The photo taken last Monday, February 27, of the President of the Republic Lula da Silva, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, needle in hand, captures the radical change Brazil has been going through since taking over in October Jair Bolsonaro , from the PL, for the current head of state, from the PT. Lula, aged 70, was vaccinated under flashlight and in front of microphones with the recently obtained fifth dose of the vaccine against covid-19, by his number two, a doctor by training.
After four years of devaluing the severity of the disease that killed 700,000 Brazilians, the demoralization of immunization results and the delay in acquiring them under Bolsonaro, Lula’s Brazil in pictures wanted to show the turnaround. However, it is not only in Health that one notices the radical change from one government to another, more radical, for example, than the transition from the last president of the military dictatorship, João Figueiredo, to the first head of state in democracy, José Sarney, in 1985. But from one government to another similarities are also noted in the form of repeated vices.
Let’s start with the many differences. In economics, the mantras of Paulo Guedes, the area’s Czar of Bolsonaro, were privatization, liberal reform and downsizing the government. With Lula, who divided the economy into finance and planning, the command is “put the poor on the budget and the rich on the income tax”. The new government values state-owned enterprises and sees public power as the main driver of development. As for the downsizing of the executive, the numbers speak for themselves: Bolsonaro ended up with 23 ministers, Lula started with 37.
On foreign policy, Lula has met half the number of heads of state Bolsonaro has met in four years in just one month. And after a meeting with the leaders of neighboring Argentina and Uruguay and US President Joe Biden, he will travel to China this month, as well as Portugal and three African countries. Then to Ukraine, at the invitation of Volodymyr Zelensky after a conversation between the two on Thursday the 2nd. Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araújo, his original secretary of state, created friction with China, Norway, France and Arab countries and maintained an almost idolatrous relationship with Donald Trump, Biden’s predecessor, “an envoy from God,” according to Araújo, who An “I love you“public.
One of the pillars of Lula’s foreign policy is the environment, whose ministry is today headed by Marina Silva, an internationally renowned ecologist, replacing Ricardo Salles, the Bolsonarist who was even voted the “worst minister” by a specialized magazine in the world. and defended the actions of loggers and miners. As a matter of fact, illegal mining became one of the targets of the Lula government after the revelation of its participation in the humanitarian tragedy involving the Yanomami Indians, in the Amazon region, which was considered by Lula with the newly established Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. Along with Marina, US special adviser on climate John Kerry guaranteed Biden’s commitment to the Amazon Fund, an organization that manages resources donated to the forest.
Neither pastors nor pastors
In education, the conservative agenda of “home schooling“, the “school without party” and “military education” have already lost space for progressive policies with an emphasis on literacy and the return on investment in universities and research. policy of demonization of the laws to encourage artistic creation and be the critic of the black movement, Sérgio Camargo, of the Palmares Foundation, an organization that supports black culture.
From Human Rights, the religious fundamentalist Damares Alves left and the philosopher Sílvio de Almeida entered. In almost two months, Lula still has not received a pastor or minister in Planalto. Among the many others, the religious involved in a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Education were there with Bolsonaro 28 times, according to data released by the Access to Information Act.
In turn, Lula’s relationship with the Defense began under maximum tension, due to the alleged complicity of the military commands in the January 8 attacks on the Three Powers in Brasília. The new president appointed a civilian to the portfolio – which had never happened during the previous administration – and changed the leadership of the armed forces.
In Justice, in addition to the vehement condemnation of those attacks, the reopening of the trial regarding the execution of Councilor Marielle Franco is significant. And the fight against the flexibilization of arms, Bolsonaro’s iconic project over the past four years. “People are not staying with illegal weapons in Brazil, the ‘general release’ of weapons is over,” assured Minister Flávio Dino.
With regard to the other powers, the difference between Bolsonaro, who made the Federal Supreme Court his chief enemy midway through his term, and Lula, who made a point of visiting his headquarters, which had been vandalized, after the January 8 attacks and said that pardoning the judges who voted for his arrest is total.
the vices of habit
But relations with Congress have not changed much: if Bolsonaro sponsored the secret budget, or “bolsolão”, a scheme that transferred millions of reais to parliamentarians in exchange for parliamentary support for the government, a sort of follow-up to the “Mensalão do PT”, Lula expanded his government by 37 ministers, precisely in order to count on the legislative support of the targeted centre-right parties; and if at Bolsonaro the scandals of misuse of public funds were a constant, at Lula there is already news of a minister, Juscelino Filho (União Brasil), who used state funds to pave the roads of his farm and by plane to a horse auction. On the other hand, the president’s views on the economy, like some of his predecessors, have “nervous” the market.
And besides these vices, another from which no politician in Brazil escapes is the attachment to power. Bolsonaro promised only one term in 2018, but ultimately not only ran for re-election, but stubbornly refused to admit defeat. It took Lula just one month in office to undo what he had promised more than once during the campaign: not to be eligible for re-election. “If I reach 2026 with the situation in the country delicate and I still have health…”
Source: DN
