The social fracture that the new government of Lula da Silva will have to face

Twenty years have passed since 2003, when the arrival of a trade unionist to the government was inaugurated with great impact. That “Lula moment” was fundamental, but mind you, it was also a unique moment. Man today is the same, circumstances are different.

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso gave him a stabilized democracy, an orderly economy open to the world, playing in the “big leagues” with strategic allies who approved the idea of ​​the transition that the intellectual-president envisioned.

The country was full of hope, the economy accompanied the access of new sectors to progress: Lula was the symbol of social ascent which connected the north-east and the industry of São Paulo, making possible the dream of the country on the path of integration and development.

That hope doesn’t exist now. after playing business, including judicial disputes, Lula is back because Bolsonaro has become a danger to democracy and to the institutions. Bolsonarism, “a tropical Trumpism”, had been incorporated into the large space constituted by i-liberalism, to which most of the elective authoritarianisms adhere, which add the violation of the law, threats to the press and the incorporation into one space that adds to what is usually called the “global south”, in contrast to Western civilization, always willing to ignore borders and sovereignty.

Internally, the political and social divide promoted by Bolsonaro was visible at the polls. With great effort, Lula recovered the initiative among his old supporters: progressive urban sectors and historical beneficiaries of his active social policies that gave him victory in most of the northeastern states.

Covenants

The slim win forced Lula to do it seek alliances with the legislators, because without them it will not be able to fulfill some of its promises, especially the social laws.

In parallel, much of the transition was marked by the formation of a cabinet formed by a group of 60-year-old faithful and newcomers who in many cases clashed with each other.

An example, the commitment against the deforestation policy promoted by Bolsonaro, took concrete form in the incorporation as minister of a champion of environmentalism and the protection of the Amazon, Marina Silva, who shares the cabinet with a minister of Agriculture of the Mato Grosso, far from environmentalism.

Brazil is starting a new political cycle in very different conditions from the first “Lula moment”. It is a country where industry has lost importance, has become a “priority” and where the agribusiness lobby has achieved an inescapable power of proposal and veto.

It is a country where military structures have reached an unknown projection since the return of democracy, which radiates to state-owned companies and police structures. Without a doubt, Bolsonaro has founded a military party whose power and influence cannot be ignored. also the president Lula will receive a strategically devalued country suffering the loss of international leadership.

Bolsonarismo’s bad foreign policy legacy is the result of incompetent and ideological foreign ministers, who deviated from the old diplomatic tradition that allowed Brazil to add the invaluable support of allies and partners for whom Brazil has inspired trust and security.

Finally, a non-minor fact. The transition and the transfer of the government would not have actually been achieved without the invaluable contribution of Vice President Geraldo Alckmin.

The former governor of San Pablo played a decisive role when cerril Bolsonarismo threatened a tense strategy. Experience, connections and pragmatism have triumphed and from now on this leading figure of São Paulo’s elite is a man who will play a decisive role in the second “Lula moment”.

Carlos Pérez Llana is a sociologist, expert in International Relations

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