‘Lula’ will take possession before a Brazil full of expectations and challenges

Brazil will have a peculiar start to the year. On January 1, 2023, Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva will be positioned as president for the third time, ending four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right mandate.

The Latin American giant receives a new year with a radical political turn and full of expectations from the leftist government.

‘Lula’, for his part, will hang the sash of the 77-year-old president in front of a highly polarized population. The ex-unionist won the elections by just over two million votes.

A short margin that led to massive protests in which alleged electoral fraud was denounced. The protesters even called for a military intervention in the face of the silence of Bolsonaro, who was slow to accept the transition of power. Thus, the division of the country will be only one in the long list of challenges.

The act will have a long security device in which some 15,000 agents from all the State security forces will be mobilized. Some contingency measures due to threats from violent groups of the Bolsonaro extreme right.

The leftist will take office before representatives of at least 120 countries. Among the attendees, the presence of multiple Latin American presidents is expected, of which the possible arrival of Nicolás Maduro stands out after the elimination of a decree that prevented the entry of the Venezuelan president into Brazilian territory.

The one who will not be in the country will be Jair Bolsonaro, who traveled to Florida, USA. According to people from his close circle, he intends to stay several months in that country. In this sense, there will be no space for the image of the ultra-rightist passing the band from president to ‘Lula’, a scene already experienced by Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The ceremony is expected to be laden with symbolism, one that points to the ex-unionist’s promise to transform the country.

On Sunday, a new cycle will begin in the long political career of the leftist who first came to power in 2003. This time, he receives a different Brazil where hunger, economic recovery and care for the environment will be the most pressing issues. .

The fight against poverty and hunger

“Rescuing 33 million people from hunger” was one of ‘Lula’s’ main campaign promises. Now, as president, one of his biggest challenges will be to get about 16% of the population out of there.

Brazil had left the UN hunger map in 2014, but the country’s name returned to the list during the mandate of Jair Bolsonaro. In that territory, 125.2 million people have experienced food insecurity.

Next to hunger, poverty. The leftist has assured that he will reverse the statistics that say that 100 million Brazilians are in this situation.

For this, ‘Lula’ has already demanded more resources for initiatives such as ‘Auxilio Brasil’, the new social program that seeks to reduce situations of poverty and extreme poverty. A legal battle that has already given results for the leftist but that will only be the first step towards fulfilling one of his most ambitious objectives.

The major economic challenges

One of the doubts surrounding the arrival of the leftist to power is how the country’s economy will react and what will be the measures that ‘Lula’ will implement to direct it.

In his campaign program he promised to “stimulate areas such as internal consumption” and “invest in public and social services, economic infrastructures and strategic natural resources.” Some proposals that for many sounded very general and without a specific action plan.

As AFP showed, “Brazil’s economic reality is far from the bonanza of the 2000s, when ‘Lula’ was able to finance his social policies by surfing the ‘boom’ of raw materials.” So the new president will have to adapt to an almost completely new economic landscape.

A first sign of his willingness to reassure the country’s markets was the election of his planning minister, the center-right Simone Tenet. A nod to moderation.

Another urgent challenge will be to face the unemployment figures in the country. Despite the fact that they have decreased in recent months, between July and September 9.5 million were still without a job.

Reversing the environmental situation after four years of Bolsonarism

Perhaps the greatest expectations upon the arrival of the leftist to power are in the environmental shift that ‘Lula’ has promoted as one of his great banners.

“We are going to put an end to the degradation process that our tropical forests are experiencing,” he assured at COP27 in Egypt.

His promise to bring deforestation to zero will also have great difficulty reversing the all-time highs he reached under Bolsonaro.

To do this, ‘Lula’ will seek to promote the fight against illegal logging, for which he has already shown his willingness for international collaboration in which partners from the region and outside of it are found to protect the Amazon.

The leftist has already announced that the Ministry of the Environment will be in the hands of Marina Silva, a well-known environmentalist who already held that portfolio in her first term.

At the same time, ‘Lula’ opted for the creation of a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples directed by the leader Sônia Guajajara. This will not only ensure that the native communities of the country are represented, but will also fight against illegal mining and deforestation in their territories.

The return of Brazil to the international scene

One of the peculiarities of the previous terms of ‘Lula’ was the work of the president to make Brazil a country with an important international presence. The leftist worked for cooperation with the rest of the Latin American countries and Africa.

Thus, ‘Lula’ has pointed out that his predecessor “isolated” Brazil from the world and that he will seek to rebuild alliances and cooperation. One of his wishes is to revitalize Mercosur and Unasur.

The expectations are high. And even more because of the Latin American ideological turn. With his arrival at the Planalto Palace, the five main economies of Latin America will be governed by the left.

A challenging panorama in the legislative scene

The ideological affinity that ‘Lula’ will enjoy on the international scene will not be the case in his own country. The leftist will have a huge negotiating challenge in Congress.

Bolsonaro’s conservative Liberal Party will have the largest number of seats in the two chambers and ‘Lula’ will have to face an opposition that is probably more consolidated than in his previous terms.

In a dialogue with France 24, the Brazilian journalist and analyst, Sérgio Dalfollo, had assured that “the first thing you are going to have to do is talk with all the political sectors and above all have a lot of patience and negotiation, which is not going to be very easy”.

‘Lula’ has some points in favor that tip his balance. The political veteran has shown his most conciliatory face, forming a long coalition that encompasses different ideological currents; one that was key to his election and that he must maintain to ensure his governability.

with EFE