Lula is the alternative in Brazil

From Rio de Janeiro

Lula’s trip to Brasilia was the reunion of Brazil’s greatest political leader with the city where he led the best government Brazil has ever had. But it was also Lula’s reunion with political forces lacking in political leadership, due to the failure and abandonment of any prospect of political leadership by the current government. Lula met leaders of left, center and right parties, some of whom he governed, and others who were confused, looking for a horizon for their parties.

Meanwhile, more and more opinion leaders, some who were frantically anti-pedophiles, others more moderate in the past, are embracing Lula as the only prospect of rebuilding the country, in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe, the economic disaster, the deep social and political crisis in which Brazil finds itself.

As some have already said, it is not possible to compare what Lula can represent for the country and what Jair Bolsonaro represents. The latter came to destroy what was built, what remained of democracy, state, political credibility in the presidency and a minimally harmonious coexistence between the three powers of the republic. He destroyed what was left of the economy by arbitrary actions between privatization and the deterioration of state agencies.

In the midst of the pandemic and with more than four hundred thousand dead, it is more evident that the current government has nothing more to give the country, no matter what point of view it is viewed from. There remains the support of the lumpen bourgeois, which is only interested in the liquidation of low-cost state enterprises, and of the evangelical fanatics, which Bolsonaro’s speech serves.

Anyone who looks at Brazil from the point of view of its general interests can only despair. Even if you stick with the prospect of Lula’s return, you can’t help but despair as you try to imagine what will become of Brazil within the probable twenty months of the current government. How many thousands more dead? How deeper is the economic depression? How many thousands more jobs will be lost? To what extent will the degradation of Brazil’s image in the world be greater? How much more destruction of the environment? How much greater the dismantling of the Brazilian state? To what extent is the deterioration of political coexistence between different political forces and their different points of view?

It is in this scenario that Lula does not appear as an alternative to the left, nor as an alternative to a set of political forces, but as the only alternative for the reconstruction and salvation of Brazil. In addition to all that Lula has already given to Brazil, with his deeply virtuous government, leader for all, privileging those who have the least, projecting a prestigious image of Brazil in the world, Lula today represents the antithesis of Bolsonaro.

If Bolsonaro tries to dismantle the state, Lula represents the possibility of rebuilding it, of regaining his legitimacy before the Brazilians, of saving his ability to guide the resumption of economic growth, job creation and social resettlement. Policies, most of which have tackled Brazil’s most serious problem: social inequality.

If Bolsonaro tries to assert an authoritarian power, which does not seek to coexist with the forces that differ from his point of view, neither the parties, nor the Congress, nor the judiciary, Lula has shown that he has the capacity to reaffirm the coexistence with each of the actors, the powers of the republic, the Congress and all the parties.

If Bolsonaro takes the media as his frontal enemy, Lula has the capacity to democratically coexist with the media, even with those who have always taken him as a frontal adversary. Lula knows how to live with differences, with diversity, with different strengths and points of view.

Lula arrived in Brasilia politically devastated by a government that does not govern, by a president who does not speak, by a weak political system, which oscillates between resisting the government or adhering without any plans to it. Lula has regained his political rights in the face of a Brazil which desperately asks to be saved, reoriented with the prospect of once again being a nation, a democratic country, an economy geared towards growth and meeting the needs of all.

A country that fervently calls for the return of the creation of millions of jobs with an employment contract. A country which advocates the resumption of its image so degraded by the current president in the world, for the resumption of relations of friendship and collaboration with neighboring countries.

A Brazil which asks once again to have a President of the Republic worthy of the name, with the dignity and respect that this position implies.

For all these reasons, Lula is not an alternative for the left, nor for the forces of the center and the right. Lula is the alternative for Brazil, as a country, as a nation.