The future president must face a heavy inheritance in the midst of an atmosphere of hostility from the extreme right | Lula needs to expand his alliances in Congress to avoid storms and, at the same time, begin to solve serious social problems
“has gone to sleep“said Mauro César Cid, Jair Bolsonaro’s aide, when some of his ministers tried to talk to the defeated president at the polls and knowing what to say to troubled supporters of the far right. Sunday night belonged entirely to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The man who will govern Brazil for the third time from January 1, 2023 avoided resorting to the skills of a great orator and improviser when he spoke in São Paulo before his followers and his allies. He read a written speech as a further gesture of caution, after hours of fears. It is possible that Bolsonaro, owner of 49.10% of the votes, will speak to Brazilians this Monday and throw some clues about the transition. There are two months left in his government which, in the eyes of analysts, presage setbacks and, perhaps, storms. For this reason, the hours of celebrations in the streets were also filled with secret questions and concerns about the future.
“The victory was for democracy fighting autocracy & rdquor ;, said Míriam Leitão, star columnist for the Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo. “Brazil breathes again”, considered the writer Fernando Gabeira, in the same publication. “It is a day to celebrate in the name of many things. Of the jungle, of the native peoples, who would have been ruthlessly destroyed with the continuity of Bolsonaro. For humanity, which, faced with the possibility of protecting the Amazonyou can breathe a little easier in the face of the threat of climate change”. The gigantic task of getting back on track does not depend only on a Lula who, in his own way, also emphasized the need to turn the page. “You have to disarm the spirits“, said the winner of the elections with 50.9% of the votes. “We will have to learn to distinguish the conservatives from the reactionaries, to show the religious in good faith that they were wrong to believe in spurious leaders,” he said in this sense Gabeira, author of Tropical Democracy, an essay on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff by parliament, in 2016.
The problem of polarization
the paulista newspaper State considered that, after years of confrontations, Lula has “duty to cool down“. His victory, he added, “is far from representing a solution for the country. It is, in fact, a new challenge”. For Ligia María, a columnist for Folha, the warlike climate of the electoral campaign moved to all spheres of life in society and is not easy to dissolve. “Parents quarreled with their children, couples broke up, and friendships broke up.“. The damage, “is already done” and “no change in sight on the near horizon.”
The Congress will stage the limits of Lula’s policy of concord. The extreme right will count from 2023 with the majority bench. 24% of the seats will belong to the PT, an insufficient number to stop an onslaught against the future president. On the other hand, Lula will have allied governors in 11 states, including four PT governors. However, he will have to deal with 14 opposition states, especially in the South, Southeast and Center-West of the country. And, at the same time, it will soon be known what the movements of the most active far-right will be, both in social networks and in the streets. Bolsonarism is a mass movement and a permanent danger signal for many years.
From feat to reality
Four years ago, Lula was sentenced by the judge sergio moro in a case that ended up being scandalous and was annulled by the Supreme Court. “Democracy is like that. The result of an election cannot exceed the duty of responsibility that we have with Brazil,” said the former judge, who later became Bolsonaro’s security minister, quarreled with the retired captain and in 2023 will be a senator for a conservative party.
The future president was held for 580 days. On leaving, he carried on a colossal undertaking, “at the height of the most epic journeys of self-improvement“, according to Roberto Andrés, a columnist for Piaui magazine. In November 2019, upon leaving prison, few believed that this would be possible. It happened. The next government “will have an even more arduous task than the one undertaken so far. In the last three years, Lula and the PT have done well what they master: articulations, negotiations, campaigns. Starting next year, they will have the challenge of rebuilding a shattered country, of dialoguing with a Congress whose traditional physiologism has radicalized to the right, and of giving direction to a government formed by a heterodox coalition. All this will also require overcoming the limits of the first version of Lullism”.
social heritage
In his first speech, the winner of the contest underlined the intolerable nature of poverty. In 2003, when Lula began his first term, implemented redistribution policies income that did not affect the interests of the economic elite and were benefited by the growth of the global economy. The poorest half of the Brazilian population increased its share of total income from 11% to 12% between 2001 and 2015, while the richest 10% went from 54% to 55%. In turn, the richest 1% saw their share of income grow from 25% to 28%. It was the middle sectors that saw their revenue share fall from 34% to 32%. That was the ferment of the aversion to the PT that ended with the parliamentary coup against Roussef and, later, the arrival of Bolsonaro at the Planalto Palace.
Pedro HG Ferreira de Souza, author of ‘A history of inequality’, estimated in this regard that Brazil will fail again if Lula cannot confront the privileges of the wealthiest 1%. The president-elect knows this, and for this reason, like 20 years ago, he reminded society that, above all, it is imperative “to guarantee that all Brazilians have a daily breakfast, lunch and dinner.”