The former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvafavorite to beat the president Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential ballot of October 30, assured this Friday that “At this moment we must recover a magic word called democracy”explaining the support he had from orthodox economists who always criticized him for his spending expansion policy.
“Contradiction and Contrariety”
“Politics is the art of the impossible. It does not matter the vision of the world that each one has, the ideology. At this moment it is that we must recover a magic word called democracy, which is the most difficult regime to be exercised because it requires living with contradiction, with contradictionLula told reporters in São Paulo, the Telam agency reported.
He did so after receiving the support of the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Edward Paes, of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), a force that is divided in supporting the ruling party in Congress, but that has a Lulista wing in the states where Bolsonaro is strong, such as Rio de Janeiro and Mato Grosso. Along with the PSD leaders, Lula defended the support he received for the ballot from former rivals and made it clear that his economic course will not be modified despite the fact that orthodox sectors have supported him in the last few hours.
Orthodox support
Within the framework of the battle for support that the candidates are vying for, as a signal to the financial market, the fathers of the Real Plan designed in the governments of Itamar Franco (1992-1994) y Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2002), historical rivals and axis of discussions on neoliberal orthodoxy against developmentalism and increased spending with the Workers’ Party.
Orthodox economists signed the letter for the election of Lula Persio Arida, Edmir Bacha, Arminio Fraga and André Lara Resende, in line with the vote announced by Cardoso last Wednesday. Thus, the former heavyweights of the orthodox policy of parity of the real against the dollar that fought inflation in the 1990s and that maintains some pillars today, such as the setting of inflation targets by the Central Bank, identified with the Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), joined the anti-Bolsonaro front.
Public spending
Lula offered definitions and reiterated that he is against the public spending ceilingset in 2016 due to pressure from the financial sector during the government of Michel Temer after the impeachment of the president Dilma Rousseff. The norm indicates that it must last until 2036, although Bolsonaro made it more flexible to launch the electoral aid package, dribbling the adjustment of his government.
“I am the president who had the most fiscal responsibility in eight years, always with a fiscal surplus, but also with increases above inflation in salaries plus an extra increase in salaries in accordance with the annual growth of the country’s economy,” he explained. Lula.“I am against the spending ceiling. It was a ceiling to avoid giving money to education and public health, but allowing bankers to be paid (of public titles). Access to food for families must be guaranteed. We are going to have fiscal responsibility and social responsibility,” she assured.
Bolsonaro’s spiritual war
In Brasilia, meanwhile, the president Bolsonaro maintained that with last Sunday’s election, Congress reinforced its center-right and right-wing majority, which will “overturn” an eventual Lula government. It was during an event with parliamentarians in which the first lady, Michelle Bolsonarowho considered in a speech full of evangelism the ballot as a “spiritual war of good” against opposition to her husband.
Bolsonaro showed strength on the spot with the majority blocs in Congress that emerged from Sunday’s elections. And there he warned the financial and business market that only he is capable of guaranteeing governance and administration. The Brazilian president won a great election in the main agricultural and ranching states, especially in the so-called “arc of deforestation” in the south of the Amazon jungle.