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 analysts, this response struck a powerful chord within the working class, helping to secure his victory.
The results at the ballot box were immediately challenged. On Monday, finance capital delivered its own verdict: The Brazilian stock market plunged, the dollar soared and the reelected government began receiving orders to apply the same program of cuts that had been expected from its opponent, dictated with the authority of a dictatorship that submits to no election whatsoever. On Wednesday, the defeated fascistic candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, proclaimed himself Brazil’s president on US soil, under Washington’s protection.
The colossal power mobilized by finance capital and US imperialism, first to intervene in the elections and now to determine the program of the elected government under the permanent threat of its overthrow, poses before the Brazilian working class the question of who actually rules.
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