On January 1, 2023, after his inauguration, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) walked into Palácio do Planalto, the official presidential office in Brasília, and got to work. Two days before Lula’s inauguration, former President Jair Bolsonaro got onto a flight and left Brasilia for Florida in the U.S. It is not clear when he will return. Mr. Bolsonaro will certainly be away for the inauguration and, as has been widely expected, will stay away from Brazil for some time since he fears criminal investigation. He leaves Brazil in tatters with his mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with his policies that enriched the wealthy and increased hunger amongst the poor. It is into this ruin that Lula has now entered.
Editorial | The second coming: On Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s win in Brazil
A difficult road ahead
People, therefore, cannot afford to have high expectations of Lula’s third term in office (he was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010). Lula will face a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate that are in the grip of the right wing. This is not a new phenomenon, although the Centrão (centre), the opportunistic bloc in parliament that has run things, will now have to work alongside far-right members of Mr. Bolsonaro’s movement. With its leader in the U.S. and not expected to return soon, the Bolsonarista movement has no desire to open a dialogue about the future of Brazil. Its members have a harsh attitude, shaped by fake news and a suffocating attitude to money and religion. Brazil’s Vice President, Geraldo Alckmin, has been deputed to work with a difficult legislature to pass Lula’s necessary agenda, including new policies to end hunger, which had been a landmark achievement of Lula’s previous presidency through the Fome Zero or Zero Hunger policy.
Lula’s appointments
During the heart of the pandemic, a study showed that half of Brazil’s 213.6 million residents were struggling to find enough food to eat. Part of the answer to this problem will be the passage of an agrarian reform bill, which is long overdue. Lula will tackle the problem of hunger with an understanding that it reveals the many fissures in Brazilian society around class, gender, and race. He has made it clear that he understands that the hunger epidemic is not merely about lack of income, as hunger demonstrates the reassertion of wretched old inequalities and the mistreatment of people of African descent and of indigenous communities. That is why Lula has created a new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will be led by the charismatic Sônia Guajajara. He has brought in Anielle Franco, the sister of the assassinated politician Marielle Franco, as the Minister of Racial Equality. With Marína Silva as the Minister of Environment and with the singer Margareth Menezes as the Minister of Culture, Lula has made it clear that neither will he enable the kind of social toxicity that Mr. Bolsonaro championed (namely, the racism and sexism that saturated his government) nor will he allow the social basis of equality between humans, and between humans and nature, to be damaged. Just the appointment of these powerful women suggests a new way forward for Brazil.
The space for manoeuvre within Brazil will become narrow, which is why Lula has promised to exert himself in the region and in the world. His Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, is a veteran diplomat who held the same post for two years during the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, a close confidant and ally of Lula. Mr. Vieira is close to Lula’s former Foreign Minister and adviser, Celso Amorim. A few days before the first round of elections in October, Lula spoke at an event where he reminisced about his time on the world stage. He spoke about his role in bringing down the tensions against Iran. There is no doubt that he was telling this story to suggest that he will play such a role in Ukraine. Lula will travel soon to China and the U.S. in an attempt to reduce the tensions between these two major countries. The choice of Lula’s Finance Minister, Fernando Haddad, is significant because Mr. Haddad has made it clear that Brazil needs to lead a policy of South American integration, with the possibility that Brazil will create a new continent-wide digital currency (the sur) that will anchor this integration. Major countries in the Global South have begun to assert themselves — for example, by wishing to mimic the U.S. position on the Ukraine war. But there has been no credible leader from the Global South who has been able to put this new mood into the global discussion. Lula will likely be just this leader.
Lula faces serious crises within Brazil, a society divided along economic, political, and social lines. This divisiveness was exaggerated by Mr. Bolsonaro, who leaves a legacy that will take time to undo. It would be too much to expect Lula to rush through his agenda given this political and social landscape.
