After the second round of the presidential elections in Brazil on October 30, Lula da Silva was elected against Jair Bolsonaro by a difference of less than 2% (50.9% versus 49.1%). Those little more than two million votes difference enable Lula da Silva to reside in the Planalto Palace, the president’s official residence in Brasilia, as of January 1, 2023.
However, they have also emboldened the current president Bolsonaro who, far from having suffered an electoral rejection for his disastrous management of the pandemic and his always high-sounding statements, has increased his electoral support by more than a million votes since he won in 2018, uplifted by the call lobby from the triple B: ox, with the entire agro-export sector; bullet, with all the security and military forces; bible, with fundamentalists reactionary to advances in gender equality.
Thus, a very different Lula da Silva will take office from his two previous terms (2003-2010) in a context of extremely high polarization and in a divided Brazil, not so much by political affinity, but by identity and visceral rejection of the adversary: antilulismo criticizing corruption and the so-called “cultural Marxism” of the Workers’ Party versus anti-bolsonarismo criticizing reactionary elitism and the promotion of growing inequalities by the dominant elites.
Lula’s less room for action
In this way, his government will now have much less room for action due to various factors: at the domestic level, it will depend politically on an ideologically heterogeneous inter-presidential coalition and will face a majority Bolsonaro Congress and Senate that will hinder many of its policies. In addition, he will deal with a severe economic crisis that has no sign of abating and where “the markets” have already shown their disapproval of Lula’s right-hand man and future Economy Minister, Fernando Haddad.
To this we must add a high social fragmentation. It was believed that a hypothetical World Cup victory for the canarinha could help mitigate that fragmentation.
In addition, the latest challenges of Bolsonarismo (it should be remembered that the current president has not yet explicitly recognized his electoral defeat) will strain the government transition process, although it seems that the neutrality of the military is guaranteed. We must not forget the fact that it was precisely during Lula’s past governments that they saw their budget increase significantly. Likewise, the announcement of the next Defense Minister, José Múcio, who is well regarded by the military establishment, was very well received.
Challenges at the international level
In regards at the international level, the new Brazilian government will also face major challenges, but perhaps this is a more benevolent environment for Lula’s charismatic leadership. The reintegration of Brazil into the Latin American region among more like-minded presidents, such as Gabriel Boric’s Chile or Gustavo Petro’s Colombia, will annul the vision of Bolsonaro’s Brazil as a “regional pariah” facing all its neighbors and anchored to Trumpist postulates.
In the same way, on a more multilateral level, as was already made visible at the recent COP27 in Egypt last November, the presence of Lula together with what will be his Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, clarified that Brazil is back when it comes to leading the climate agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.
Having said this, let no one be fooled: whoever thinks with nostalgic overtones that Lula da Silva will have the capacity to repeat this resurgence of Brazil as a global player that already irradiated in his previous mandates you will be very wrong. In fact, the management of these excessive expectations by his electorate and the hypothetical frustrations that derive from it will be the great thermometer that Lula’s government will have to look at.
Brazil has returned and Lula will aspire to be the same person who has already lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty, but Brazil is no longer the same, nor is the world of 2022 the same as it was in 2003. Of course, good prospects are on the horizon to the extent that Brazil will once again occupy a prominent place in international relations, both as a key actor in Latin America and as a privileged interlocutor with the United States and the European Union, on the one hand, and with China and the Global South, on the other .
The great challenge will reside, therefore, in how to heal the wounds, overcome polarization, reactivate the economy and reform a political system that encourages corruption and the political disaffection of the population. A daunting task even for Lula.
Sergio CaballeroProfessor of International Relations and Director of the UNESCO Chair for Latin America, University of Deusto
This article was originally published on The Conversation. read the original.
