Lula is still angry about his 520 days in jail, wants to vindicate himself in front of history, and blames U.S. intelligence for conspiring with those who prosecuted him.
A presidential election won by only 1% of the votes, and a Judiciary that harassed Jair Bolsonaro to the point of not even allowing him to carry out campaign advertising. A strategy where Joe Biden's Administration was not absent, even though the current president of Brazil accused the United States of being behind the ¨ Lavajato ¨. In reality, it was this immense corruption scandal, which swept away Brazil's economic establishment, that ended up benefiting Lula: most, if not all, of those involved preferred the return to power of the man who, at least, had not interfered in their shady business dealings, and not the continuity of Bolsonaro who strongly pushed for investigations during his administration. The pandemic did its part, Bolsonaro failed to empathize with the center sectors and Lula returned to the Planalto building.
The same politicized judiciary, ideologized and frightened by Bolsonaro's return, has sought in the last two years to free those involved in Lavajato (prominent politicians and businessmen) and went even further, to the point of prohibiting the former president from being a candidate again until 2030.
What is the downside of this political, judicial and media agreement to prevent the return of Jair Bolsonaro? Brazil's economy is not having a good time (much less if we compare the current indicators with those left by Bolsonaro): rising interest rates, continuous advances on the independence of the Central Bank, brutal growth of public spending and taxes, the parliament (real power in Brazil) is highly fragmented and the ¨cost of souls that must be satisfied for a law to be passed, is increasing ¨.
While this is happening, Bolsonaro maintains a very high voting intention, and to summarize the support he gathers we can say that ¨ the streets belong to the former president ¨. When he makes public appearances or calls for a demonstration, avalanches of people turn up and contrast with the ¨ rickety ¨ calls of the Workers' Party (PT), Lula's electoral support. The left, in particular, has lost the main sphere of expression that characterized Brazilian politics for years: the public thoroughfare.
The political process that is developing is exciting, and I usually define it to my Brazilian colleagues and students as "the Argentinization of Brazil": from being a country where the center dominated politically, present in all governments, supporting the right and the left depending on the moment (for which they had members in key ministries, or legislators whose votes defined the approval or not of a law, in addition to very powerful governors), a very influential business class and a president with little power; it has become a factional country, with a very ideologized partisan justice that even advances over the private sector (it has just banned the activities of X because Elon Musk committed the sacrilege of speaking well of Jair Bolsonaro).
The ideologization of Lula's government, does not seem to coincide with its own history. During the 20 years of military dictatorship that Brazil endured (between 1964 and 1985) the current president did not need to go into exile, he was not persecuted, and, on the contrary, he was considered a pragmatic trade unionist (in the best style of Argentine trade unionism) with whom one could talk. Once the "military danger" was overcome, this man of dialogue began to sell himself as a leader of the hard left, and together with Fidel Castro, he became the driving force behind a political agreement that even today contaminates the democracies of Latin America: the Sao Paulo Forum. From there, he sponsored authoritarian leftism, although without being able to transfer this imprint to his own country, which still preserves very strong antibodies against these political drifts.
It was precisely these antibodies that made Brazil's foreign policy during Lula's two terms in office as oscillating as the president's own personal history. He was with Néstor Kirchner, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, but he sent reassuring messages to the United States: I am surrounded by crazy people but rest assured that I know how to handle them. Does this mean that the Americans were too innocent? Not at all. Their interests were elsewhere on the planet (Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, for example), and not in Latin America, which facilitated Lula's strategy.
Lula has lost this flexibility to manage foreign policy. A few weeks ago he declared that Israel had killed 12 million Palestinians, that is, the 7 million that exist plus 5 million yet to be born. Beyond this mistake, he defined a clear position vis-à-vis the United States in the situation in the Middle East. On the other hand, his right-hand man in matters of international policy is a declared enemy of Western diplomacy: Celso Amorim, Head of the Special Advisor to the Presidency of the Federative Republic of Brazil.
For 15 years, the Brazilian Air Force has been involved in a major and costly project to incorporate Swedish/British SAAB 39 ¨Gripen¨ aircraft whose command and control unit is entirely of Israeli origin. Doesn't Lula know this? Or the case of the conflict in Europe: "There was war because Ukraine defended itself" Guess who said it? Following the same reasoning, the Second World War would have been started by Poland for resisting the invasion of Adolf Hitler's Germany.
Finally, Brazil is today the world's main importer of gas oil from Russia. Sao Paulo Forum, Russia, Hamas, Maduro... Lula III's Brazil is based on Amorim's diagnosis, a profound anti-American, according to which the future is China, the United States is in decline, and the world has become a multipolar scenario. A totally biased vision which, of course, is not shared by the strong Brazilian industrial and entrepreneurial apparatus. And at least also by half of Brazil's voters. In what currency are the 400 billion reserves of its Central Bank denominated? Dollars, obviously. If Amorim is right, the first thing to do is to change the portfolio.
In January of this year, 51% of Brazilians considered that Lula's current administration was better than that of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Five months later and in the midst of a sustained fall, that percentage is at 38%, the lowest level since the beginning of the mandate. The group disappointed with the current president refuses to acknowledge that Lula is worse than Bolsonaro, and when asked for their opinion they are inclined to say that the two administrations are the same. But one key piece of data sets the record straight: in January, 9% fell into this category, today that percentage has doubled.
Fabián Calle is Founder and Director of the Brazil Chair at the University of Argentina's Center for Macroeconomic Studies (UCEMA). Professor of the Bachelor's Degree in International Relations and the Master's Degree in International Studies. Political Analyst, Lecturer at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy of Florida International University. Columnist for Infobae and panelist of International Politics in Todo Noticias (TN).
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