Lula basks in victory, but honeymoon will be short
Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a dramatic victory in Brazil’s presidential race Sunday, beating rightwing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by the finest of margins.
The 50.9% to 49.1% victory led to an outpouring of joy among supporters of the leftist icon, who poured onto Avenida Paulista last night, but confirmed the deep divisions in Brazilian society.
The fact that Bolsonaro came so close to re-election despite his anti-democratic leanings, his preference for exultant Facebook lives over the business of running the country and Brazil’s economic travails speaks to the aversion a large portion of the population to Lula, the former trade union leader who was imprisoned amid the Petrolão corruption scandal.
Lula recognized the need to govern for all in his acceptance speech, which was much more measured than his normal bombastic fare, declaring he would work with politicians across the political spectrum and avowing that “there aren’t ‘two Brazils. We are a single country”
But speaking to his massed supporters on Avenida Paulista later, he admitted that his honeymoon period would be short.
Brazil’s fiscal position is weak, interest rates are sky high and the Congressional elections, which ran alongside the presidential race, returned a large conservative and evangelical bloc, which are natural adversaries.
Lula has little wiggle room and he sorely needs to take advantage of the political power at the start of term to establish his government, using all his political savvy to strike deals with the self-serving conservative politicians that make up the Centrão (the big center), which traditionally holds the balance of power.
In this context, the fact Bolsonaro probably won’t pass the presidential sash or help with
the transition of power, mirroring the actions of Trump, could put him back a valuable couple of months.
The certainty provided by an uncontested result will be welcomed by the business community. Meanwhile, commodities-rich Brazil has been partially protected from the havoc wreaked by the Ukraine conflict on many economies. But Lula and Brazil face substantial headwinds and challenges in the months ahead.