The narrative is still Lula
Vijay Prashad
JULY 19, 2018 00:15 IST
UPDATED: JULY 18, 2018 22:50 IST
As the elections in Brazil draw closer, conflict is likely
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva waits in a 15 sq m room in a penitentiary which he himself inaugurated when he was the President (2003-2011) of Brazil. He has been condemned to this cell in Curitiba by a judicial process that has his supporters outraged and his detractors gleeful. A week ago, judges went back and forth over whether he could be released while he appealed a verdict on a corruption case known as Operation Car Wash. WhatsApp messages flashed across Brazil, the measure of the country’s polarisation evident in what was being said. By the end of the day, Mr. Lula remained in jail. His habeas corpus petition was not to be honoured.
Brazil faces a presidential election on October 7, and Mr. Lula is the candidate of the Worker’s Party (PT). It does not matter that he is in prison. The PT is adamant that it is either Mr. Lula or no one; there is no Plan B. An electoral court will decide, by late August, on the merits of allowing Mr. Lula on the ballot. Every poll taken in 2018 has shown him in the lead of his right-wing opponent, Congressman Jair Bolsonaro. There is little indication that Mr. Bolsonaro, who is deeply unpopular, will be able to better Mr. Lula.
Why Lula?
Mr. Lula’s tenure as President was not marked by any radical shifts in policy direction. His was a social democratic presidency at a time of high commodity prices — a benefit for Brazil’s faltering economy. He moved a considerable amount of public finances towards combating hunger and increasing opportunities for education. The social minorities gained from his programmes. Hunger, a serious problem in Brazil, vanished and new federal universities opened to great promise.
Mr. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, had to grapple (2011-2016) with the detritus of the 2007-08 credit crisis, the turbulence in Brazil’s economic situation, and a restive elite. Conciliation towards the financial class resulted in Ms. Rousseff losing support among the core base of the PT. But her term was to remain until 2018. Professor Valter Pomar, a national leader of the PT, says no political attempt by the elite was able to prevent either Mr. Lula from being re-elected in 2006 or Ms. Rousseff from winning in 2010 and 2014. The elite, worried that they would be defeated once more if they waited till 2018, and impatient to rid themselves of a social democratic government, conjured up street protests and urged a legislative coup against Ms. Rousseff. She was ejected and replaced by Michel Temer, who was far more acceptable to the elite. The economic elite were now given rights to exploit natural resources freely, ignore labour laws, and conduct financial transactions deleterious to the public exchequer.
More:
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-narrative-is-still-lula/article24454274.ece
