By Peter Koenig *
(Opinion) On Sunday, November 30, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – or Lula for short, of the left-wing Workers’ Party – was elected by a narrow margin as Brazil’s new president.
He “won” the election with 50.83% of the vote against his opponent’s 49.17% (October 31 NYT), the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, of Brazil’s right-wing Liberal Party.
He is the 38th president of Brazil, in office since January 1, 2019.
Lula previously served two terms as President, from 2003-2010. The President-elect will be inaugurated on January 1, 2023, as the 39th President.
Lula is slated to be the first Brazilian president to serve three terms.
The profit margin could hardly be smaller. One might venture to say that it is within the regular margin of error of such choices.
Under normal circumstances, a recount may be necessary.
Most likely, Washington would not allow it, because the USA needs a “left” President, as they “allowed”, or manipulated, in the last wave of elections, throughout Latin America.
Most people may not have realized that left and right, in the traditional sense, no longer exist.
They have been overthrown by “Globalism and Anti-Globalism”.
The Left, worldwide, has been captured by the neoliberal globalist complex, leading us to believe that the Great Reset and the UN 2030 Agenda are some sort of socialist concept in which eventually everyone will be “equal”.
Equal, as in “you shall own nothing but be happy.”
Washington is therefore inclined to favor a “leftist” / globalist candidate rather than a right-wing nationalist or conservative.
Mr. Bolsonaro may be right-wing, as he has adopted many unpopular policies, such as the “privatization” of the wastes of the Amazon region and some of the precious water resources, underground and above ground, valued by the Amazon Region.
But he is a nationalist, not a globalist at all.
What made President Bolsonaro popular among large segments of the population were his efforts to alleviate poverty.
First, he continued to support the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP), created under Lula in 2003, to help poor families out of poverty.
The BFP Family Assistance Program provides monthly subsidies to eligible low-income individuals.
BFP is largely responsible for nearly 60 percent of poverty reduction over the past two decades. Under Bolsonaro, the BFP was also expanding the poor’s access to education and health services.
Understanding how Covid – which Bolsonaro always viewed with skepticism – increased poverty among the Brazilian poor and transferred the basic resources of low-income people through bankruptcies and unemployment from the poor upwards, pushing even more people into poverty , Bolsonaro hastily designed a new social agenda. , Auxílio Brasil, eventually to replace the BFP.
Auxílio Brasil, originally designed as a modest pandemic bonus for the poor, was strengthened by Bolsonaro to make more of a difference.
While it focuses particularly on people hit hard by the economic disaster of Covid, it also continues as a poverty alleviation program like the BFP.
This clear and far-sighted prediction of better economic balance among the Brazilian population has won Bolsonaro considerable support, especially from the young and the poor and from countless favela dwellers.
According to a World Bank report, of the 22 million people lifted out of poverty across Latin America by pandemic-related government transfers in 2020, 77 percent of them were in Brazil. See this.
Compare that to the least generous pandemic aid provided under leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, where 3.8 million more people fell into poverty during the pandemic.
Bolsonaro’s popularity, in fact, shot through the roof, as the poor supported him in record numbers.
When the results of Brazil’s elections came out, the current president, Bolsonaro, remained silent. He did not accept, did not congratulate Lula.
He just didn’t answer.
In a subsequent public announcement, on October 31, Bolsonaro said briefly that he intends to respect the Constitution and that the process of transferring power can begin.
To date, however, Bolsonaro has not acknowledged – or congratulated Lula on his victory. In other words, he hasn’t really accepted defeat (yet?).
By publicly acknowledging the transfer of power, but not openly admitting defeat, Bolsonaro may be quietly inciting his many followers, many of them young; poor people who helped the poverty alleviation programs he supported; victims of the international Covid narrative – to protest his narrow defeat.
It is well known that Bolsonaro has often questioned the Brazilian electoral system and may believe foul play is involved.
Whatever happens in the next two months in terms of social unrest – or not – until presidential power is transferred on January 1, 2023, to Lula – and possibly beyond – is anyone’s guess.
THE HISTORY OF THE FLOWER
As Lula is poised to take on his third presidency, also the first in Brazilian history, a look at Lula’s history may be in order.
In the run-up to Brazil’s 2002 elections, with Lula a favored candidate, his leftist stance led the Western media to compare him to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, whose reputation as a consistent and staunch socialist was intended to discredit Flower before the elections.
To no avail.
Later as President, Lula appointed Henrique Meirelles of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, a prominent market-oriented economist, as head of Brazil’s Central Bank.
Mr. Meirelles was a former CEO of FleetBoston Bank.
Through BankBoston, in addition to Bank of America, New England’s premier bank, headquartered in Boston, Lula gained almost unlimited access to Wall Street banks.
He entered into an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), following all the Fund’s largely restrictive conditions.
The IMF hailed Lula as a perfect leader who other Latin American governments can take as an example of good financial management.
In his first term, the Central Bank of Brazil, the budget and debt management were mainly driven by the IMF and Wall Street.
In 2008, Brazil became a net creditor for the first time in decades, with the largest external debt among emerging economies. Banks made record profits under Lula’s government.
In his second term, Lula became the undisputed master of popular love, as the first president to bring modest prosperity to many.
Wall Street, the World Bank and the IMF loved it.
They would do anything to help him succeed because Lula’s success meant increased access to Brazil’s vast treasures of natural resources, minerals, water and the richest biodiversity on earth.
The Wall Street crash of 2008 was an economic blow to the US and Europe, but Brazil continued to enjoy good financial health.
The economic policies of the Lula administration helped to significantly increase the standard of living.
According to the Washington Post, the percentage of Brazilians belonging to the middle class increased from 50% to 73% of the population.
More than 20 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty. Under Lula, Brazil became the eighth largest economy in the world.
In 2016, Lula was investigated for suspected involvement on two occasions in the infamous “Operation Car Wash” corruption case.
The criminal investigation uncovered corruption between the state oil and petroleum company, Petrobrás, several construction companies and various Brazilian politicians, to receive secret campaign funds.
The investigation was conducted under former Federal Criminal Court Judge Sergio Moro.
In 2017, Lula was found guilty and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Three more years were added in 2018 by the Federal Court.
Lula began serving his sentence in April 2018 while his appeals were pending.
It was never clear whether Lula was really involved in the corruption scandal Judge Moro accused him of.
The judge had, at one point, his own ambitions for the presidency, but eventually joined Bolsonaro’s cabinet in 2019.
In 2021, the Federal Supreme Court overturned Lula’s conviction, ruling that former judge Moro lacked jurisdiction to investigate and try the cases.
Lula was freed and ready to become the main candidate for the 2022 presidential elections.
It is unclear how Lula will govern Brazil in his third presidential term. How will he deal with the Amazon Region – a huge area of biodiversity that affects much more than just Brazil.
Asked in a recent CNN interview whether he would agree that the Amazon’s heritage was a world heritage and therefore should be managed by the UN, Lula answered without hesitation that he agrees to transfer the Amazon area to an organization UN protectorate (the reference has since been removed from the Internet.)
This is clearly an admission of globalism, especially knowing – or he should know – that the UN has long ceased to be the independent world body it was created to be, working for peace, equality and the protection of Mother Earth. and Human Rights. .
Hélas, the UN in the last 20 to 30 years has been gently brought under the control of the West, led by Washington, towards doing the bidding of the G7, the Digital, Financial and Corporate Military Complex.
The Brazilians who voted for Bolsonaro – about half the population – definitely want a sovereign and autonomous Brazil.
They reject the globalism imposed by the West.
The vast majority of those who voted for Lula think the same thing: A sovereign Brazil, master of its own resources.
They have not yet realized that under pressure from Washington and its Western allies, the left has turned into a clan of neoliberal globalists.
It is never too late to resist this trend driven by Big Capital.
Time will tell if Lula will keep his promise to be President of ALL Brazil – and sometime during his first presidential commitment, to protect the Amazon Region as a sovereign Brazilian heritage – for a long term of survival of Mother Earth.
* Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former senior economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for more than 30 years around the world.
He lectures at universities in the USA, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online magazines and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From Coronavirus Lockdown to Global Political-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
The original source of this article is Global Research
