Porto Alegre - Amid efforts to secure the PSD's nomination for the Presidency, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite , stated on Thursday, March 26th, that the challenges Brazil will face from 2027 onwards are the same ones the state of Rio Grande do Sul has had to deal with in recent years, especially the issue of public finances.

"To some extent, what Brazil will face is related to what we faced here," he said during his participation in the South Summit Brazil , an event for which NeoFeed is a media partner. "What we had to face here in Rio Grande do Sul was a polarized public environment, which ends up making it difficult to move towards policies."

After his absence was felt at the opening of the event on Wednesday, March 26, due to his trip to São Paulo to meet with Gilberto Kassab , president of the PSD, to discuss who will represent the party in the presidential election, Leite highlighted the work his government has done over the past few years to put the finances in order, emphasizing that the same needs to be done at the federal level.

According to him, through reforms and streamlining of the public sector, Rio Grande do Sul managed to reduce the share of revenue consumed by payroll from 80% to 60%, allowing it to increase the percentage used for investments from 2% to 10%, without indebting the state.

He argued that the same needs to be done at the federal level, stating that it is not an end in itself, but a necessary action to reduce interest rates , make money cheaper, and finance investments.

"We have a Brazilian state with a debt-to-GDP ratio that is completely out of line with other emerging economies," he said. "This puts pressure on public finances, which are being especially strained by debt repayment, among other items that prevent us from fully implementing the public policies that the Brazilian state should be pursuing."

The governor of Rio Grande do Sul also defended a greater presence of the private sector through the expansion of concessions, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), and privatizations , stating that he has the right incentives to operate public services while the state needs to focus on health, education, and security. "It's about doing the basics well," he said.

Leite is competing with the governor of Goiás, Ronaldo Caiado , for the nomination to be the PSD's presidential candidate, after the governor of Paraná, Ratinho Júnior, withdrew his name from the race.

But he will have to work hard internally to qualify, since the trend is that Kassab will opt for the man from Goiás, amidst a scenario of a very heated dispute between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro .

Climate crisis

In the parallel he drew between the challenges facing Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul, another point of convergence was the climate issue . According to the governor, in the last six years, the state has suffered from severe droughts in four of them, weighing heavily on agriculture, one of the engines of the Rio Grande do Sul economy.

He also recalled the storms that hit the state in 2024, one of the biggest natural disasters in Brazil, with 35% to 40% of the population affected by flooding in the Porto Alegre Metropolitan Region.

For him, the issue of climate resilience needs to be addressed. In the case of Rio Grande do Sul, in addition to containment works to prevent new floods, the government is also negotiating with the federal government to suspend debt payments to help the agricultural sector.

"We are now opening negotiations with the Federal Government to also suspend debt payments for the following years for investment in irrigation, soil correction, and everything else that will help us protect our crops," he said.