“I’m like the ball player who doesn’t want to tell the coach he’s in pain, so he doesn’t go to the bench… but now he has to,” Lula da Silva said. And it really has to be the case: the president of Brazil, 77 years old, will undergo an unavoidable hip operation this Friday in Brasilia, which will prevent him from working at the Palácio do Planalto for four weeks and from traveling for a month and a half. . But there is a controversy, explored by the opposition, over who will replace the ‘ball player’ while he sits on the ‘bench’: the Vice President, Geraldo Alckmin, or the First Lady, Janja da Silva?
The magazine West, linked to Jair Bolsonaro’s voters, published a report widely circulated on social media speculating that it would be Janja and not Alckmin who would represent the president. Subsequently, opposition deputy Evair Melo of the PP even requested the presence of three government representatives in parliament to explain the situation.
In the meantime, a news article entitled “Vice President Janja” is out place Crusoe, also associated with the far right, political scientist Bruno Soller emphasizes that “it is not permitted for someone who is not in the line of succession to assume the presidency, so that Vice President, Speaker of the House, President of the Senate and president of the Federal Supreme Court”. “The measure would not only be unconstitutional, but also an insult to Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and other powers,” he concluded.
The controversy intensified after the issue reached the so-called ‘mainstream media’ through a newspaper report Folha de S.Paulto suggest “concerns on the part of the government” because Lula had postponed a trip of the ministers to Rio Grande do Sul until yesterday, the 28th, so that Janja could join the delegation. The Minister of the Secretariat of Social Communications, Paulo Pimenta, confirmed that Janja “through the President’s determination” will “closely review the government’s actions and even announce other measures for Rio Grande do Sul”, a state affected by heavy flooding. .
But Lula quickly denied that the trip’s postponement was due to the first lady’s schedule. “None of this is valid. The trip, which is of the ministers, has been postponed because I receive on Wednesday [dia 27] Governor Eduardo Leite to discuss support for the state and it would be inelegant for ministers to visit the state with the Governor of Rio Grande do Sul in Brasilia”.
O place However, Poder360 revealed that it was Janja who was appointed by Lula last Tuesday the 26th to resolve a crisis at the Ministry of Racial Equality. Minister Anielle Franco and her advisor that during the football match between São Paulo and Flamengo last Sunday, he published insults on social media against the supposedly elite fans of the São Paulo club – “white fans who do not sing, descendants of naughty Europeans,” wrote he – met with Janja for six hours. At the end of the meeting, Anielle apologized to the president of São Paulo and fired her advisor.
Parallel to Janja’s clear practical influence, the biggest losers of the last government reshuffle were Alckmin, who lost part of his duties as Minister of Trade, Industry and Services, and his party, the PSB, whose president, Carlos Siqueira, lament complained. During an interview with DN, he was not informed of this renovation.
‘The cure is surgery’
Aside from follow-up, Lula said he hopes the pain he feels after the surgery will go away. “I have a problem with the head of my femur. I have had it for a long time. I want to have the operation because I don’t want to have pain. No one can work in pain all day,” Lula said in an live weekly.
“I feel like I’m in a bad mood towards my teammates. When I put my foot on the ground it hurts and I have to say good morning and sometimes I can’t. It can be seen on my face that I’m irritated , that I I’m nervous. You become an annoying, uncomfortable person. It hurts in the morning, during the day, when you sit, stand, lie down. And there is no cure, the cure is surgery.’
Lula’s operation, at the Sírio-Libanês Hospital, in Brasília, is expected to last more than two hours and will include general anesthesia and hospitalization until Tuesday, October 3. The President’s personal physician, Roberto Kalil Filho, and the Doctor for the Presidency of the Republic, Ana Helena Germoglio, will supervise the operation, carried out by the hospital team.
According to Planalto, Lula will undergo total hip arthroplasty, on the right side of his body, to treat osteoarthritis, characterized by the wear and tear of the cartilage covering the joint, leading to bone friction and inflammation. According to Lula’s doctors, the only effective approach to this condition is surgery, which involves replacing the head of the femur and the acetabulum with implants.
After his resignation, Lula will use the president’s official residence, the Palácio da Alvorada, instead of the Palácio do Planalto, for Brazil’s internal affairs. On foreign policy matters, he is banned from traveling, a setback for someone who visited 19 countries in eight months, a record he only equaled in 2007, the first year of his second term.
The plateau and health
Lula is of course not the first president to have to take a break for health reasons. Not to go any further, predecessor Jair Bolsonaro quit after being diagnosed with Covid-19, receiving a dental implant and being hospitalized three times as a result of a stab wound suffered during the 2018 election campaign.
President from 1902 to 1906, Rodrigues Alves would be re-elected in 1918 but did not take office as he died earlier from cardiac arrest believed to have been caused by the Spanish flu.
President Café Filho ruled from August 1954 to November 1955, when he had to resign due to health problems – he had become president to replace Getúlio Vargas, who had committed suicide while in power, and of whom he was vice-president.
Costa e Silva, president during the military dictatorship, was deposed after a stroke in 1969, the third year of his government.
The first head of state after 21 years of dictatorship, Tancredo Neves, did not even take office due to illness: he died three months after being elected by an electoral college formed by the Senate and the House.
Source: DN
