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The truth is that, as he enters firmly into the last half of the second year of his third presidential term, Lula continues to face tensions with the worst Congress since redemocratization; that is, for 40 years, tainted by absurd ease in the management of the parliamentary amendments
– releasing the budget so that deputies and senators can carry out their projects – released without any control by his predecessor, the unbalanced far-right Jair Bolsonaro.
This release of public money exceeds 2 billion dollars transferred to proposals that either never got off the ground or cost little more than half of what was planned. And with one detail: this trick was repeated in each of Bolsonaro’s four years in the presidential chair and remained practically intact in Lula’s first year as president. In Brazil, the government budget is chosen by Congress the previous year and must be respected by the successor, so Lula, in addition to the government, took on this scandal.
But it is equally true that, at this point, the balance of his year and a half in the presidential chair again shows a very positive overall picture. There are, of course, serious pending issues with no short-term solution, such as the environmental issue.
Although, on the other hand, the economy opened space for even the sacrosanct, invisible and powerful entity known as financial market
make forecasts that exceed –just a little, it is true, but they exceed– the government’s own projections for the economy.
For the first time in more than a decade, the country is experiencing a period of full employment
; that is, the supply of labor is less than the demand. Positions are filled at the rate of production growth.
There is plenty of data confirming this trend in the economy. A clear and palpable example is the program My house, my life
Lula’s flagship during his first two terms in office –2003-2011–, which this year saw an increase of 620 thousand new properties financed by the State at very low interest rates.
Despite the fact that inflation in the food sector is higher than in other sectors, consumption continues at positive levels, higher than during the Bolsonaro period.
There are special concerns related to the official economy, such as the index of projects that exceed the expected tax collection and could force the search for credit in the financial market. However, at least until this point in the year, this is a concern contained within acceptable levels without sudden movements in the economy.
It is true that Lula will continue to face a hostile Congress, a scandalously manipulative Chamber of Deputies and a hard-won space in the Senate.
However, the truth is that these are not the main points of tension and pressure in the presidential palace.
The most relevant ones are many kilometers away. One of these is in the north, with Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela, and the other, much closer: the devastation of the part of the Amazon known as Closed
because it has forests condensed in a dry region.
A month after the scandal over elections clearly manipulated by Maduro, Lula – who until a few weeks ago was his main ally and defender in Latin America – seems increasingly willing to distance himself from his former protégé.
As internal and external denunciations of the Venezuelan situation gained strength, pressure on Lula increased, coming from outside, but especially strong in Brazil.
At first, the Brazilian president tried to remain discreet in the face of the possibility that, together with his Colombian colleague, Gustavo Petro, he could act as a mediator between Maduro and the opposition, which officially recognized Edmundo González as the winner by a wide margin of votes. But that possibility has vanished. There are no clouds on the horizon that indicate that such a negotiation is even remotely possible.
Lula broke his silence and announced that he would only recognize Maduro’s victory when the official vote count records are released. Since more than a month has passed since the election and given Maduro’s attitudes and initiatives, everything indicates that these data will never be released.
As if all of the above were not enough to disturb the regional scene where Brazil has a special role, at the beginning of August, and by express determination of Rosario Murillo, vice president and wife of the current president Daniel Ortega, who is implementing with ever more ruthless fury a dictatorship in Nicaragua, the Brazilian ambassador in that country, Breno de Souza da Costa, was summarily expelled.
The reason: not having attended the celebrations last July that marked the 45th anniversary of the victory of the Sandinistas – the authentic ones, those who disappeared under a Daniel Ortega who increasingly resembled one of the Somozas, the clan that dominated Nicaragua for almost half a century.
Let’s see what Lula will do in the face of this challenging and negative external scenario. In addition, there is plenty of room for internal concerns, especially those related to the environment, which is facing an unprecedented wave of destruction.
