An Electoral Victory on the Path to Democracy and Social Inclusion: With Lula, ‘Hope is Back’
Marcelo Neves
Lula was elected president of Brazil on October 30. We are coming out of a nightmare. As the campaign slogan used to say: ‘Hope is back’.
Brazil is a country that historically, above all since the inauguration of the republic by the military (1889), has been marked by an oscillation between periods of authoritarianism and democratic constitutional models. The situation does not mean that democratic constitutions have had much practical relevance for the great mass of citizens in this, the most unequal country in the world vis-à-vis the relation between the richest 1% and the rest of the population. However, the strongly symbolic character of democratic constitutions has always been ambivalent: in addition to serving as an ideology for the exclusionary status quo, they have also, in contrast, functioned as reference points for political and popular movements in their quest for the realization of individual and social rights. Authoritarian periods assert precisely the denial of basic rights and the repression of these movements.
Pressure from privileged elites for authoritarianism tends to arise exactly when a government proposes to carry out in practice the prospect or ideal of a democratic constitution containing policies of social inclusion against privileges. This was the case with the 1964 coup that overthrew the reformist president João Goulart with the support of the US government and the direct involvement of President Lyndon Johnson in its planning and implementation. The US-backed dictatorship lasted until 1985.
With the installation of a new constitution in 1988, the path to a more substantive democracy was opened. The policies of social inclusion and the fight against inequalities promoted by the governments of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), according to the constitutional principle that aspires to ‘eradicate poverty and substandard living conditions’ (Art. 3.III), once again troubled the privileged elites. Under the pretext of corruption—a structural problem whose containment had been hard-fought by Dilma Rousseff—a movement for her removal began in 2014. One of the most corrupt Brazilian politicians, Eduardo Cunha, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, started an impeachment process based on the pretext that there had been reallocations of expenditures from the annual federal budget by presidential decrees, which were provisionally destined for social programs for the poor. Dilma Rousseff was impeached by a large majority of the Chamber of Deputies in April 2016, and was removed by the Senate in August 2016. The fact is that the practice of reallocating resources by governmental decrees and ordinances had always taken place before Dilma Rousseff’s government (and continued thereafter), without ever constituting legal grounds for an impeachment. Nonetheless, it was not simply an impeachment: What took place was a parliamentary coup with the support of the Judiciary. With that, Vice-President Michel Temer took over the government (2016-2018), starting the process of destroying social programs and drastically reducing funds for public health and education, culture, and science.
Simultaneously with the impeachment process, the “Operation Car Wash” was launched supposedly to fight corruption. It was led by Judge Sérgio Moro with the support of the Federal Prosecutions Office and the Federal Police. It was later proven, based on a leak of messages exchanged across the Telegram app between Judge Sérgio Moro and members of the Federal Prosecutions Office, that there was a fraudulent collusion between them to convict Lula of corruption crimes based on the forging of false evidence. Lula was unjustly convicted and imprisoned for 580 days (from April 7, 2018 to November 8, 2019), based on flawed charges that were intended to remove him from political life and prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential election of October 2018. Only on November 7, 2019, after tolerating all the abuses of the Operation Car Wash, did the Federal Supreme Court, citing the partiality of Judge Sérgio Moro, declared null and void the cases that led to Lula’s conviction. The UN Human Rights Committee also ruled in April 2022 that Moro was biased and denied Lula’s political rights and the guarantee of a fair trial. However, the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, given the exclusion of the extremely popular Lula as an opposing candidate, had already been elected and took office on January 2, 2019.
The government of Jair Bolsonaro has been a government of the extreme right that has attacked all aspects of life in Brazil. Its policies include: praising the military dictatorship of 1964-1985 and its main torturers; constantly threating the judiciary; frequently disrespecting the law and the constitution; explicitly expressing racism in speeches, extreme misogyny and LGBTQI+ phobia; violating the rights of native peoples; destroying the Amazon rainforest and other natural reserves to benefit criminal economic activities in conservation areas; dramatically reducing resources for public education, health, science, and culture; carrying out policies that have triggered an extreme increase in hunger, which affected over 33 million Brazilians (15.5% of the population) in 2022, and in food insecurity, which impacted 125 million people (58.7% of the population) this year, an increase of 60% compared to 2018; encouraging and manipulating religious fundamentalism in collusion with pastors of Pentecostal churches, many of them corrupt; impeding and manipulating the investigation and prosecution of crimes committed by the president himself, his close relatives and members of his government; involvement with organized crime; increasing the possession of firearms and encouraging their unlimited use by citizens; and last but not least, denying science, especially by delaying the purchase of vaccines against COVID (which dramatically increased the number of Brazilians who died from the pandemic), disrespected legal norms concerning lockdowns and the use of masks, and publicly disdained those killed by COVID. In short, the Bolsonaro government has been a social disaster and has degraded the Brazilian Constitution. Furthermore, it has been an evil for humanity and life on earth in general.
On October 30th, despite the illegal use of the state machinery and the abuse of economic, political, and religious power to influence the election in his favor, Bolsonaro was defeated by Lula. The difference in votes was small—50.9% vs. 49.1%—and the country has come out of the elections divided. The situation has been made clear by the protests of Bolsonaro supporters contesting the election results this week, marked by roadblocks by truck drivers and demonstrations in front of army barracks demanding a military coup. It should be noted that contesting the result was stimulated by Bolsonaro himself who, even before the elections and accompanied by military officers, questioned the reliability of electronic voting machines, a well-worn discourse imported from the United States, which flies in the face of expert opinion from all national and international experts, public and private.
Lula’s first challenge is to reunite the country, as he stated in his victory speech. This means overcoming the politics based on the friend/enemy dichotomy of the Bolsonaro government, which is typical of autocracies, and improving politics based on the democratic distinction between allies and adversaries. For that, he needs to build a political alliance that goes far beyond that of leftist parties and admits even the inclusion of certain non-extremist and anti-Bolsonarist right-wing groups. The difficulty is that he will find a more conservative congress, with a strong representation of the extreme right on the one hand, and of opportunist and corrupt politicians without ideological or programmatic commitment on the other.
Overall, Lula is faced with series of challenges: How does the new government reenact the policies of social inclusion and the fight against inequalities of Lula’s first two terms, when his policies dramatically reduced hunger and were praised by the United Nation? How will the Lula administration bolster public education and health, science, and culture against the destructive process engendered by the present government? How will Lula resume policies of respect, protection, and promotion of the most vulnerable groups, such as blacks, indigenous people, women, the LGBTQI+ community, and people with disabilities, policies that were viciously and systematically attacked by Bolsonaro? How will the new administration rebuild an environmental policy of sustainability in the face of the incumbent’s attitude toward destroying nature? How will the government regain Brazil’s respect in the concert of nations in the face of the disastrous anti-diplomacy of the current government? Finally, how will the Lula administration resume the country’s economic and social development against the current unfortunate economic policy?
These challenges are serious, and solutions also depend on a correct attitude from the judiciary. Among other things, it is essential that Bolsonaro be convicted of crimes committed before and after his term in office, which has not yet been possible because he remains protected by the Attorney General of the Republic, who has exclusive right, according to the constitution, to bring criminal charges against Bolsonaro to the Supreme Court but has blatantly failed to do so. When Bolsonaro leaves the presidency, the criminal justice system will be able to investigate, prosecute, and judge any alleged crimes brought by any Public Prosecutions Office. Amnesty for his crimes, proposed by some conservative politicians, intellectuals, and journalists, would be a disaster and an obstacle to overcoming the current climate of political extremism.
As can be seen, despite Lula's incredible political skill, the challenges ahead are immense and difficult. One thing, however, is indisputable among the democratic and politically liberal sectors: “Hope is back.”
Marcelo Neves is Professor of Law at the University of Brasília
