By Alejandra Garcia on January 3, 2023
Lula inaugurated by ordinary Brazilians. photo: Lela-Beltrao
Inequality, prejudice, racism. These were the words most often used by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to describe the condition he is receiving of his country after four years of the nefarious Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil is in pain. It doesn’t forget the hundreds of thousands of deaths left by the Covid-19 and the mismanagement of the former government, nor the high rates of poverty and violence that skyrocketed since 2019. “But we will recover. I will put all my effort into it,” Lula said hopefully.
The ceremony that inaugurated Lula was like a fresh air for Latin America’s largest country and for the entire region for that matter. Bolsonaro, a 67-year-old reactionary populist in the mold of former President Donald Trump, did not attend the inauguration ceremony, instead, he traveled hours earlier to the United States on a 30-day vacation in Florida without acknowledging Lula’s victory in the October 30 elections.
No one missed him. Lula received the presidential sash from the hands of ordinary Brazilians, including an indigenous leader, a man with cerebral palsy, and a Black youth, instead of the former president, as is tradition. This formal investiture of the already two-term president of Brazil (2003-2011) had the face of the people.
“I take before you the commitment to work day and night to erase the clear inclemency of our racist past, the inequalities in income, gender, and race. It is a time of union and reconstruction,” the Workers’ Party (PT) leader said during his 31-minute speech.
The road will be long and full of obstacles. Brazil still has latent pain left by Bolsonaro’s “project of national destruction” that left an unprecedented economic and social crisis in the name of supposed individual freedoms.
“Members of the previous government emptied the resources destined for the healthcare system. They dismantled education, culture, science and technology sectors; destroyed environmental protection, and left no resources for school meals, vaccination, public security, forest protection, or social assistance,” Lula added.
And he continued, “Bolsonaro squandered state-owned companies and public banks, handed over our national patrimony, allowed the country’s resources to be plundered to satisfy the greed of rentiers and private shareholders of public companies.” And he made a point by saying that those in the previous government who personally benefited from this criminal behavior would be held accountable. How this plays out with the quickly departed Bolsonaro remains to be seen.
Today, it is not only Brazil that feels hopeful. The rest of the world feels relief that the Latin American giant will have a government committed to peace, to having a more just and democratic country, integrated, and committed to the fight against climate change.
“We have the conditions to position ourselves as an environmental power, and we are going to initiate the energy and ecological transition. Our goal is to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions and zero deforestation of the Amazon. We will live without cutting down a tree. At the same time, we will denounce all the injustices committed against indigenous peoples,” the leftist leader commented.
Lula’s Brazil has set itself great challenges. He will seek to restore the education budget, invest more in universities, technical schools, and the universalization of Internet access. He will open a dialogue on new labor legislation, guarantee the freedom of entrepreneurship, protect the elderly and empower women.
The world accompanied the tens of thousands of people who came to the Three Powers Square in Brasilia to see the new president on Sunday. The reconstruction of Brazil is already beginning.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US