“As long as I am alive, the far right will not return to power in this country.” At 80 years old, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva repeats this slogan in the campaign to disqualify the senator Flavio Bolsonaro. The president and candidate of the PT (Workers’ Party) has come further than he possibly could have ever imagined when he was a metalworker.
From a very humble family from Pernambuco, Lula – squid in Portuguese – crossed Brazil in a wood transport truck clinging to a log in search of a future.
São Paulo was his destination and in the belt of this great city, in São Bernardo do Campo, he settled. It would be the beginning of a race for the Presidency from which he does not want to move after having achieved his second re-election four years ago.
The Lula phenomenon began when he won the first elections in 2003. In the blink of an eye he went from being the red demon on the covers of the national and international press to the idol of half the world. Bill Clinton I gave him as an example, in Europe there were elbows to shake his hand and journalists begged for an interview with the man who had fallen in love with the world.
Lula, who had lost the previous elections with Fernando Collor de Mello and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, He embodied the spirit of improvement and effort added to the work vocation of the self-made man. Become an idol, it didn’t take long for the feet of clay to dismantle that image.
Before, he showed that he knew how to govern for everyone and improve the conditions of the most humble. The «Fome Zero» project (zero hunger) and healthy economic management for investors and workers helped him achieve re-election in 2007. To the left socially and to the right economically was his magic formula, accompanied by the decisive evangelical churches.
Riding the wave of success and the Bolivarian cycle in the region, Lula gave the starting signal to the São Paulo Forum, the club of false progress embraced the Venezuelan and Cuban dictatorships and the European and Spanish left. The Puebla Group, with Alberto Fernández, Zapatero and company, would be its continuation.
As in bad stories, second parts were never good and in this case, in Lula’s second government, corruption began to appear in full force while his excesses with alcohol, more moderate than those of Boris Yeltsinthey crossed borders.
Scandal after scandal; His closest collaborators would be put on trial and he himself would be condemned. The Odebrecht case had exploded and even the owner of the company, Marcelo OdebrechtI would confess all the operations and rinses. The corruption network of Brazil’s largest construction company would cross the continent from top to bottom and reach Europe and Africa.
Justice and the media renamed him Operation Lava Jatoreferring to car wash stations. Lula could not escape and was convicted of corruption and money laundering. Passed one year and seven months in prison. The procedural clumsiness of the judges, added to the lack of powers of the bodies that tried him, forced the Supreme Court to annul the sentences and restore his political rights. But Nobody said he was innocent.
The renewed and recharged Lula, fighter and winner of cancer (larynx and skin), returned to the election competition in 2022.
Jair Bolsonaro, Due to the wear and tear of the pandemic and his own mistakes, in addition to outbursts, he had fallen from grace. The polls sentenced Bolsonaro with the victory of the leader of the PT (Workers Party).
The revolt and assault on the headquarters of the three powers in Brasilia by the followers of the former military man, who did not accept the result and denounced fraud, would produce images similar to those of the Capitol. He paid the bill with the current house arrest for being part of an attempted coup d’état, according to the Court’s classification.
With Lula, twice widowed, back in power at the hands of his third wife, Janja, (20 years younger), Brazil once again had the environment and social policies as a priority on the agenda.
To his credit, the old union leader has a decrease in unemployment and growth of 2.3% and the slowdown in consumption and investment as well as the cost of living is due. A separate chapter is the head-on collision with donald trump that has punished the country with a barrage of tariffs ranging from 25% to 40 and even 50%. “Trump acts like an emperor”“We are not a colony and we will not be anyone’s colony” or the last phrase in the UN “Brazil does not fit in anyone’s backyard” summarize the image of the Republican.
Lula’s challenge now is to defeat Flavio Bolsonaro. It is possible that he will succeed, but what is likely, according to the polls, is that he will be defeated.
