Brazil & Southern Cone - May 2026

For President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, few institutions carry as much weight – or as much baggage – as the Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS). The social security agency is far more than just a government branch that hands out retirement checks. It provides a host of benefits to millions of Brazilians and is a symbol of Lula’s idea of a generous welfare state. Going into an election year, the INSS needed to be in tip top shape, lest it foment voter dissatisfaction. And in good shape it was not. Following a massive corruption scandal at the INSS that had tainted the government’s social agenda, the institute was racking up significant waiting times that were beginning to turn into a political time bomb for Lula. 

On 13 April, with general elections just six months away, Lula made a decisive move: he dismissed INSS president Gilberto Waller Júnior and appointed career civil servant Ana Cristina Viana Silveira to lead the institute. This leadership swap is more than a routine administrative adjustment. Waller, a federal prosecutor with a background in the comptroller general’s office (CGU), was initially brought in to clean house after a corruption scandal involving irregular deductions from retirement and pension accounts between 2019-2024. The failure of a congressional inquiry to agree on who was to blame for the scandal did little to alleviate Lula’s angst over the INSS.

While Waller was seen as a rigorous legal mind, he did little to improve the operational aspect of the institution and frequently clashed with the minister of social security, Wolney Queiroz. The list of Brazilians waiting for pension approvals, maternity leave, and disability benefits swelled to alarming proportions. By February 2026, the number of pending requests was over 3m.

“I want zero queues,” Lula reportedly told his cabinet during the announcement of the change. “We cannot accept that a worker, after contributing for thirty years, has to wait in a virtual line for a year to receive what is theirs by right. I told the new president: the priority is the people, not the bureaucracy,” Lula said, according to local media reports.

The task will not be easy. The INSS faces a chronic shortage of personnel and insufficient digital infrastructure. Waller’s approach was seen as effective for auditing and stamping out fraud, but inadequate to provide efficient service, especially in an election year. In contrast, Viana Silveira is a career civil servant who joined the INSS in 2003. She previously headed the social security appeals council, where she was credited with improving the capacity for analysing appeals.

By choosing Viana Silveira, Lula is putting the agency in the hands of someone who knows the cogs of the machine. Unlike a political appointee or an outside prosecutor, she understands the internal bottlenecks, from the outdated software systems to the lack of health examiners needed to process requests for a medical leave, for example.

Viana Silveira’s mandate to cut through red tape and improve services includes the use of artificial intelligence and digital simplification to process standard pension claims, as well as the reopening of physical agencies that were shuttered or understaffed during the previous administration. She will also have to ensure she remains in sync with the minister of social security and the presidency to avoid the communication breakdowns that plagued Waller’s term.

Declining popularity

The Lula government’s popularity has declined in recent months while public disapproval has ticked up, with various polling firms releasing survey results in March-May which showed disapproval ratings hovering above 50%. He plans to run for re-election in the presidential race and his main rival in the October election is expected to be Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023). Most pre-election opinion polls in recent months have indicated that the race could be very tight, with Lula and the younger Bolsonaro technically tied in voter intentions.