- Gerardo Lissardy
- BBC News World
3 hours
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At the age of 77, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes over the presidency of Brazil again with gigantic challenges.
Two decades after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became Brazil’s first workers’ president, he resumes office this Sunday with a number of pressing issues that experts say are even bigger to solve than they were then.
Suffice it to observe the context of the change of command in Brasilia to note some differences from what happened on January 1, 2003.
The outgoing President today, the extreme right Jair Bolsonarochose to travel to the United States and avoid personally handing over the presidential sash to his left-wing successor amid intense political polarization, tensions and concerns about possible acts of violence.
This scenario contrasts like day and night with that of 20 years ago, when the then President, Fernando Henrique CardosoBetween smiles, hugs and a climate of democratic serenity, he handed over the command to his opponent Lula.
Now, at 77, Lula will face trouble in the government of Latin America’s largest country, which Brazilian political scientist Maurício Santoro has described as akin to “time bombs” because of the risk of a virtual explosion if he weren’t able to disable them.
There will be at least four for the new President of Brazil:
1. Radical Bolsonarianism
Since Lula was elected in late October, Bolsonaro’s supporters have used a variety of methods to resist his return to power, including roadblocks and camps outside barracks to call for military intervention.
Many of them claim without evidence that there was fraud in the elections. Bolsonaro himself has avoided explicitly acknowledging Lula’s triumph, retiring from the presidential residence after his defeat, despite mandating his government to handle the transition.
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Bolsonaro supporters have gathered outside military headquarters since Lula’s election.
Concern over the radical Bolsonaristas grew after one of them was arrested last weekend, allegedly for attempting to detonate an explosive device in Brasilia to cause chaos ahead of the change of government.
This prompted tightening security for the inauguration of Lula, who analysts say will face more hostile opposition from the right than during his first reign from 2003-2010.
“How do you live with these very radicalized groups, even violent ones, that don’t play by the traditional rules of democracy?” asks Santoro, a professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro State University, speaking to BBC Mundo. .
Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party will also have the largest bench (99 of the 513 seats) in Brazil’s new congress, billed as the most conservative since the country regained democracy more than three decades ago: the right as a whole will fill half the camera.
Lula and his Labor Party (PT) will seek and center majorities with the rest of the left in a fragmented Congress.
Image copyrightBrazilian Federal Police
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The Brazilian federal police have confiscated weapons and ammunition from Bolsonaro members during highway protests.
In addition, Lula must reverse the political influence that existed within the Brazilian security forces under the government of Bolsonaro, a former army captain, Santoro points out.
“In recent years in Brazil, both the military and the police have been involved in party politics with a very worrying ideological radicalization, and changing this will not be easy,” he says. “The risk is that this politicization will also become a threat to democracy.”
2. Hunger
Another huge challenge for Lula will be to alleviate the hunger of 33 million Brazilians, according to a Penssan Network study released in June.
That number corresponds to 15.5% of the country’s population, a much higher proportion than the 9.5% of people who went hungry in Brazil during Lula’s first government, according to another similar survey in 2004.
“Our most urgent obligation is to end hunger again,” said Lula himself, a former union leader who grew up in poverty, in his first speech after defeating Bolsonaro.
In fact, many of those who voted for Lula hope he will repeat the great feat of his first government, when more than 30 million Brazilians rose into the middle class on government welfare programs.
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In contrast, during the Bolsonaro government, Brazil recorded the largest number of people living in poverty over the past decade: 62.5 million people in 2021, equivalent to 29% of the population, according to official data released in December became.
The new president will be judged largely on his achievements in this area.
If he noticeably alleviates hunger and poverty again, his popularity is likely to grow as it did in his first term.
But things have changed and increasing Brazilians’ earnings may be more difficult for Lula now, specialists warn.
“When he took office in 2003, the world was growing strongly under China’s influence, commodity prices were booming and Brazil was benefiting,” says Margarida Gutierrez, professor of economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. to BBC World.
“The context today is completely different: there is enormous global risk aversion, the world has not yet recovered from the pandemic and we have a war (in Ukraine),” he adds.
3. The cost
During his campaign to improve the social situation in Brazil, Lula promised measures such as maintaining a program of remittances to the poor called Bolsa Família, which was central to his first government, and raising the minimum wage.
Congress in December approved additional federal spending equivalent to about $28 billion in 2023 to fund these plans, as well as an additional $4.4 billion for public investments.
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Fernando Haddad, former mayor of São Paulo, former education minister and PT presidential candidate in 2018, was appointed finance minister by Lula
The approval of this constitutional amendment was a political triumph for the new government, of which he is finance minister Fernando Haddadformer mayor of São Paulo and former PT presidential candidate in 2018, when Lula was convicted of corruption in a later-annulled trial.
However, exceeding the set spending ceiling also called into question the new government’s fiscal restraints.
Some economists believe this, along with a high interest rate (13.75%) to curb inflation, is another issue the new president needs to disable.
Gutierrez expects the increased spending to push inflation above the emerging market average (65%) by stimulating demand, the primary deficit (before interest payments) and the public debt, which is now about 77% of GDP.
“I would say Lula is building a fiscal bomb,” says the economist.
4. Deforestation
The fourth time trial Lula faces is to stop the felling of trees in the Amazon, the largest tropical forest in the world.
Brazil’s new president has promised to change his country’s environmental policies to move it towards zero deforestation of its biomes by 2030.
Image copyrightReuters
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Deforestation rates in Brazil skyrocketed during the Bolsonaro administration.
It could do Lula credit on the international stage, but it won’t be easy either.
According to data from the National Institute for Space Research, the Brazilian agency that measures these activities via satellite, deforestation rates in the Amazon increased by 59% during the Bolsonaro administration compared to the previous four years.
Although tree loss in the Amazon fell by 11% between August 2021 and July 2022, it reached 11,568 square kilometers during that period, exceeding the 10,000 square kilometer threshold for the fourth consecutive year.
Experts attribute these records to the disappearance of government controls against illegal logging.
“The public policies that remain in this area are paralyzed, environmental agencies have fewer resources and are being delegitimized,” warns Suely Araújo, former president of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment (Ibama) and senior specialist at the climate observatory, which brings together environmental organizations.
“We already have parts of the Amazon that have been taken over mainly by criminals, both in illegal logging and illegal mining or invading indigenous lands,” Araújo told BBC Mundo.
In his opinion, the new government, which will have environmental politician Marina Silva as Environment Minister, will have to take “very rigorous” measures from day one to reverse this situation, which will take time.
“You can’t fix all these problems in one year,” he says. “It’s a process that will continue throughout Lula’s administration.”
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