Brazil and much of Latin America enter 2023 with hopes that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has been elected president, can heal the South American giant. The challenge is great for the founder of the Labor Party (PT).
Lula da Silva returned to the international stage during the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022. There he proposed that Brazil host the Amazon Cooperation Treaty countries’ conference to work together to stop the decay of the world’s most important green lung. Photo: Khaled Elfiqi/Efe
At 77 and having endured the relentless power of the right, Lula continues to believe in the love and strength of the demi-nation that supported him in the elections. He is given a different country than the one he ruled for two terms (2003-2011) and caused him to rank sixth in the world economy.
Barely a decade later, Brazil has fallen to twelfth place in this ranking, has rising rates of poverty and unemployment, while projecting gross domestic product (GDP) is not very encouraging for one of the biggest weight nations in Latin America.
After 19 months of wrongful imprisonment and after being acquitted of the charges, Lula announced that he would run for president again. He came with a willingness to rebuild and transform the country. His electoral promises go hand in hand with deep reforms aimed primarily at solving the problem of hunger, which, according to Red Penssan (experts from educational and research institutions in different regions of Brazil), could affect 125 million people who are today in a situation of the food insecurity.
The PT’s mandates – Lula and Dilma Rousseff – promoted the Zero Hunger and Bolsa Família programs, key elements in lifting millions of Brazilians out of misery. In 2015, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) took the country off the hunger map. He picked it up again six years later.
According to a recent FAO report, 61.3 million Brazilians (a third of the population) do not know when they will be able to eat again. Of these, 15.4 million are hungry and have not eaten for a day or more.
Such numbers are in large part the result of the decision by Bolsonaro and the Rio right to abolish everything that reminds us of the PT, including social programs. Shortly thereafter, they were forced to set up a monthly subsidy for the poor (600 reais, about $115). Delivering on it was a campaign promise made by the outgoing president, although he apparently had no intention of fulfilling it as that item is missing from the approved 2023 budget.
This explains why Lula’s first action, even before he took office, was to ask Congress for an amendment aimed at addressing such a deficit in social spending. Negotiations progressed in the legislature in December and were also supported by the Supreme Court. Several analysts believe that after more than a few negotiations, his approval was a first and important victory for Lula.
emancipatory challenges
But there will be no honey on flakes. Da Silva takes office amid a global economic crisis, exacerbated by the Brazilian government’s mishandling of the pandemic. He inherited a country that is divided on social, economic and foreign policies, extremely polarized and unstructured, and in which the participation of community organizations in government has been reduced, he explained workforce Arlei Medeiros, Secretary General of the Federation of Chemical Unions of Sao Paulo (Fetquim).
The new president faces the challenge of maintaining the unity of the broad front that brought him the election victory: “It is up to him to find a solution with an emancipatory perspective that will enable him to govern and respond to the demands of the people.” says Medeiros.
“From a political and strategic point of view, we must reposition ourselves in the major urban centers, fight right-wing conservatism, reach social services and programs with a political presence through a broad popular organization that promotes income generation and the reproduction of life, creating autonomous, social and creative businesses that are articulated in a broad network of solidarity economy,” added the fellow member of the Central Intersindical of Brazil.
Environmental damage is another account Bolsonaro is leaving open. Brazil owns 60% of the Amazon, home to millions of indigenous peoples and one of the largest protected areas in the world. He did little to protect her. On the other hand, the PT platform affirms that its “strategic commitment is to aim for zero deforestation in the Amazon and zero greenhouse gas emissions in the electric matrix”.
“Bolsonaro chose agro-industry while dismantling the industrial sector,” added Medeiros, who also works as coordinator of the Agroecological Food Network, “now food must be produced associatively and collaboratively, reaching the workers’ table directly, without poison and without destroying nature.
Unions will support the change
The strategy announced by Lula puts union organizations back in the foreground: “We will be independent and autonomous. We will organize support for Lula to keep the changes going, but we will not accept positions in the government,” Medeiros said.
In his opinion, “Unions should not limit themselves to their corporate interests, they need to think as a class and especially outside of the formal labor market. There is a need to create jobs and income, foster a creative and supportive economy based on the articulation of networks with incentives and public resources, and ensure health, education, and social and public safety with programs for broad community participation. “
In recent years, several groups have denounced the criminalization of social union protest, as well as the disastrous consequences resulting from the abolition of the Ministry of Labor and the dismantling of spaces of interaction between the state and workers’ unions, associations and organizations.
The labor reform pushed ahead in 2019 reinforced the neoliberal measures of former President Michel Temer two years earlier. The promise to make the labor market more flexible and reduce unemployment has not been fulfilled. On the other hand, it weakened tax revenues for Social Security and programs like unemployment insurance.
The Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies asserted that this reform would benefit employers but affected more than 12.5 million people, reduced union activity, made layoffs easier and restricted union action.
Lula has defended the need to repeal the Labor Code and other regressive legal frameworks that encourage the expropriation of state-owned companies’ assets. For example, he spoke out against the privatization of Electrobras, saying that he would try to eliminate the policy of parity of internal prices with the international market, which Petrobras uses, to which he ascribes a strategic role in changing the energy matrix of what he dreams of the new government.
The presidential sash Lula received represents the rebirth of illusion, but only facts can keep it alive.
