Lula and the great challenges that await him in his unprecedented third term in Brazil

The elected president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, knows that he has to govern «for the 215 million Brazilians» and has assured that «two countries do not exist». But the results of the ballot show that it will not be easy: the polls reflect a country fractured between two opposing visions, and a Congress and three important states are dominated by Bolsonaroism.

Lula, who contested his sixth campaign and won an unprecedented third presidential victory, acknowledged in his celebration speech that he will govern «in a very difficult situation», explains journalist Marta Miera for RT.

For now, the former president (2003-2010) has not received a call from Bolsonaro to congratulate him on his victory, as defeated candidates traditionally do in Brazil, despite the fact that several of the far-right’s collaborators and allies did congratulate Lula on Sunday night. Countries such as the US, China, Russia, Argentina or France, among many others, have also congratulated him and have shown themselves willing to work with him.

“I would like to be just happy, but I am happy and half worried, because starting tomorrow I have to start worrying about how we’re going to run this country. I need to know if the president we have defeated will allow a transition process to take place, so that we can be aware of things», said Lula, who, at 77 years old, will become the oldest president to take office on January 1.

But probably this ‘impasse’ created by Bolsonaro –something expected given his intense campaign to discredit the polls– and the fact that he has won with the narrowest margin (50.9% vs. 49.1%) since the redemocratization of the country, it will not be the greatest obstacle that the leftist leader has to face in the four years of government that lie ahead.Lula´s work: unite the country

“I have two months to set up a government. I need to choose well each person who is going to participate in the new democratization of our countr*, said Lula to his followers on Sunday night.

His first goal will be to try to unite a completely polarized country since the former Army captain came to power with a hate speech towards the left, which had been in power for 14 years until former president Dilma Rousseff was impeached by Congress in 2016.

“In order for it to be successful, it must preach from the beginning for national pacification, for the unity of the country, and it will have to demonstrate, from the beginning, with the composition of its governmental cabinet so as to make a broader government, a government that makes a movement towards the center and even to the right”, considered the analyst Josias de Souza on the UOL portal.

Part of his (Lula) work will involve approaching the influential lobbies that Bolsonaro seduced in 2018, such as the evangelicals (a creed that is already practiced by more than a third of the Brazilians), the ruralists – a thriving sector that attracts a lot of foreign currency to the country-, and the military and the supporters of carrying weapons in the name of self-defense.´Auxilio Brasil´, minimum wage

Among the most urgent decisions will be maintaining the Auxilio Brasil (Aid Brazil) economic aid program – which will once again be called Bolsa Familia, as Lula baptized it in 2003 and later Bolsonaro changed the name – and increasing the real minimum wage.

Lula is picking up a country that in the first three years of Bolsonaro grew an average of 0.6%, greatly affected by the pandemic, and that in 2021 closed with an annual inflation of 10.06%, the worst figure since 2015, which weighed heavily on the purchasing power of Brazilians, especially among the poorest.

The measures of economic stimulus taken by Bolsonaro in the last year before the elections managed to contain inflation and lowered unemployment to 8.7%, the best level since 2015. Lula will have the challenge of continuing this trend.

He will also find a Brazil hit again by hunger, which already affects more than 30 million people, partly as a result of the pandemic.

«We cannot accept as normal that millions of men, women and children in this country do not have enough to eat, or that they consume fewer calories and protein than what is necessary»,  said Lula.

Beginning in 2003, when he became president, Lula spent vast amounts of money on social programs, thanks to a prolonged commodity boom that lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty, earning him great recognition inside and outside of Brazil.

Now he intends to repeat it, but the situation of the Brazilian coffers is very different: to try to connect with the poorest, Bolsonaro had to use the ‘public machine’ and even circumvented the tax ceiling imposed by the Constitution. Since August, he announced direct aid to the most disadvantaged in the amount of 21,000 million reais (about 4,000 million dollars).A more right-wing Congress

Lula will have to bring out his cunning as an experienced Brazilian politician to advance his projects. The task will not be easy because the Congress that emerged from the legislative elections on October 2 is much more to the right, more conservative and related to Bolsonaro.

The far-right Liberal Party (PL) became the leading force in both the Chamber (99 of 513 deputies) and the Senate (14 of 81 senators). If its allied parties are taken into account, Bolsonarism will be able to make a real and determined opposition in both chambers.

For its part, the Workers’ Party (PT), which Lula co-founded in 1980, has 68 deputies. If the parties that were part of its coalition were added, it would reach 120 seats.

Lula will work to get associated with the so-called ‘centrao‘, an influential group of political parties known for negotiating their support for the government of the day in exchange for positions and other benefits. The president-elect will also have to deal with Bolsonarist governors in the three largest electoral colleges in Brazil – Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro – as well as in other smaller states, such as Santa Catarina or the Federal District.Lula and zero deforestation

Lula’s victory is a respite for the Brazilian Amazon, which in these years of Bolsonaro’s government has registered records of deforestation and fires. According to environmentalists, this is due to the rhetoric and the measures adopted by the now outgoing president to favor the advance of agribusiness in protected areas, including indigenous reserves.

“In our government we managed to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80%. Now, we will fight for zero deforestation”, assured the patriarch of the left.

The president-elect has promised – for example – that he will once again provide resources to the environmental control bodies, which were reduced during Bolsonaro’s mandate. Currently, several controversial projects promoted by Bolsonaro and his allies are being processed in Congress, including one that would allow mining in indigenous reserves. It remains to be seen what happens to them with Lula in the Planalto Palace.Brazil in the world

Lula will try to recover the international relevance that Brazil had during his mandate. According to analysts, Bolsonarist diplomacy leaves Brazil isolated, especially due to its efforts to end the traditional equidistance, with its excessive alignment with former US President Donald Trump, to the detriment of China (its main trading partner, ahead of the US), and with countries governed by the conservative right.

The president’s environmental policy also contributed to this isolation, which earned him criticism from many countries and brought him into a direct confrontation with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, over the Amazon.

«We are going to visit the world and restore our credibility», said Lula several times during the campaign.

The PT will also be able to reconnect Brazil with its neighbors in South America, a region governed by the left in most countries, from which Bolsonaro had distanced himself.