MDB):

I am in favor of the privatization of Eletrobras. It is important to restore the company’s financial health. The capitalization will bring the resources that the government does not have to, for example, expand the offer of renewable energy in the country. Eletrobras also needs to be shielded against political interventions, as occurred during the Dilma Rousseff government with the Provisional Measure (MP) 579, which almost broke the company. In fact, it was this situation that fostered and accentuated the discussions about the privatization of the company. The problem is that “tortoises” were placed in the process. They include the contracting of natural gas-fired thermoelectric plants and unnecessary subsidies. This will increase the cost of energy in Brazil.

Felipe d’Avila (New):

I am in favor of the privatization of Eletrobras, but in the model of the original project, and not in the opinion of the rapporteur, which the NOVO caucus itself was against. The changes completely distorted the design. The State remains the most important partner in the business, which is bad. In addition, it creates subsidies and privileges for state employees. Privatization needs to generate more competition and competition, and that’s not what happens with this project. Subsidies, in particular, create distortions in a sector that still suffers from the repeated abuses of successive governments. We need to remove political interference from energy, privatize Eletrobras, and pay attention to regulations to ensure competition and competition.

Luciano Bivar (Union Brazil):

With the exception of Eletronuclear, since the Constitution defines that nuclear energy is a matter of national security and must be controlled by the State, I believe that Eletrobras can indeed be privatized.

In the capitalization model to be adopted, the State will keep up to 45% of the company’s shares, which will have to operate in the market without any privilege so that competition is healthy.

Vera Lucia (PSTU):

I am against the privatization of Eletrobras.

Privatizations are defended by the bourgeoisie with the false discourse that they will increase efficiency and avoid losses, when the real objective is to generate profits for entrepreneurs and expenses for workers.

Our state-owned companies were privatized at a bargain price, as were Vale do Rio Doce, Telebrás, CSN and now it is with Eletrobrás. Vale was sold for R$3.3 billion, when its mineral reserves alone were estimated at more than R$100 billion at the time. In 2021 alone, Vale distributed R$41 billion in dividends to its shareholders. To the Brazilian people, Vale offered the collapse of dams, destruction of entire communities, the environment and deaths.

No privatization has increased the efficiency of these companies. All privatizations passed on their large profits to foreign funds. Today, the population suffers from abusive energy prices, a sector that was privatized with this discourse of “improvement” and “efficiency”. Furthermore, it is also an attack on our sovereignty, as it means the delivery of strategic resources to the control of capitalists from other countries.

In this sense, we stand against the privatization of Eletrobras and the other state-owned companies that Bolsonaro wants to privatize, such as Correios and Petrobras. We propose the repeal of all privatizations, and that the new renationalized companies pass to workers’ control.

We believe that the control of workers, who are the ones who guarantee production, is fundamental, so that these state-owned companies serve the interests of the population and not those of the bourgeoisie or privileged bureaucracies.

Pablo Marçal (PROS):

I am in favor of the privatization of Eletrobras and of all companies that restrict free trade.

Jose Maria Eymael (DC):

The government must take responsibility for the priority issues for the population, such as education, health, transport and security – the necessary State.

Eletrobras may undergo scrutiny and, if we study the matter further, because the way in which it has happened is very superficial, it could indeed undergo a privatization process. In the next few years, it will have no resources, so privatization is necessary for its growth.

Sofia Manzano (PCB):

We are against the privatization of Eletrobras, and not because of the price being budgeted – well below the company’s value. But because Eletrobras is a strategic company, in many ways.

First, because the production and distribution of electric energy is fundamental for the well-being of the entire population and for the production system, and privatization will necessarily raise the price of electric energy. And also because of two other factors: the migration to a zero carbon energy system, which Eletrobras enters into this design of a new energy standard, and fundamentally because of the sovereignty of aquatic and hydric resources, which are under the control of Eletrobras.

Therefore, we are totally against the privatization of the company.

Leonardo Pericles (UP):

The privatization of Eletrobras is an affront to national sovereignty, an aggression to the popular economy and an unprecedented delivery of public assets to foreign and national trusts in the electricity sector.

In short, the assets that Bolsonaro’s government surrenders intends to transfer at a bargain price – because all privatizations have been – to international vultures, correspond to 48 hydroelectric plants, 12 thermoelectric plants, two thermonuclear plants, 62 wind plants, two solar plants. and more than 71 thousand kilometers of transmission lines.

Eletrobras’ equity is over R$ 400 billion. Eletrobras produces one of the cheapest energy in the world. The average value is 65 reais/thousand kilowatts. The market price is 250 reais/for the same thousand kilowatts.

Why such a difference? Because the private sector is driven and anointed by the God of profit. The most immediate consequence of its privatization will be the explosion in the price of energy tariffs, the well-known electricity bill and the drop in quality in the supply of energy. The most glaring example, which shocked the entire country, was the state of Amapá – sold to Gemini Energy in 2020 – which spent 3 uninterrupted days in the dark, with an increase in crime and hospitals unable to even function in the middle of the pandemic. Chaos ensued across the region. Soon this will be the future of Brazil if we no longer prevent this crime by the government of the fascist Bolsonaro.

With privatization, thousands of small and medium-sized industries may close, further increasing unemployment in Brazil. About 75% of the electricity generated in the country comes from hydroelectric plants and energy generation is just one of the uses of the reservoirs, alongside water supply, river regulation, irrigation, among others. The control of these basins could open a market to consolidate in our country an old project on the installation of the water market in Brazil, in which rivers, aquifers, groundwater, lakes, reservoirs would become private. This is what happens in the neighboring and sister country Chile, subjected for years to a narrow neoliberal economic policy.

In conclusion, the Popular Unity for Socialism not only denounces and will fight with all its might against this crime of handing over our patrimony and our wealth to foreign banks and monopolies, but also includes in its program the firm decision to review all the privatizations that have taken place since the government of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in particular the privatization of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, responsible for two of the biggest socio-environmental crimes in the world and in our country, in the cities of Mariana and Brumadinho, for the criminal devastation of rivers, fauna and flora and the death of hundreds of men and women in Minas Gerais.

Photos – The pre-candidates for the presidency