Stories from Brazil: Lula da Silva’s loud microphone and Jair Bolsonaro’s heartbreaking challenge

Brazil seems to be going back on a known point. The return to power from the political rubble of PT Lula da Silva was a consequence of the failed populist government of Jair Bolsonaro and above all of his disruptive, racist and bigoted personality.

The right-wing leader, in turn, had succeeded in the impossible, that is, obtaining the presidency, taking advantage of his previous insignificance. serious failures and self-sufficiency of the administrations of Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s former powerful minister who ended the initial era of the PT with collapse.

Now it is Lula who could experience the reconstruction of the power he imagined extinguished by his predecessor. This is what Bolsonaro supporters translate from great event last Sunday, 25th, in Avenida Paulista. But perhaps this is an exaggerated conclusion.

The centrality of Bolsonaro occurs as a reaction to a notable character filing of evidence in the footsteps of the former president himself which culminated in the insurrection of 8 January 2023. That bitter Sunday, a few days after Lula’s inauguration, a horde of idolaters of the former president attacked the headquarters of the Executive, the Judiciary and Parliament in the Square of the Three Powers in Brasilia.

The very serious episode was the outcome of the lawsuit against him cancel with one blow the narrow electoral victory of the PT leader, pronounced by the extremist groups camped in front of the barracks. A serious extravagance in the largest democracy on the continent.

Those tests are so definitive that the former president in his speech to the crowd he slipped in a crash which entertained the ruling party. “What is the coup? The tank in the street, the weapon, the conspiracy. There was nothing wrong with Brazil.” (“What is a coup? It’s a tank on the street, a weapon, a conspiracy. None of this was done in Brazil”) “Now the coup d’état: why is there a report of the decree of defense of the State? Coup d’état using the Constitution? (“Now is the coup due to the fact that there is a draft decree for the defense of the State? A coup using the Constitution?”). Unexpected admission that a text with those insurrectional intentions existed.

Coup evidence

The investigation against Bolsonaro is based on the messages and testimonies of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, the president’s former aide-de-camp. From this source it emerges that in a meeting in July 2022 Bolsonaro “suggested Ways to attack the electoral system and – after the elections in October of that year – his role in drafting the alleged draft decree on which the coup was based”, he specifies. Folha. The decree cited by the former president.

It didn’t take the government long to take advantage of the message. “Perhaps this is the first time in history that people who have committed criminal acts hold an event in a public square and In the midst of the crowd they confess to the crime and move on.”said Chief of Staff Rui Costa.

In the demonstration organized by his favorite pastor, Silas Malafaia, Bolsonaro he tried to appear moderateease tensions and there was no cry of coup “I authorize you” which marked his repeated attacks on the electoral system in the past.

It was clear how the former president felt cornered by lawsuits which has already earned him a conviction for unfounded accusations of fraud, the withdrawal of his passport and ineligibility for public office until 2030. But with the act he obtained the photo that he intended to demonstrate that he would keep his electoral base intact, on the 25th % loyalty despite the deluge of complaints, the ability to amplify the split in the country and to warn of the possible political costs if the offensive continues.

A point in his favor was the presence on stage of the governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas, that of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema or that of Santa Catarina, Jorginho Mello among others. Heavyweights who are effectively competing for Bolsonaro’s electoral spoils confident that the future awaits them.

From this point of view, the San Pablo demonstration was also an expression of weakness, which is the preferred view of the ruling party, even sternly warning that there were fewer people than the far right expected. But It would not be appropriate for Lula to fall into an underestimation.

At the beginning of his third term, the PT leader was reluctant to punish his predecessor for not easing his political path with victimization and borrowed energy from standing hand in hand in the ring with the president. It was better to bet on oblivion.

Supreme Judge Alexandr de Moraes, whom Bolsonaro has attacked for years, did not stop at these considerations and put together a cause that can be definitive for the fate of the former head of state.

Now Lula should look more closely at the electoral base that maintains this path, they are not all extremists. He must not lose sight of the fact that he came to the presidency with just 1.8% of the vote and in the second round of an election defined by the center by the middle class. fed up with Bolsonaro’s intolerance.

The weight of this social sector was such that it gave the PT its electoral campaign he washed his red color into a white one, It showed Lula praying and silencing extremists from the PT’s left-wing origins. Symbols that in reality had already been dissolved as evidence of the orthodox economic government presided over the pragmatic Fernando Haddad, boosted by markets after last year’s unexpected 3% growth and with annual inflation of 4.62% within targets for the first time since 2020.

These successes, which demonstrate the resilience of the South American giant and support Lula’s image, This year they won’t happen again recognized by the Ministry of Economy itself. The government’s goal of zeroing the budget deficit in 2024 and the risk of an expansion in public spending are also being cast into serious doubt.

What is worrying, he points out State, is the slow speed of economic growth from the third to the fourth quarter, equal to 0.1%; the certainty that the agri-food sector will not repeat the performance of 2023 and the reduction in investments, of 3% compared to 2022.

It is designed by the Getulio Vargas Foundation the country will grow by +1.4% this year. The markets, according to the Central Focus Bulletin, average +1.6%, while the government calculates +2.2%. The obstacle of very high interest rates, at 12.25%, is tending to ease. So far, the Orthodox-ruled Central Bank has ordered three rate cuts of 50 basis points each, and at least two more cuts of the same size are on the way. But it is insufficient.

This is a delicate area and will be central for the government maintain the seduction on that moderate electorate in view of the municipal elections next October, after the sensational failure of the PT in the 2020 event. Bolsonaro’s street action also aims at this examination. The victory of the municipalities confirms political power. Lula needs it to reduce the challenge posed by the right that controls Congress and forces it into virtual co-government.

Microphone from the seventies

You should therefore review your attachment to a sometimes unusual Seventies microphone it damages his leadership and scares the moderate vote, especially if the economic data comes with limits. In this sense, underline that there is no democracy in Venezuela, contrary to what the PT leader underlined, and hasten a condemnation of the Chavista despotic escalation against the opposition, the press and human rights organizations.

Nor is Ukraine responsible for the war that Russia told him, as Lula said after his trip to China, and that it would be important to denounce the scandalous death of his opponent Alexei Navalni and not silence him as the president did.

At the same time he failed compare the Jewish Holocaust to the nightmare of Gaza. He thus underestimated the historical tragedy that Nazism generated against the Jewish people and the seriousness with which the disaster experienced by the Palestinians of that territory should be addressed. There is a government in Israel to question, as Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira did at the highest levels, without falling into hostile and provocative slogans.

Those glances of a world that no longer exists are shots in the foot that They open the way for the Bolsonarists or their allies. As pointed out Economic valuewho is usually not lenient with the government, “They are voters who claim that the polls have been manipulated and ignore the progress of this government, to which they blame soaring prices and rampant corruption. A crowd impregnated with the virus of denialism that returns with a large and resistant strain of contagion.”