With the potential comeback of Lula da Silva, Brazil may once again be on a path away from fascism and one that puts economic justice and anti-imperialism first.
by Alan Macleod
Part 3 - A towering figure
Despite being coy about next year, Lula is behaving as if he is already president, releasing statements urging his countryfolk to wear masks and inviting U.S. President Joe Biden to an emergency coronavirus summit on vaccine equity.
A towering figure in his homeland, the former street urchin and shoe-shine boy turned union leader was elected president in 2002 and served until 2011, leaving office with an 83% approval rating.
The economy grew steadily and poverty was halved under his stewardship. While the U.S. was invading Afghanistan and Iraq, Lula declared his own domestic war — against hunger. His signature policy was the Bolsa Família package; a deal whereby mothers were given cash transfers of up to $150 per month if they enrolled their children in school and ensured they were immunized against yellow fever and other deadly diseases. An estimated 50 million people benefited from it. It was policies like these, Urban noted, that built his support among the country’s popular classes.
“Lula’s impact on Brazil and on Latin America cannot be overstated. He dominated politics in both from being first elected as president in 2002, and he continues to dominate Brazilian politics,” said Dr. Barry Cannon, a sociologist from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, who also noted that, under Lula’s rule, Brazil was “remarkably stable socially and economically.”
Needing the support of liberals and more centrist forces, Lula was not as radical as many social movements that helped him into power would have liked, and did not challenge U.S. power as directly as other governments like those in Venezuela or Bolivia. But — as Steve Ellner, a retired political scientist from the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, explained to MintPress — activists saw his government as a “friendly” administration; one that would listen to them and certainly not repress them in the ways previous governments had done.
Perhaps his most important impact, however, was on international affairs. Lula was one of the leaders of the so-called “Pink Tide” — a wave of Latin American countries that began electing leftist, pro-poor, anti-imperialist governments in the 2000s. By 2011, a large majority of the region was ruled by these forces. Leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa rankled officials in Washington by nationalizing key resources and denouncing capitalism and inequality. Lula was not as radical, but, as leader of the world’s fifth-largest country by area and population, he was arguably the most important.
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