2024-04-27 12:36:30
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a simple character in appearance but complex in substance. Under his white beard, his dimples and his smile with remade teeth, the Brazilian president hides many secrets, even a few vices. Formal defects, for his release from prison, or even character defects, such as the radicality of his opinions or this totalitarian inclination which is germinating within him. Metal worker, trade unionist then party leader under the dictatorship, before becoming socialist president of Brazil, Lula has a horror of putsches. But the invasion of the National Congress in January 2023 by Bolsonaro’s supporters even more than the one which earned him stays in prison. Even if it means becoming a marshal himself.
Young, Lula did not join any political party. He juggles odd jobs to escape poverty. Here he is an auction salesman, shoe shiner, delivery man… and when he gets his first job, as a telephone operator, he is considered shy for the position. At 15, he took classes and became a metallurgist. He was hired in 1964 for night work, during which he severed his finger. No choice, he must have his left little finger amputated. The compensation allowed him to afford land in the suburbs of Sao Paulo.
A white beard doesn’t make Christmas
Despite some participation in strike movements, Lula da Silva is not very politicized. Shortly after the death of his wife in childbirth, he became involved in union action. After varying jobs, he became a worker and officially joined the Metallurgy Union in 1967. The shy telephone operator is now a good orator haranguing crowds. Charismatic, in 1975 he became president of the Metallurgical Union, where he led the strikes.
He became one of the figures of Brazilian trade unionism and his commitment earned him numerous stays in prison under the military dictatorship of Marshal Castelo Branco. He became fully involved in politics and founded the Workers’ Party (PT) in 1980. Over the years and in the face of successive governments between 1989 and 1999, Lula, meanwhile a deputy and figure of the left opposition, became shows himself to be very radical on many economic and social issues, failing three times to be elected president of Brazil, in 1989, in 1994 and 1998.
The fourth will be the right one. Not without compromise on the part of the PT which moderates its speech. In October 2002, he was elected president of Brazil. The former trade unionist is forced to submit to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and arouses anger within the PT as well as in the social class. Once the objectives set by the IMF are achieved, the economy recovers, with an increase in industrial production and a fall in unemployment.
He introduced family allowances to fight poverty, launched “popular pharmacies” and the “Zero Hunger” program. He also initiated a housing assistance program. Under his presidency, around thirty million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty and malnutrition fell by 70%. On the international scene, he broke the traditional alignment of Brasilia with Washington and turned towards the countries of the South.
His results are considered positive and unsurprisingly, Lula da Silva is elected for a second term, despite the “mensalão” scandal in 2005, the most serious crisis since he came to power. The corruption scandal targets his party, the PT, which until then qualified itself as the champion of ethics in a country where bribes are the law. The party has been accused by a deputy of paying a monthly payment (the mensalão) since 2003 to parliamentarians from other parties so that they vote in favor of the Lula government’s bills.
Corruptible, corrupting or corrupt?
Lula, who claims to know nothing about this practice, ordered an investigation and the party leadership was forced to resign. He does well but his troubles with the law will eventually return. When he left in 2011, replaced by Dilma Rousseff, the outgoing president was singled out for his social policy. The Brazilians discover the other side of the coin. Certainly, he succeeded in significantly reducing poverty with the help of allowances and aid, but his successor inherits a slowing economy, marked by an increase in public spending, fueled by a tax policy. disparaged.
The crossing of the desert for Lula da Silva is thorny. At the end of his presidency, he was implicated in several legal cases, mainly linked to corruption, money laundering and the embezzlement of public funds. This time, he doesn’t make it.
Credits: ARA
He is accused, as part of the Petrobras scandal, of having accepted 3.7 million reais and a luxurious apartment near Sao Paulo in exchange for his intervention to award a lucrative contract to this oil company. Lula claims to be the victim of a witch hunt, denying the accusations against him which “are not based on any concrete evidence”.
He did everything to become a minister under Dilma Rousseff, who named him Minister of the Civil House. The decision was immediately suspended by the courts, which now accused the president of having committed an offense. The “protege” of the former metalworker even risks dismissal.
He was nevertheless sentenced in July 2017 to 9 and a half years in prison for passive corruption and money laundering. His appeal increases the sentence, brought to 12 years and one month of imprisonment. He was imprisoned in April 2018 but the PT still designated him as its candidate for the 2018 presidential election. Lula did not escape his fate since the Federal Supreme Court quickly declared his ineligibility.
Jair Bolsonaro succeeds Dilma Rousseff. In the meantime, Lula was sentenced in February 2019 in another case to nearly 13 years in prison for corruption and money laundering. In a stroke of luck, the Federal Supreme Court suspends its trial, after the disclosure, by a newspaper, of a plot involving judge Sergio Moro, who became Jair Bolsonaro’s Minister of Justice, against the former president of the PT.
He was released in November 2019 but remains indicted in six other corruption cases. The Federal Supreme Court then annulled the convictions against him, justifying this decision by the fact that the Curitiba court was incompetent to judge the four cases concerning him. Lula is rehabilitated and the 2022 presidential race can begin.
Making something new, with something old
He is directing his electoral campaign against his opponent, whom he accuses of interference and whom he criticizes for the management of the health crisis, going so far as to “fear genocidee” which would be caused by Bolsonaro. The campaign is taking place under high tension, the former trade unionist teaming up his opponent cannibalism while the second describes the first as a drunkard. Lula’s victory was contested by half of the population and several thousand pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators invaded the National Congress as well as the presidential palace, like a remake of the events at the US Capitol a year earlier.
As soon as he took office, he set about reversing the measures of his predecessor. He relaunched the Amazon Fund and suspended the privatization of eight state companies. Lula increases the minimum wage and extends benefits, including the Bolsa Familia of which he was one of the initiators twenty years earlier. Lula reviews her copy. He quickly carried out a tax reform, which earned him criticism upon his departure. He is resuming his old good habits by announcing new social programs, providing 300 billion euros over 4 years.
The international context is different this time. If it maintains its support for the countries of the South, notably through the BRICS, it is moving much closer to Russia and China, other members of this group. While he condemns the invasion of Ukraine, he criticizes the United States, NATO and the proliferation of their military bases around Russia. His return to the presidency, marked by a panoply of promises for the climate, ultimately sounds like déjà vu.
As usual, he refrains from criticizing neighboring dictatorships. He says he is in favor of the legalization of abortion and marriage between two people of the same sex but retracts after each controversy. After three defeats in his country’s first presidential elections, the former metalworker has clearly learned to always moderate his positions, even if it means turning his back to mobilize the electorate.
A dictator at half mast?
But from 2024, Brazilians will discover a new face. He who supports his authoritarian neighbors in the name of regional stability becomes one himself. In March, he banned the official commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the military coup. He even suspended the project of a museum of Memory and human rights, centered on the dictatorship. Two years after his return to power, he has still not reestablished the Special Commission for the Political Dead and Disappeared, abolished by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula, who nevertheless suffered this dictatorship when he was a trade unionist, says he does not want to “continually rehash the past”, even going to compare this putsch, which pushed Brazil into a military dictatorship, to the invasion of the National Congress by Bolsonaro supporters call it the “January 2023 putsch”.
The following month, in April, a censorship scandal was revealed by X (formerly Twitter). The Twitter Files Brazil reveals that a Brazilian court forced the company to “block certain popular accounts in Brazil.” The role of Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, who demanded private information about users from X, including the censorship of several accounts, is also revealed.
Just as in the United States, where the Twitter Files exposed the censorship industrial complex which particularly targeted Republicans, including Donald Trump, the revelations made by journalist Michael Shellenberg demonstrate that Moraes attempted to take control over the Twitter content moderation policies (before its takeover by Elon Musk) to censor supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, under the pretext of fighting disinformation. France-Soir spoke about it in its article of April 26.
This very complex situation probably does not originate in 2024, but could find it in what some people consider to be “the 2016 coup” which led to the imprisonment of Lula in 2018. This story was also the subject of a Netflix documentary ” The Edge of Democracy: A story that is timely, recalling one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history and the democratic crisis that results from it. Filmmaker Petra Costa sheds light on and provides access to the pasts of Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, from their rise to their fall through a tragically polarized nation.
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