Lula victorious: “They tried to bury me alive and here I am” 7:02
(CNN Spanish) — After a long campaign and two rounds of voting, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected President of Brazil this Sunday and is preparing for his third term in office – after a first experience between 2003 and 2010 – while all Latin America wonders what the outcome will be largest and most important country in the region.
Lula da Silva was the candidate with the most votes in the first round on October 8, receiving 48.2% of the vote versus 43.2% for Jair Bolsonaro, the current president who was seeking re-election. The two faced off again this Sunday in the second round in which Lula da Silva clinched a narrow victory with 50.9% of the vote compared to 49.1% for Bolsonaro.
After confirming his victory, Lula da Silva spoke of a political “resurrection”, telling his supporters: “They tried to bury me alive and here I am.”
The turning point in Brazil: what does it mean for Latin America?
Political turns have become a trend in Latin America, particularly due to the strong impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on governments, and in the last elections in the region it was normal for the ruling party to lose and for the opposition to replace power: in this one year there was a change of government in Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, in 2021 the same thing happened in Ecuador, Honduras, Peru and Chile as in 2020 in Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.
Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva speaks after his election as President of Brazil October 30, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Credit: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)
Lula da Silva, a former union leader and leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), is an icon of the left and progressiveism across the region and will squarely replace Bolsonaro, a former military officer and far-right leader of the Liberal Party. It marks a remarkable about-face in a Brazil deeply divided by election results and where the PT is still marred by several corruption cases in recent years that have led to a prison sentence for Lula da Silva – the president-elect denies of committing crimes – and was then released after the conviction was overturned on procedural violations – the court ordered the case to be retried -.
However, this new left in Latin America, also represented by Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Chile’s Gabriel Boric, among others, differs from the first wave of progressive leaders in the early 2000s – sometimes referred to as part of a “socialism” of the 21st century “—and which included Lula da Silva.
A symbol of the new era, Lula da Silva won the elections, citing Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party as his vice-presidential candidate. The former governor of São Paulo, who ran against Lula da Silva in the 2006 presidential election and against Bolsonaro in 2018, is considered a conservative centrist who is currently offering a counterbalance to the PT.
The electoral strategy is not exactly new: Dilma Rousseff, protégé of Lula da Silva, who succeeded him as President of Brazil in 2011, brought in Michel Temer of the Brazilian Democratic Movement as vice-president for similar reasons, and he eventually became the enemy of Rousseff and his successor , when the president was removed from office in 2016.
Analysis of the second round of elections in Brazil 6:20
So Lula da Silva will take office amid great expectations from a large part of the population, but he will also do so in a world very different from that of 2003, with a deeply divided Brazil where food is a major concern and the pressure is growing on the Amazon, which is the symbol and central fight against climate change.
“From January 1, 2023, I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, not just for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazilians. We are one country, one people, one great nation,” Lula da Silva said Sunday night.
The role of Brazil in the world
When Lula da Silva assumed his first government in 2003, he was given an orderly but unequal country, and his arrival coincided with the start of a period of high international commodity prices. This, in addition to an economic policy of cutting spending, paying off debt and helping to create jobs, meant that the Brazilian economy experienced years of high growth which, alongside social plans such as Zero Hunger, had a notable impact on poverty reduction.
At the same time, the 9/11 terrorist attacks distracted US attention from the region, and Brazil’s assertiveness grew tremendously, becoming part of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). By 2011, Brazil was the sixth largest economy in the world, partly due to the decline of the wealthiest countries related to the Great Recession that began in 2009.
What challenge does Brazil face after the second round? 4:57
Lula da Silva was also critical of the international order in those years: he was a supporter of UN Security Council reform and responded to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 by saying, “We cannot sacrifice the casino built for the American economy .
The Bolsonaro government, on the other hand, has inherited a Brazil that has just emerged from a long recession and has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. The country, battered by years of political and economic crisis, suffered its global weight, and its economy fell to 12th place.
The favorable conditions of 2003 are gone, but expectations remain that the new Lula da Silva government can restore growth, a very difficult target, and the region is watching the performance of its largest economy and market.
The Amazon, in the middle
During the first two governments of Lula da Silva and then Rousseff, Brazil was considered to be exemplary in terms of environmental policy, significantly reduced deforestation in the Amazon according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and committed to reducing CO2 emissions in 2015 by signing the Paris Agreement to be reduced by 37% in 2025.
Lula: It is necessary to rebuild this country 4:30
However, Bolsonaro’s rise to power caused a setback: both deforestation of the Amazon, which concentrates 19% of primary tropical forest, and carbon emissions rose amid government criticism of environmental regulations, according to INPE.
Bolsonaro’s actions led to the country’s relative isolation in the world, which was largely criticized by European Union countries, particularly France. Now, with Lula da Silva’s victory, there is an expectation that this will be reversed.
In his government program, Lula a Silva is committed to sustainable development, and in the case of the Amazon, he affirms that it is “absolutely essential” to put an end to deforestation. In addition, she proposes cracking down on illegal mining in the region and improving existing mining regulations.
The relationship with Argentina
Sharing a 1,263-kilometer border, Brazil and Argentina were mostly regional rivals in the 19th and early 20th centuries, even going to war between 1825 and 1828.
However, South America’s two largest have been top trading partners for decades and have important international cooperation agreements, notably the Brazil-Argentina Nuclear Materials Accounting and Control Agency (ABACC). the Argentine-Brazilian Center for Biotechnology (CABBIO) and the Argentine-Brazilian Center for Nanotechnology (CABN).
Brazil is Argentina’s top trading partner: In 2021, it was the first destination of its exports with a total value of $11,768 million, or 15.1% of the total, and the second largest destination of its imports – behind China – for total, according to Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs $12.441 million, or 19.7% of the total.
Argentina, meanwhile, is one of Brazil’s top trading partners, which exported products for $8.57 billion, or 4% of the total, in 2020, making it a key destination behind only China and the United States. Meanwhile, Brazil imported Argentine products for US$7,670, or 4.78% of the total in the same year, behind China, the United States and Germany.
However, trade between the two countries has shrunk in recent years due to economic stagnation in both countries and growth in China. According to a document from Argentina’s Ministry of Productive Development, Brazil accounted for between 25% and 26% of Argentina’s total trade in the early 2000s, while by 2020 it had fallen to 17%.
Furthermore, Argentina is currently ruled by President Alberto Fernández, Néstor Kirchner’s former chief of staff, and Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, so Lula da Silva’s victory also means the reunion of old allies in Brasilia and Buenos Aires.
The Mercosur
Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are the founding partners of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a regional integration process that began with the 1991 Treaty of Asunción, according to its website.
Mercosur was expanded to include Venezuela – later suspended for violating democratic principles – and in 2019 the bloc made headway on a historic deal with the European Union, ratification of which has been stalled by ongoing differences between different countries.
The bloc has been in crisis recently: Bolsonaro has been very critical and after his win in 2018 said he would try to make it more flexible and questioned his future. While Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, President of Uruguay, created tensions within Mercosur by announcing his intentions to negotiate a trade deal with China outside the bloc.
What challenges does Lula da Silva face in Brazil? 1:57
The relationship with Mercosur was instead one of the pillars of Lula da Silva’s first two governments and there are expectations that this new government will seek to keep the bloc healthy.
The situation in Venezuela
Brazil shares a 2,137-kilometer border with Venezuela, and during the administration of Bolsonaro, a historical critic of Chavismo, relations between the two countries faltered and the border was temporarily closed in 2019.
Bolsonaro strongly supported then-US President Donald Trump’s policy of isolating the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and recognizing Juan Guaidó, the opposition-controlled National Assembly President-elect in 2015, as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.
Lula da Silva, on the other hand, maintained good relations with other presidents of left- or center-left parties in the region, sometimes grouped under the banner of “21st-century socialism”, most notably Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor in Venezuela. but also with Fidel Castro in Cuba, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina.
While support for Guaidó is weakening, especially after Joe Biden’s victory in the United States, Lula da Silva is expected to try to stabilize the situation with Venezuela.
With information from Camilo Rocha, Marcia Reverdosa and Rodrigo Pedroso.