(São Paulo) – Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should prioritize protecting human rights and reverse the severe setbacks that occurred during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, Human Rights Watch said today.
Former President Lula, as he is known in Brazil, was elected president in the second ballot on October 30, 2022 with 50.9% of the vote, while President Bolsonaro received 49.1%, according to the Supreme Electoral Court. This narrow difference corresponds to 2.1 million votes. Abstention fell from 21.3% in 2018 to 20.6% in 2022.
The president of the court officially announced Lula as the winner of the election. As of 11:00 p.m. Brazilian time, President Bolsonaro had not publicly commented on the election results.
Many governments around the world, including the United States, the European Union, Argentina, Ecuador and others, were quick to acknowledge the election result.
“President Bolsonaro’s administration was disastrous for human rights, both inside Brazil and abroad,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “President-elect Lula should begin devising a plan to reverse President Bolsonaro’s harmful policies in areas such as public safety, the environment, and the rights of women, LGBT people, and indigenous communities, and implementing this plan thus.” as soon as possible when he takes office, the presidency will begin on January 1, 2023.”
In his first public statement after winning the election, President-elect Lula called for national unity and dialogue between the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary. He expressed the commitment to fight hunger, poverty, violence against women and indigenous peoples, racism and deforestation in the Amazon.
President-elect Lula should work to repair the damage President Bolsonaro has done to the democratic system and the rule of law, and strengthen the independence of the judiciary, Human Rights Watch said. It must ensure the independence of the prosecutor, which in Brazil has been protected by the practice of selecting a prosecutor general from a list of three candidates chosen by prosecutors from across the country. President Bolsonaro broke with this tradition by choosing a prosecutor who was not on the list. The Attorney General, who should be an independent figure, has been widely criticized for allegedly making decisions in favor of President Bolsonaro and weakening the fight against corruption.
President-elect Lula should promote accountability in all budget allocations by Congress and put an end to the so-called “secret budget” that President Bolsonaro helped create and which allowed billions of dollars to be reallocated to government spending projects. Congress with almost no transparency.
President-elect Lula should launch a nationwide effort to reverse the significant learning losses that have occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly among Black, Indigenous and children from low-income households. Those losses were compounded by the Bolsonaro government’s failure to respond to the education emergency. The president-elect should also promote comprehensive sex education, which the Bolsonaro administration opposed.
It’s also important that President-elect Lula implements measures to reduce food insecurity, which increased by about 60% between 2018, the year before Bolsonaro took office, and 2022, according to data from Brazil’s Sovereignty Research Network and Food and Nutrition Security. The network pointed out that almost 33 million people are in a situation of severe food insecurity.
As president, Lula must address other chronic human rights issues that were sidelined or exacerbated during the Bolsonaro administration. It must reverse the damage done to government agencies responsible for protecting the environment and indigenous peoples’ rights, and strengthen law enforcement to combat the destruction of the Amazon and the threats and attacks against those who protect the forest defend. Likewise, his government should set more ambitious goals for Brazil’s climate action plan, in line with what is laid out in the Paris Agreement.
President-elect Lula should remove the barriers to accessing legal abortion that the Bolsonaro government has erected and promote sexual and reproductive rights in international forums. And, in dialogue with civil society and affected communities, it should formulate a plan to reduce police killings across the country.
Reversing Bolsonaro’s pernicious policies will be a very important step, but further steps are needed to uphold human rights, Human Rights Watch said. These include taking action against violence against women and LGBT people, decriminalizing abortion, fighting inequality and systemic racism, establishing community services for people with disabilities and improving conditions in prisons.
President-elect Lula should adopt policies that address human rights without any form of discrimination and without stigmatizing people with different political opinions, reduce polarization in society, and promote free and open public debate.
President-elect Lula should also make foreign policy proposals that contribute to the coherent defense of human rights around the world, regardless of the government’s ideology, Human Rights Watch said. For example, his incoming government should condemn the human rights abuses committed by governments in the region, such as El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. She should condemn the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkish Muslims, as well as the Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and the persecution of thousands of Palestinians. It should also support thorough and independent investigations into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
Lula’s administration should also prioritize strengthening the inter-American human rights system.
“President-elect Lula must lead a government that restores defenses of democratic principles and the rule of law after four years of uninterrupted attacks on judicial and electoral authorities and journalists, particularly women journalists, by President Bolsonaro,” Goebertus said. “President-elect Lula must put human rights at the heart of his policies at home and abroad and defend the rights of all people without discrimination. This would represent an abysmal change from the Bolsonaro administration.”