Finance capital’s ultimatum to Lula in Brazil: Impose austerity or your victory “will turn to ashes”
by Tomas Castanheira Part 1 On Sunday, October 25, millions of Brazilian workers and young people voted against the rise of fascism. The turnaround that re-elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT) was driven by a massive rejection of a new government of the Bolsonaros, which in the preceding weeks brought crowds into the streets and drew to the polls millions of workers and youth who had abstained en masse in the first round. They also voted in the expectation that the re-elected PT government would turn to the left and address their most pressing social needs. Lula held out the prospect of ending the 6x1 work schedule—six days of work for one day off—and of tax exemptions for the lowest income brackets. In the last debate, when Flávio called him “nine fingers,” an insult that exudes the far right’s hatred of the working class, Lula reacted forcefully, recalling that he had lost the finger at 17, on the night shift at a metalworking factory. According to some analyst...