BRAZIL AFTER BOLSONARO

Brazil after Bolsonaro captures and presents the voices of a wide range of
stakeholders including academics and journalists in Brazil and abroad to
produce the first systematic engagement with Lula's latest presidency.
Providing fair and balanced perspectives on Lula, the authors examine
the legacy of Lula's previous presidency; what happened in the interim in
the eras of Rousseff, Temer, and Bolsonaro; and what are the challenges
facing a new Lula administration. This book is divided into three main
sections (Background to change, Context and issues, and Foreign policy)
and chapters detail the political, social, and economic dimensions of change
in Brazil and its wider repercussions. A fourth section sees Luís Guillermo
Solís Rivera, President of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018, offer reflections
on Lula from the perspective of a fellow president.
Assuming no prior knowledge and written in an accessible style, this
book is ideal for those seeking to further their understanding of
contemporary politics in Brazil and to learn the context and consequences
of the transfer of power from Jair Bolsonaro to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Richard Bourne is an author and retired journalist, who was formerly

education correspondent of The Guardian as well as a senior fellow at the
Institute for Commonwealth Studies. Bourne is author of several books
including Garibaldi in South America – an Exploration, Lula of Brazil – the
Story so Far, Assault on the Amazon, Getúlio Vargas of Brazil: Sphinx of
the Pampas, and Political Leaders of Latin America.
“This volume offers a timely and insightful overview of Lula's return to
office and the challenges faced by his new administration. The contributors
—including leading experts in the field—provide clear analysis of topics
including the political conflicts of the last decade, the persistence of
Bolsonarismo, and the politics of social spending, higher education, Black
representation, public security, human rights and environmental protections.
This is an extremely valuable contribution to understanding current Brazil,
both for specialists and a broader audience.”
Bryan McCann, Georgetown University
BRAZIL AFTER BOLSONARO

The Comeback of Lula da Silva

Edited by Richard Bourne

Designed cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2024
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Richard Bourne; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of Richard Bourne to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-1-032-52331-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-52330-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-40754-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546

Typeset in Times New Roman

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
CONTENTS

List of figures and tables

Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgements

PART I
Background to change

1 Lula and the PT in Brazilian politics, 1982–2022

Leslie Bethell

2 A new chance for Lula

Thomas Traumann

3 Why Bolsonaro failed, just

Oswaldo E. do Amaral do Amaral

PART II
Context and issues
 4 A tropical game of thrones: Courts and executive – legislative
relations from Bolsonaro to Lula
Marcus André Melo and André Régis de Carvalho

5 The return of Lula and the challenges facing Brazil's economy:

Will the chicken fly?
Edmund Amann

6 Social policies, poverty, and hunger in Brazil: The social and

institutional legacy of the Lula/Dilma governments
Paulo Jannuzzi and Natália Sátyro

7 A state of ignorance: Bolsonaro and Brazil's historic hostility to

mass education
Eduardo Bueno

8 Black identity, mobilisation, and politics in Brazil

Gladys Mitchell-Walthour

9 Crime, violence, and public security

Anthony Pereira and Renato Sérgio de Lima

10 Human rights: Public policies and systems before and after

Bolsonaro, and the challenge to rebuild them
Juliana Moura Bueno and Rogerio Sottili

11 Lula and Amazonia

Philip M. Fearnside

12 Lula's comeback: A new era for Indigenous peoples?

Fiona Watson
PART III
Foreign policy

13 Pink tide revisited: Bolsonarismo, social movements, and the

future of South American integration
Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa

14 Brazil in the world

Nelson Franco Jobim

PART IV
The perspective of another president

15 Personal reflections: A colleague's perspective on Lula

Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera

Index
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures
3.1 Evaluation of Bolsonaro Government (%)
6.1 Poverty and extreme poverty (in millions of people) Brazil 1992–
2021
6.2 Food insecurity (% population) Brazil 2004–22
9.1 Proportion of public security professionals by political and
ideological spectrum, 2010–2020 – Brazil
9.2 Percentage of policemen posting criticisms against democratic
institutions in relation to the total number of posts made by members
of the profession 2020, Brazil
9.3 Police Officer, are you against or in favour of the installation of a
military dictatorship in Brazil?
9.4 Are you pleased with the Bolsonaro government's policies in Public
Security?

Tables
3.1 Percentage of valid votes in the second round of the 2018 and 2022
presidential elections by region
3.2 Percentage of valid votes in the second round of the 2018 and 2022
presidential elections by sociodemographic groups
5.1 GDP growth and inflation, Brazil 1990–2022
5.2 Brazil: key social indicators, 1992–2020
CONTRIBUTORS

Edmund Amann is a Professor of Brazilian Studies, Leiden University.

Oswaldo E. do Amaral is a Professor and Director, Public Opinion Studies

Centre, University of Campinas.

is a Lecturer in International Relations, Cardiff

Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa
University, and a Research Associate in the Department of Politics and
International Studies at SOAS, University of London.

is an Emeritus Professor of Latin American History, University

Leslie Bethell
of London, and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, University of
Oxford. He is the author of books on nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Latin American – and especially Brazilian – political, social, and cultural
history and editor of the Cambridge History of Latin America (12 volumes,
1984–2008; also published in Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese).

Eduardo Bueno is a historian, journalist, and broadcaster, awarded the Ordem

ao Mérito Cultura. His historical works, including Brasil: Uma História
(2010), have sold over a million copies.

is a Research Professor at the National Institute for

Philip M. Fearnside
Amazonian Research (INPA), Manaus.
Nelson Franco Jobim is a commentator on international affairs in Rio de
Janeiro and former Professor of Journalism and International Relations at
UniverCidade.

Paulo Jannuzzi is a Full Professor at National School of Statistics of

Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

Marcus André Melo is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the

Centre for Public Policy, Federal University of Pernambuco.

holds the Dan T. Blue Endowed Chair at North

Gladys Mitchell-Walthour
Carolina Central University.

Juliana Moura Bueno is a human rights policy specialist and former chief of
staff to the Secretary for Human Rights in Brazil, 2015–2016.

Anthony W. Pereira,Director, Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean

Center, and Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations,
Florida International University.

André Régis de Carvalhois an Associate Professor of Political Science, Centre

for Applied Social Sciences, Federal University of Pernambuco.

is a writer, academic, former ambassador, and

Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera
politician who was elected President of Costa Rica for the PAC (Citizens’
Action Party) with an overwhelming second round majority and served
from 2014 to 2018. In the 1980s, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the
University of Michigan and advised Oscar Arias when he was negotiating
an end to the Central American crisis, for which Arias was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. Since leaving office, Solis has been Interim Director of
the Kimberley-Greene Center for Latin America and the Caribbean, Florida
International University.

Natália Sátyro is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political

Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
Renato Sérgio de Lima,
President, Brazilian Forum on Public Safety and Full-
Time Lecturer in the Public Management Department (GEP) of the Getulio
Vargas Foundation.

is a Director of the Vladmir Herzog Institute and was Vice

Rogerio Sottili
Minister for Human Rights, 2006–2020 and Secretary for Human Rights,
2015–2016.

Thomas Traumannis a Brazilian journalist with a master's degree in Political

Science at IESP-UERJ. He is a tenured scholar at the School of
Communication, Media and Information at the Getulio Vargas Foundation
(Ecmi-FGV) and a columnist for the outlets O Globo, Veja, and Poder360.

Fiona Watson is the Research and Advocacy Director, Survival International.

PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The drama of 8 January 2023, when a far-right mob trashed the buildings of
the Congress, the Supreme Court and, the Presidency in Brasília, woke the
world up with a shock. Brazil, once dismissed in a possibly apocryphal
remark by President de Gaulle as “not a serious country,” had sustained and
narrowly overcome an attack on its young democracy. Extreme populist
nationalism, promoted by Jair Bolsonaro, fanned by social media and the
example of Trumpist assault on the Washington Capitol two years earlier,
was alive and menacing in South America's largest state.
Only a week before, the change of government in Brazil had taken place
apparently peacefully, a transition from the far-right President Jair
Bolsonaro, who boycotted the ceremony, to a reelected leftist, Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva. But then, the Bolsonaristas organised a destructive “beach
party” in the capital, with sinister complicity from some of those in the
military and security organs paid to protect the state and its key institutions.
In a tough and united response, the leaders of the Congress and Supreme
Court, with all but one of state governors, joined Lula in denouncing this
outrage. The head of the Supreme Court, following a request from the
president, suspended Ibaneis Rocha, governor of Brasília, for permitting
mobs to camp outside key institutions. Anderson Torres, a former Minister
of Justice and in charge of the capital's security at the time of the assault,
was arrested for complicity. Lula sacked General Julio Cesar de Arruda, the
army commander appointed by Bolsonaro only 23 days earlier as the
outgoing regime plotted to hang on to power.
The collection of 15 essays which follows, by a range of specialists
tackling a variety of topics, aims to explain what has been going on: how
and why a democracy, still only 45 years old, was brought by intense
polarisation to face a nearly mortal challenge and survived.
Elected as president of Brazil in October 2022, but not yet in office, Lula
da Silva was already telling the world that his country was about to behave
very differently. He visited Sharm el Sheikh, where COP 27, the UN
climate change conference, was convening: he said he wanted Brazil to
become a leader in combating the climate crisis and halt deforestation in the
Amazon. A few weeks later, he sent a message to the UN biodiversity
conference in Montreal, COP 15, urging rich countries to pay to safeguard
precious plant and animal resources on the planet. The Kunming-Montreal
Global Diversity Framework made 18 references to the crucial role of
Indigenous peoples in guarding these resources and, at home, Lula said he
would set up the first department of Indigenous affairs, with an Indigenous
person as minister. In 2023, he did so – appointing Sônia Guajajara, a
respected activist from Maranhão.
President Lula, who served two terms of office from 2003 to 2010, was
described by President Obama as the most popular politician on the planet
when he stepped down. But he and his Workers’ Party, the Partido dos
Trabalhadores (PT), were then disgraced as part of an enormous corruption
scandal, the Lava Jato (Car Wash), and he spent 580 days in jail in the
southern city of Curitiba. This scandal, which ran from 2015 to 2021 with
massive publicity, originated with money laundering and embezzlement
from the state oil company Petrobras but swept up a wide range of
politicians in several parties including former presidents Fernando Collor de
Mello and Michel Temer and the construction firm Odebrecht and reached
into the rest of Latin America. Estimates of the total cost of the corruption
range from R6.4 billion to R42.8 billion (US$2–13 billion).
In essence, this was the pork-barrel politics of Brazil writ large, but
public and media fury against Lula and the PT, and Lula's successor Dilma
Rousseff coincided with an economic recession and expenditure on white
elephants left behind by the World Cup and Rio Olympics. Lula himself
was imprisoned on what he always argued were political charges – one was
that Odebrecht had built him a luxury apartment at Guarujá, and the charges
fell apart and were annulled when it was realised that Sérgio Moro, the
prosecutor who became Bolsonaro's first Minister of Justice, had
improperly intervened in his trial. Further, Lula should never have been
tried in the state of Paraná, for he was not a resident.
But public anger over Lava Jato fed the anti-politics wave which helped
Bolsonaro, an outsider, to get elected in 2018 when Lula was conveniently
in prison, unable to run. Propaganda linking Lula and the PT to corruption
was still a hostile factor in 2022, even though corruption and family
scandals surrounding Bolsonaro were also in the public domain.
Lula was first elected president at the fourth attempt in 2002. He was a
social democrat who had tempered his early radicalism, forged in building
an independent trades union movement, and in opposition to Brazil's
military dictatorship. His popularity at home, in the early years of this
century, rested on his success in bringing millions out of poverty,
principally through a welfare and education scheme, Bolsa Família, which
benefited poor families. A commodities boom raised GDP and incomes. He
sought to protect human rights and the environment and to offset centuries-
old racism.
Internationally he made Brazil, Latin America's most powerful state, a
recognised player on the world stage. He was seen as part of a wave of
leftist governments in the region, radical or reformist. He helped to found
the G20, the group of 20 powerful countries which included large
developing states as well as richer, western ones. He opened embassies
throughout Africa. He set up economic alliances with Russia, India, China,
and South Africa (BRICS) and a narrower South-South partnership with
India and South Africa (IBSA). His diplomacy opened doors which enabled
Brazil to host the FIFA World Cup in 2014, and the Olympics in Rio de
Janeiro in 2016, and the appointment of Brazilian officials to run the Food
and Agricultural Organisation and the World Trade Organisation.
Hence Lula's narrow win in presidential elections in October 2022, at the
age of 77 and after his sentence was annulled, raised understandable
expectations. Yet his previous terms were not without critics, and the air of
corruption attaching to him and the PT continued to haunt them. Much of
the international celebration after Lula's success, and in certain sectors in
Brazil, was due to hostility to and anxiety about his defeated rival, President
Jair Bolsonaro.
For Bolsonaro, nicknamed “Trump of the Tropics” represented a sharp,
far-right break with traditional conservative politics in Brazil. He was a
populist, whose team cleverly exploited social media and the disillusion of
a public worn down by several years of economic slowdown. As a
relatively obscure Congressman, he came into the limelight in 2016,
dedicating his vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, Lula's chosen
successor, to Colonel Ustra, a torturer for the former military dictatorship.
Rousseff, once a leftist guerrilla, had been captured in 1970 and tortured
herself.
Bolsonaro was a frank admirer of the dictatorship, who wanted to import
military personnel into all parts of government. He was a misogynist,
uninterested in human rights, keen to tear up safeguards for the
environment and Indigenous peoples which had provided precarious
protections for Amazonia. He wanted cattle and soya farmers, miners, and
dam builders to let rip. Dismissing coronavirus as “sniffles” his inept
response to the global pandemic saw some 700,000 Brazilians die
prematurely, and the health system overwhelmed. Significantly he was
supported by the growing twenty-first-century congregations of
conservative evangelicals, whereas Lula's religious affiliations lay with
mid-twentieth-century Catholic progressives.
Previous attempts by Lula and Dilma to challenge the historic racism and
wealth inequities in Brazil were abandoned or reversed by Bolsonaro, a fan
of free-wheeling, free enterprise capitalism. Internationally he turned Brazil
into a marginal force, ridiculed for a “peace mission” when he visited
Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin, after Russia had invaded Ukraine.
Had Lula been permitted to run against him in 2018, the polls indicated
that Bolsonaro, who wore his party affiliations lightly, would not have won.
However, Lula was not released from prison until November 2019, after
Bolsonaro had comfortably defeated Fernando Haddad of the PT, who was
a former Minister of Education, a former Prefeito (Mayor) of São Paulo,
and a rather lacklustre, last-minute candidate.
Everyone realised at the time that the election of Bolsonaro, two years
after Donald Trump had been elected on an extremely right-wing platform
as president of the United States, was equally dramatic for the western
hemisphere. Why and how did it happen? Fellow authors in this collection
have varied opinions. My own impression, visiting Brazil at the time of his
election, was that there were a mixture of reasons: the revenge of the
wealthy, allied to the disillusion of the middling and poor; a reaction to the
corruption in the political class and the PT in particular, symbolised by
attack advertising against the “corruPTos” in Bolsonaro's campaign; some
sympathy for Bolsonaro himself who had survived a near-fatal stabbing by
a deranged attacker when he was on the presidential trail; and a widespread
sense of exhaustion with both economy and political system that led voters
to reach wildly for something different and new.
The collection which follows this is designed to cover many of the issues
Brazil faces in its difficult transition from Bolsonaro to Lula. Lula is now
77, a survivor of jail and cancer, who first took office two decades earlier, in
a different era. Our authors were recruited and agreed to write before he
was reelected, in a gesture of support which I greatly appreciate. For family
and other reasons, I was unable to update my 2008 biography – “Lula of
Brazil – the story so far” – which appeared after he had won his second
term. This new book, with expertise beyond my own, is a fruit of my long-
standing concern for Brazil.
Writers here were invited to look at the challenges facing a new Lula
government in the context of the legacy of his earlier presidency, and the
intervening governments of Dilma Rousseff, the conservative Michel
Temer, and, especially, the disruptive term of Bolsonaro. They were asked
to avoid hagiography or demolition and to provide short, readable chapters
that will be appreciated by the general public as well as scholars. An earlier
working title, “Lula after Bolsonaro – dreams after nightmares?” had a
sceptical quality. It hinted at a likelihood that the hopes of his supporters
might not be realised, while, for many Bolsonaro voters, Lula seemed like
an even worse nightmare.
This preface is an opportunity to introduce, acknowledge, and thank all
contributors. The book is divided into four sections: Background to change,
Context and issues, Foreign policy, and The perspective of another
President.
In Background to Change, “Lula and the PT in Brazilian Politics, 1982–
2022,” Leslie Bethell describes the parabola of the PT, the party of Lula,
from its foundation to his reelection in 2022. Leslie, now resident in Brazil
where he is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, is an emeritus
Professor of London University and a doyen of Brazilian studies. Former
Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, London, and Founding
Director of the Centre Brazil Studies, Oxford, he is sole editor of the twelve
volume Cambridge History of Latin America.
In “A new chance for Lula,” Thomas Traumann, a political commentator
in Rio de Janeiro and public policy researcher for the Fundação Getulio
Vargas, argues that Lula won more because of Bolsonaro's failings than
because of his own qualities and that he was fighting to clear his name. But
after jail, his first wife's death, remarriage, and his illness from cancer, only
such a committed and resilient person would reenter the political fray in his
late seventies.
Professor Oswaldo E. do Amaral, Director of the Public Opinion Studies
Centre at the University of Campinas, analyses polling data to explain
“Why Bolonaro failed, just.” He thinks that it was the poor performance of
the economy, and of his government generally, that led to a narrow defeat,
following Bolsonaro's success in breaking the duopoly of two alliances led
by two major parties, the PT and Partido Social Democrático Brasileiro,
four years before. Corruption was an issue still helping Bolsonaro in 2022,
even though his family faced similar accusations.
In Context and issues, Marcus André Melo, Professor at the Federal
University of Pernambuco, and his colleague, André Regis, Associate
Professor, argue in “A tropical Game of Thrones: Courts and Executive –
Legislature Relations from Bolsonaro to Lula” that Brazil's unique
arrangements have helped it to survive the assaults and criticisms of
Bolsonaro. This highly constrained system combines a constitutionally
strong presidency with relatively strong checks and balances – in media, a
robust federalism, and fragmented political parties. What has changed is
that the judiciary and Congress have grown stronger, the presidency weaker,
and Lula now has a leftist cabinet facing a more right-wing and
conservative Congress.
In “Return of Lula and the Challenges Facing Brazil's Economy: Will the
Chicken Fly?” continuing economic weakness is addressed by Edmund
Amann, Professor of Brazilian Studies at Leiden University. He summarises
the volatile and disappointing performance of the economy over the longer
term and its failure to share the benefits in an unequal society. He asks
whether the new Lula administration can begin the reforms necessary and
whether Brazil can escape dependence on primary products and a “middle-
income trap.”
Paulo Jannuzzi, Professor at IBGE, the Brazilian National Institute for
Geography and Statistics, Campinas, is a social researcher and
demographer, working with Natália Sátyro, Associate Professor at the
Federal University of Minas Gerais. Analysing “Social policies, poverty
and hunger in Brazil: the social and institutional legacy of the Lula/Dilma
governments,” they show how a decade-long universalist and redistributive
strategy under Lula and Rousseff was dismantled over the following six
years by Temer and Bolsonaro. This led to seriously adverse results in
health, education and to social regression. The question now is whether, and
how far, a new Lula government can change the direction.
Education is discussed by Eduardo Bueno, a journalist, broadcaster and
historian based in Porto Alegre, in a challenging chapter entitled, “A State
of Ignorance – Bolsonaro and Brazil's historic hostility to mass education.”
His case is that education has been poor throughout most of Brazil's history
due to elite distrust of the majority of Brazilians and especially of how they
might vote. Lula, the first president without much formal education, began
to tackle the issue in his earlier administration, for instance by increasing
the number of federal universities and introducing quotas to assist black and
Indigenous students to enter. Bueno argues that, after a devastating period
for public education under Bolsonaro, Lula and his ministers face a huge
challenge.
In Black identity, mobilisation and politics in Brazil, Gladys Mitchell-
Walthour, a professor and specialist in Black movements in Brazil at North
Carolina Central University, describes how the discourse on race has
changed in the last 20 years. It has moved from one in which affirmative
action policies, in universities for instance, were seen as controversial, to
one in which quotas are seen as necessary. Black mobilisation helped
reelect Lula in 2022.
Anthony Pereira and Renato Sérgio de Lima write on “Crime, violence
and public security,” which has become a growing complex of issues in
Brazil with drug gangs, relaxed controls on gun ownership under
Bolsonaro, and Bolsonaro's politicisation of the military police (polícia
militar). Anthony Pereira is Director, Kimberley-Greene Latin American
and Caribbean Center, Florida International University and former Director,
Brazil Institute, King's College, London University. Renato Sérgio de Lima
is President, Brazilian Forum for Public Security. They analyse the structure
of policing, transformations since the street protests of 2013, and the
challenges facing Lula now.
“Human rights – public policies and systems before and after Bolsonaro,
and the challenge to rebuild them” are topics tackled by Juliana Moura
Bueno, a human rights policy specialist and former Chief of Staff to the
Secretary for Human Rights of Brazil (2015–2016) and Rogério Sottili,
Director of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, São Paulo. They describe a
trajectory of progress in policy and implementation under Lula, followed by
decline after the fall of Rousseff, and a strategy of conservative infiltration
of institutions by Bolsonaro, which led to a backlash in civil society.
“Lula and Amazonia” bring together pressing issues, followed
internationally by all those concerned by the global climate crisis. They are
addressed here by Philip Fearnside, Research Professor at the National
Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) at Manaus who has worked there
since the 1970s. He analyses Lula's earlier terms, including destruction
caused by huge dam projects, and lists his government's immediate
challenges in deciding whether or how to stop ongoing schemes, and halt
and reverse the accelerated deforestation under Bolsonaro.
The related question of the status and survival of the country's Indigenous
people, some of whom have supposedly protected territories, is considered
by Fiona Watson, Research and Advocacy Director, Survival International,
a campaigning non-governmental organisation where she has been the
country specialist for 30 years. In “Lula's comeback – A New Era for
Indigenous Peoples?” she lays out the problems left behind by Bolsonaro's
presidency; she warns that it will be difficult to turn the tide by the time
Lula completes his new spell in office in December 2026.
Two chapters are devoted to Foreign policy, where Lula's inveterate
travelling and skill at combining informal and formal diplomacy made him
a global celebrity in his first presidency. Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa,
who lectures on Latin American politics and development at Cardiff
University, writes about what the change in Brasília means for the region in
“Pink Tide Revisited – Bolsonarismo, Social Movements and the Future of
South American Integration.” Observing Lula's approach earlier, and what
has happened since, she comments on the state of regional integration and
the new power of social movements, of persons of colour, of Indigenous,
and of women.
The second chapter, “Brazil in the World” by Nelson Franco Jobim,
examines Brazil's role and opportunities in the wider world. Jobim, former
professor of journalism and international relations at UniverCidade in Rio
de Janeiro and broadcaster on world affairs, looks at Lula's earlier strategy,
when he brought China into BRICS and launched a diplomatic outreach to
Africa. With tensions and economic shocks brought on by the Ukraine
crisis, the greater salience of the climate crisis, and a stand-off between the
US and China, Lula faces fresh challenges.
The final chapter, of personal reflections from a colleague, Luís
Guillermo Solís Rivera, President of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018 and
recently interim Director of the Kimberley-Greene Center for Latin
American and Caribbean Studies at Florida International University, is of a
different character. His presidency coincided neither with those of Lula
before nor of Bolsonaro. But his human observations, combining the
perspective of a fellow President in Central America with admiration for
Lula and Dilma Rousseff when faced with a tide of abuse, is a testimony to
the warmth that Lula has long evoked.
I would like to conclude with a personal tribute. Without the patience,
love, and long-suffering nature of Juliet, my wife of 57 years, this and all
my other books would never have been possible, and I can never thank her
enough.
Finally, my thanks and acknowledgements go now to all the authors who
joined this enterprise when the outcome of the 2022 presidential election
was uncertain and to our publisher, Natalja Mortensen, senior Latin
American politics editor for Routledge. In addition, I wish to say a special
thank you to those confidantes who have been particularly helpful to me in
putting this collection together: Leslie Bethell, a friend for over 50 years;
Anthony Pereira, who first advised me in London before moving to Florida;
Nelson Franco Jobim, who was correspondent for Jornal do Brasil in
London when he joined me in Mozambique more than 20 years ago to
lecture on human rights to journalists there, after Mozambique had joined
the Commonwealth; Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa, who I first met when
researching my book – “Garibaldi in South America: an Exploration” – as
she is a descendant of the family of Anita Garibaldi; Tom Phillips, Latin
America correspondent for The Guardian, who has the job I fantasised
about when I was a reporter for the same paper in the 1960s; and Maria
Laura Canineu, Director of Human Rights Watch, Brazil, who assisted me
enormously when I was researching my 2008 biography of Lula and has
encouraged me since.
PART I

Background to change
1
LULA AND THE PT IN BRAZILIAN
POLITICS, 1982–2022

Leslie Bethell

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-2

Luiz Inácio da Silva, Lula, was born in October 1945, in the interior of the
state of Pernambuco in the Northeast of Brazil, the country's poorest region.
He was the seventh of eight surviving children of a poverty-stricken rural
family. In December 1952, when Lula was seven the family moved south to
São Paulo which was entering a period of rapid industrialisation. Lula had
only four years of primary school education and was illiterate until he was
ten. He became a metalúrgico (metal worker) as a young adult, and rose to
become in 1975, 30 years old, head of the metalworkers’ union of São
Bernardo do Campo in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. He was one of
the leaders of the major industrial strikes that took place in São Paulo
between 1978 and 1980 towards the end of Brazil's 21-year military
dictatorship (1964–85). And in February 1980, he was one of the principal
founders of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) (Workers’ Party).
With the aim of dividing the one “official” opposition party, the
Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB), in advance of the 1982
elections, the military allowed the formation of several political parties in
1979–80. The PT was the only party born outside Congress, without ties to
the traditional political class and, uniquely in Brazilian political history, a
party built from below. It brought together the leaders of the industrial
working class in São Paulo with progressive elements from the MDB,
activists from the Catholic Church's comunidades eclesiais de base,
survivors, predominantly Marxist, of the earlier armed struggle against the
dictatorship, students, and intellectuals from the Partido Socialista
Brasileiro (PSB), which was not legalised until the end of the dictatorship,
and, more importantly, from the Trotskyist Movimento Convergência
Socialista. The PT was an avowedly socialist party based primarily on
organised labour such as had emerged in Europe before the First World
War. But such a party founded 35 years after the end of the Second World
War – and with an industrial worker, Lula, as its leader – was unique not
only in Latin America but in most of the rest of the world.
In the relatively free federal, state, and (except in state capitals and a
number of other key cities) municipal elections in November 1982, the PT
secured only 3.3 per cent of the national vote, but elected its first eight
federal deputies, six of them in the state of São Paulo (which provided 72
per cent of the PT vote), and its first mayor in the industrial município of
Diadema in metropolitan São Paulo. Lula contested the election for
governor of São Paulo state and came fourth with 1.1 million votes (11 per
cent of the vote).
In November 1986, in the first Congressional elections after the peaceful
transition from military to civilian government in March 1985, and the first
elections in Brazil based on universal suffrage, since illiterates (20 per cent
of the adult population) had finally been given the vote, the PT elected 16
federal deputies from six different states, though all significantly in the
Southeast and South. These included Lula himself in São Paulo, with the
greatest number of votes (650,000) of any deputy, and Brazil's first black
deputada, Benedita da Silva, in Rio de Janeiro. And in the November 1988
municipal elections, the PT secured 30 per cent of the vote in the 100
largest cities in Brazil, and elected the mayor of São Paulo, and the mayors
of several municipalities in Greater São Paulo and the state of São Paulo,
together with the mayors of two other state capitals: Porto Alegre (Rio
Grande do Sul) and Vitória (Espírito Santo).
On 15 November 1989, Brazil held the first direct presidential election
for 30 years. Lula was the candidate of the PT which formed a Frente Brasil
Popular with the PSB and PCdoB (the Partido Comunista do Brasil which
had separated from the Partido Comunista Brasileiro, PCB, in 1962). In the
first round, the right-wing populist Fernando Collor de Mello (Partido da
Renovação Nacional, PRN) secured 30.5 per cent of the votos validos (i.e.
excluding the blank and spoiled ballots). Lula came second with 16 per cent
(11.6 million votes), narrowly defeating, by less than half a million votes,
Leonel Brizola of the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), the successor
of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB), the historic party of organised
labour, which was competing with the PT to be the principal party of the
Left. In the second round, Lula won an impressive 47 per cent of the vote,
31.1 million votes, but lost to Collor de Mello by four million votes.
Ironically, Collor was more successful than Lula and the PT in targeting the
poorest and least educated sectors of the Brazilian electorate, especially in
the North and Northeast.
During the 1990s, the PT steadily increased the number of seats it held in
the Chamber of Deputies: 35 in 1990, 49 in 1994, 58 in 1998. It also elected
its first senator in 1990, four senators in 1994, and three in 1998. In 1994,
the PT captured the governorship of the Federal District (Brasília), and in
1998 the governorship of Rio Grande do Sul. In the October 2000
municipal elections, the PT won in six state capitals, including São Paulo
(for the second time), Porto Alegre (for the fourth time), Recife in the
Northeast and Belém in the North, and half of the 60 cities with populations
of over 200,000. The PT had become a national party. It was the largest and
most successful party of the Left in Latin America. The presidency,
however, remained elusive. In both 1994 and 1998, Fernando Henrique
Cardoso of the Centre-Left Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira
(PSDB), backed by the Centre-Right Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), won
in the first round. Lula (PT), however, came second on each occasion and
increased his vote from 16 per cent in 1989 to 27 per cent in 1994 and 32
per cent in 1998.
In October 2002, at the fourth consecutive attempt, Lula was elected
president of Brazil with 39.4 million votes in the first round (46.4 per cent)
and 52.8 million (61.3 per cent) in the second round, comfortably defeating
José Serra, the candidate of the PSDB. Although it failed to win the
governorships of any of the eight largest states, the PT also became the
largest party in the Chamber of Deputies (with 91 seats, 18 per cent of the
total), the third largest in the Senate (electing ten senators, including five
women, and doubling its representation from 7 to 14), and made gains in
the elections for state assemblies throughout Brazil. It was widely regarded
as the most important victory for the Left in Latin America since the
election of Salvador Allende in Chile in September 1970.
But was the PT any longer a party of the Left? There were from the
beginning intense internal debates about the ideological nature of the PT,
brilliantly described by Celso Rocha de Barros in his new history of the
party. During the 1990s, the so-called Articulação, more social democratic
than socialist, came to have a majority in the party and to adopt more
moderate policies. The Convergência Socialista was expelled in 1992, and
the other groups on the socialist left of the party were increasingly
outmanoeuvred and, at least in decision making at the top, somewhat
marginalised. (Many of them left the party in 2004 to form an independent
party of the Left, the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade, PSOL). Lula's Carta
ao Povo Brasileiro (June 2002), while emphasising the need for social
policies to reduce poverty and inequality, abandoned the original PT project
for the radical social transformation of Brazil (even the use of the word
socialism). It committed a future PT government to the market economy
and orthodox economic policies: macro-economic stability, the control of
inflation, and fiscal equilibrium, that is to say, to a continuation of the
economic policies of the Cardoso administrations. Large numbers of voters
in the Southeast and South, who had voted for Cardoso in 1994 and 1998,
felt the failures of his administrations outweighed the undoubted
achievements, wanted a change, and found José Serra a less than
convincing PSDB candidate, voted for the PT in 2002 precisely because it
was seen to have moved to the centre ground. Moreover, Lula secured the
support of a major party of the Centre-Right, the Partido Liberal (PL),
which was offered the vice-presidency. The PT in power would avoid
conflict with the traditional political oligarchy and the economic elite in
banking, agribusiness, construction, mining, oil and gas – and would do
nothing to alarm international finance.
The Brazilian electoral system made it difficult for any party to secure
more than 20 per cent of the seats in Congress, and the PT in 2002 was no
exception, as we have seen. This led inevitably to presidencialismo de
coalisão (coalition presidentialism). In order to govern, Lula looked for
support from the smaller parties with some claim to be part of the Left
broadly defined: the PSB and the PCdoB, but also the Partido Popular
Socialista (PPS, ex-PCB), the Partido Verde (PV), and even the PDT (led by
Leonel Brizola until his death in 2004). And he maintained the coalition he
had formed with the PL. But this was not enough. Throughout 2004, there
were rumours that the PT was using, or rather misusing, funds from illegal
campaign donations and the budgets of state enterprises in a widespread and
organised scheme to buy votes in Congress. Dozens of deputies of Centre-
Right parties were receiving monthly cash payments in return for switching
to a party in the government coalition or at least supporting government
legislation.
When it finally broke in June 2005, the mensalão (big monthly
allowance) cash-for-votes scandal shook the government to its foundations.
Lula's Chief of Staff José Dirceu, the architect of the PT victory in 2002,
many of Lula's other top advisers, and senior figures in the PT were forced
to resign. There were calls for Lula's resignation or impeachment. He
survived because the main opposition parties feared being drawn into a
wider investigation into corruption, and because the PSDB was confident
that it would win back the presidency in the 2006 election. For Lula and the
PT, the political price of survival was the integration of the PMDB, the
major clientelist party of the Centre-Right, into its multi-party governing
coalition, which had until then been avoided. The PMDB would be offered
the presidencies of both houses of Congress and three ministries in the
second PT administration – and the vice-presidency in 2010.
The mensalão corruption scandal had not only undermined the credibility
of the PT as an “ethical” party; it had severely dented Lula's own
popularity. He nevertheless secured re-election in October 2006 with a
convincing second round victory over Geraldo Alckmin, governor of São
Paulo, the candidate of the PSDB, albeit with electoral support very
different from 2002. Lula won 61 per cent of the vote (58.3 million votes).
In the South, he lost to Alckmin (35–55 per cent). In the Southeast, he tied
with Alckmin (44–44 per cent), but lost in São Paulo (37–54 per cent).
Voters, especially middle-class voters, had turned against the PT because of
corruption and association with some of the worst elements in the old
political oligarchy. However, Lula won decisively in the Northeast (67–23
per cent), in the North (57–35 per cent), and in the Centre-West (51–35 per
cent). In 2006, unlike 2002, as André Singer and others have shown, Lula
was elected overwhelmingly by the poorest and least educated Brazilians,
especially in the North and Northeast. In the less developed 50 per cent of
Brazil's 5500 municípios, Lula secured 66 per cent of the vote in the first
round, 74 per cent in the second round. The social and regional base of the
PT had been dramatically transformed.
The PT victory in 2006 was the political dividend of four years of
improved economic growth (average annual growth of four per cent after
two decades of below two per cent), higher levels of employment in the
formal sector, annual increases in real wages above one per cent for the first
time since the 1970s, regular increases in the minimum wage above the rate
of inflation, and easier access to consumer credit for lower income families.
It was also due to the successful implementation of social policies like
popular housing subsidies (Minha Casa, Minha Vida) and, above all, the
introduction in October 2003 of the Bolsa Família (family allowance), a
comprehensive, but extremely modest, cash transfer of around US$55 a
month (close to the World Bank's extreme poverty line, a minimum income
of US$1.90 a day) to Brazil's poorest mothers conditional on children
attending school and receiving adequate health care. By July 2006, 11.4
million households (35 million Brazilians) were benefiting from Bolsa
Família.
Lula's second administration (2007–10) was notable for a further
improvement in the level of economic growth, largely a consequence of an
exceptionally favourable international environment for Brazil's agricultural
and mineral exports as a result of the commodities boom driven by China:
6.1 per cent growth in 2007, 5.2 per cent in 2008, only 0.3 per cent in 2009
(largely because of the international financial crisis, although Brazil
emerged relatively unscathed, not least because of a significant increase in
public investment), but then 7.5 per cent in 2010. Also the social welfare
programmes of the first administration were consolidated and considerably
expanded. For example, in 2010, 13–14 million families (45–50 million
people – a quarter of Brazil's population) were receiving Bolsa Família.
The PT governments (2003–10) were the first governments in Brazilian
history to make the eradication of poverty their main priority. And there
was undoubtedly a significant reduction in poverty in Brazil, from 35 per
cent to 20 per cent of the population (195 million in 2010). Thus, some 25–
30 million Brazilians were taken out of poverty, especially extreme poverty.
However, 35–40 million Brazilians still lived in poverty. Millions more
were living barely above the poverty line. After all, the minimum wage was
not much more than US$200 per month. Many Brazilian workers, perhaps
the majority, earned far less than the minimum wage, a half, even as little as
a quarter. At the same time, public goods had been seriously neglected.
Almost half the population of Brazil was living in extremely poor housing
without adequate sanitation, a large proportion without clean water. For
most Brazilians, standards of education and health remained totally
unsatisfactory. And there had been no significant redistribution of wealth,
and only a ten per cent reduction in inequality. The wealthy and the higher
income groups generally had in no way suffered. A more progressive
income tax regime, the eradication tax evasion and avoidance, a wealth tax,
an inheritance tax – these were never on the PT agenda. A reformist PT
administration had accomplished far less than the beginnings of the social
transformation of Brazil some had hoped for.
Nevertheless, in the first half of 2009, Lula's popularity was at an all-time
high (70–75 per cent approval). “The most popular politician on earth,”
President Obama called him. There was therefore considerable discussion
about whether Lula would introduce an amendment to the 1988
Constitution which would allow him to run for a third term in 2010. And
there was popular pressure, with slogans like “Queremos Lula” (We want
Lula), which echoed Getúlio Vargas's campaign slogan for election in 1945
after he had already been in power for 15 years, and “Mais Quatro” (Four
More Years). Although almost certain to win, Lula resisted the temptation.
“Eu não brinco com a democracia” (I don't play around with democracy),
he said; “eu sou popular, mas não populista” (I am popular but not
populist).
Instead, Lula successfully transferred his huge popular support to his
personally chosen successor, the 62-year-old Dilma Rousseff, whom the PT
had accepted as its candidate with some reluctance and some dissent. Dilma
was not a petista orgânica. An ex-urban guerrilla during the military
dictatorship, she had been for 20 years an active member of Brizola's PDT
in Rio Grande do Sul, and only joined the PT in 2000, becoming first Lula's
Minister of Mines and Energy and then his Chief of Staff. Dilma, “a
candidata de Lula,” and her running mate Michel Temer of the PMDB (see
above) won the 2010 presidential election, defeating José Serra, again the
candidate of the PSDB, with 47 per cent of the vote in the first round and 56
per cent in the second round – broadly the electoral support Lula had in
2006.
Under the PT administration of Dilma Rousseff (2011–4), the Brazilian
economy began to slow down as the commodities boom eventually came to
an end. There was also considerable macro-economic mismanagement
under the Nova Matriz Econômica, which was introduced in December
2012 but which had been signalled at the end of Lula's second
administration. The annual rate of growth declined sharply. And with the
economic downturn came the steady erosion of the social gains of the Lula
years. In June 2013, there were unprecedented and entirely unanticipated
mass demonstrations throughout Brazil protesting about the threat to living
standards and, primarily, about the poor quality of public services:
transport, health, education, housing, sanitation, security, etc. They were
broadly anti-establishment, and after 10 years in power the PT was the
establishment. In retrospect, June 2013 could be seen as the beginning of
what became a steady shift to the radical Right in Brazilian public opinion
during the following years. Dilma's approval rate, 77 per cent in April 2012,
fell below 50 per cent for the first time. It plummeted to 30 per cent a year
later with the beginning in March 2014 of the so-called Operação Lava
Jato (Operation Car Wash), a federal police investigation into a major
corruption scandal involving the state oil company Petrobras, private
construction companies (of which Odebrecht was by far the biggest),
political parties, and politicians across the political spectrum.
There was a strong suspicion that Lula was planning to contest the 2014
presidential election as was permitted under the 1988 Constitution. In the
event, despite the appearance of a movement in favour of his return (“Volta,
Lula”), he remained loyal to Dilma, the incumbent. In October 2014, with
Temer (PMDB) once again her running mate, Dilma Rousseff (PT) was
narrowly re-elected president, defeating Aécio Neves (PSDB), the former
governor of Minas Gerais, in the second round, 51.6 per cent of the vote to
48.4 per cent.
The first year of Dilma's second administration brought a dramatic
deterioration in Brazil's fortunes. The economy, which had grown only 0.4
per cent in 2014, contracted by 3.8 per cent (and would contract a further
3.6 per cent in 2016, thus making 11 quarters in succession of negative
growth for the first time in Brazilian history). Inflation rose to 10.6 per cent.
Official unemployment rose to 8.5 per cent (and would reach 11.8 per cent
in 2016, 13.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2017). Although always
difficult to measure, the number of Brazilians living in poverty increased,
perhaps by as much as 20 per cent. The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e
Estatística (IBGE) in December 2017 calculated that 52 million Brazilians
(25 per cent of the population) were living below the poverty line, 13.3
million (6.5 per cent) in extreme poverty.
At the same time, Operation Lava Jato gathered momentum. Prominent
PT politicians were arrested and jailed or put under house arrest. Dilma's
approval rate collapsed to single figures. In October, the PMDB, the largest
party in her multi-party coalition government, withdrew its support, and on
2 December initiated a process to impeach Dilma, technically for crimes of
administrative and fiscal responsibility. On 17 April 2016, 60 per cent of
the Chamber of Deputies voted for impeachment. And Dilma's political
career came to an ignominious end on 31 August 2016 when the Senate
voted 61–20 for her impeachment. She was replaced by vice-president
Michel Temer and a government of the Centre-Right, to serve until
December 2018.
The impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff was not about fiscal
irregularities (the notorious pedeladas fiscais, payments on the public debt
deferred for electoral benefit). Like most impeachments perhaps, it was
primarily political: the removal of a president who had brought Brazil to the
sorry state it was in at the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016 and lost the
support of both the Congress and the people. It was fiercely contested by
the PT, but even with its allies, the smaller parties on the Left and Centre-
Left, it had the support of only 25–30 per cent of Congress. Militant petistas
were to a large extent justified in regarding the impeachment of Dilma as a
golpe, albeit a parliamentary golpe, a conspiracy by politicians of the
Centre-Right and Right, many of them fearful of Operation Lava Jato, and
big business (domestic and foreign), which had long since broken its
original pact with the PT, to bring the political hegemony of the PT to an
end and to reduce Lula's chances of being elected president in October
2018.
 After more than 13 years, the PT found itself out of power, discredited,
demoralised, and in some disarray. Its economic and social achievements,
especially during the Lula years, were overshadowed by the corruption
scandals during its time in power (the mensalão and the petrolão), and the
economic mismanagement and political incompetence of the Dilma years.
In the municipal elections held in October 2016, the PT won in only 255 of
Brazil's 5500 municípios and polled 60 per cent fewer votes than in 2012.
Apart from Rio Branco, capital of Northern state of Acre, the PT failed to
win in any of the 92 state capitals and cities with populations of over
200,000. It lost 74 per cent of its municípios in the South-East, 57 per cent
in the South, 87 per cent in the Centre-West, and 67 per cent in the North. It
was virtually wiped out in the state of São Paulo, including the ABCD “red
belt” in the city of São Paulo, where the industrial working class, now in
decline, had formed the original social base of the PT. Even in the North-
East, its main stronghold, the PT lost 40 per cent of its municípios (although
only 28 per cent where half the electorate was in receipt of Bolsa Família).
In the turbulent first year of the Temer administration, hundreds of
politicians of all parties, including the president, faced criminal charges for
corruption. Lula himself was the subject of investigation by the federal
police into his role in the petrolão scandal and other matters. On 12 July
2017 in Curitiba, Paraná Sérgio Moro, the federal judge with principal
responsibility for Operation Lava Jato, sentenced Lula to nine years and six
months in prison for money laundering and active and passive corruption.
In January 2018, the regional court of appeal in Porto Alegre upheld the
original conviction and increased the sentence to 12 years and 11 months. It
was now unlikely that Lula would be allowed to run for president in 2018:
the 2010 Lei da Ficha Limpa prohibited candidates with criminal records
from running for public office for eight years. Lula's supporters argued that
his prosecution and imprisonment were entirely political, precisely aimed at
preventing him from being re-elected president. But further appeals failed
to overturn the judgement. On 7 April 2018, Lula began to serve his prison
sentence in the federal police headquarters in Curitiba.
Despite his jail sentence for corruption, Lula remained Brazil's most
popular politician. He insisted that he would contest the presidency in
October, and early in August he was officially named the PT's candidate. In
the opinion polls at the time, he had 39 per cent of the vote and was
projected to win in the second round. On 31 August, however, the Supreme
Federal Court declared Lula ineligible to run again for president, and in 11
September he was forced to withdraw from the race. Much too late it could
be argued, the PT was forced to nominate a substitute: Fernando Haddad,
former Minister of Education and former mayor of São Paulo. Haddad
began his campaign with only nine per cent support in the polls. He
eventually reached 29 per cent of the valid vote in the first round of the
election and a place in the second round with the extreme right-wing
populist candidate of the Partido Social Liberal (PSL), Jair Bolsonaro, who
secured 46 per cent of the vote.
Bolsonaro, former army captain and undistinguished federal deputy for
Rio de Janeiro for the previous 28 years, ran as an “outsider” – against the
traditional political elite and, above all, against the PT (“O PT nunca mais”
[The PT never again]). He benefited from what was now widespread anti-
petismo in the biggest cities and metropolitan areas of the South and
Southeast and the collapse of both the PSDB and the MDB (ex-PMDB) as
credible opponents of the PT. (The candidate of the PSDB polled 4.8 per
cent of the vote, the candidate of the MDB, 1.2 per cent.) And he did not
have Lula as his opponent. Bolsonaro offered a liberal economic agenda,
defended Christian conservative social values, and appealed to a certain
nostalgia for the military dictatorship. He was also the first presidential
candidate to make effective use of social media and “fake news.” And he
was the beneficiary of a certain amount of public sympathy after he suffered
a serious knife attack while campaigning three weeks before the election.
In the second round, the PT continued to have the support of the smaller
parties of the Left. (Haddad's running mate was Manuela d'Avila of the
PCdoB.) But it failed to form a frenta ampla against Bolsonaro with parties
of the Centre/Centre-Left, notably the PDT, whose candidate Ciro Gomes
had come third in the first round with 12.5 per cent of the vote. Haddad
increased his support from 29 to 45 per cent of the valid vote (47 million
votes), but was soundly defeated by Bolsonaro with 55 per cent (58 million
votes). It was the PT's first defeat in a presidential election since 1998. And
although after the Congressional elections the PT would have in 2019,
along with the PSL, one of the two largest bancadas in the Chamber of
Deputies, and had performed better than both the PSDB (29 seats, down
from 54) and the MDB, ex-PMDB, 34 down from 66), it had only 56 seats
compared with 69 in 2014 and 88 in 2010. In the Senate, the PT now had
only six seats compared with 12 in 2014 and 15 in 2010. (Two years later in
the October 2020 municipal elections, the PT elected the mayors of only
183 municípios, even fewer than in 2016 – and not a single mayor of a state
capital.) And although the PT remained a national party, with an
organisation and a membership the envy of the other political parties in
Brazil, the 2018 elections underlined the fact that since 2006 one region, the
Northeast, had gradually become its principal base. In the nine states of the
Northeast, Haddad won between 61 and 76 per cent of the vote; 21 of the
party's 56 deputies, four of its six senators, and all four of its governors
(Bahia, Ceará, Piauí, and Rio Grande do Norte) were nordestinos.
In June 2019, the online publication Intercept leaked information which
indicated collusion between the judge Sérgio Moro, who was now
Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice, and the chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol
in Lula's conviction for corruption two years earlier. In November, the
Federal Supreme Court ruled on a technicality that the federal court in
Curitiba had no proper jurisdiction in the case and that appeals to higher
courts had not been exhausted. Lula was released after more than a year and
a half in prison, though still stripped of his political rights. In March 2021, a
Supreme Court judge, while not determining whether Lula was innocent or
guilty, questioned the Curitiba court's impartiality, annulled his convictions,
forwarded the case to Brasília for re-trial (expected to be in the far distant
future, if ever), and restored Lula's political rights, including his right to run
for office. Lula had seriously considered retiring from politics, but in May
2022, 76 years old, he was actively campaigning for the presidency in the
October election, and in July the PT formally nominated him as its
candidate against Bolsonaro who was seeking re-election.
For the 2022 election, the PT established a federation with the PCdoB
and the PV and an alliance with the PSB, the PSOL, and a number of
smaller parties of the Centre-Left/Centre in a Frente Ampla (Broad Front).
And Lula chose as his running mate a well-known paulista Centre-Right
politician Geraldo Alckmin, his opponent in 2006 and Haddad's opponent
in 2018, who had switched from the PSDB to the PSB. As always Lula put
sustainable economic growth, the eradication of poverty, and the extension
of social programmes at the heart of his political message, emphasising his
achievements in 2003–10, and targeted the very poor, Brazilians earning
less than two minimum wages and, in view of Bolsonaro's well-known
misogyny, women. But in order to attract middle-class voters who were
historically anti-PT but now primarily concerned by the threat Bolsonaro
posed to Brazil's democratic institutions and to the Amazon rainforest, Lula
fought the campaign principally on two issues: democracy and, to a lesser
extent, the Amazon, on both of which his credentials were sound.
The Partido Liberal, Bolsonaro's party (he had left the PSL in December
2019 and, after two years without a party, joined the PL in November
2021), made an alliance with two other parties on the Right, the
Progressistas (PP) and the Republicanos (REP). Bolsonaro, who had a
rejection rate of 50 per cent at the start of the campaign, utilised to the full
the powers of the incumbent and the extreme Right's command of the social
media. He targeted middle-class and lower middle-class voters in the
Southeast and South, not least Evangelicals (30–35 per cent of the
population), with a campaign built once again on anti-petismo, especially
Lula's alleged corruption, anti-communism (sic), the PT's alleged desire to
turn Brazil into a Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Cuba, and the fascist slogan
“Deus, patria, família e liberdade.”
At the start of the official presidential campaign on 15 August, the two
leading opinion polls gave ex-president Lula a 13-point lead (45–32, 47–34)
over president Bolsonaro. And these numbers scarcely changed during the
seven weeks to polling day on 2 October. The eve-of-election opinion polls
gave Lula 50 per cent of the valid vote (and therefore the possibility of
victory in the first round) and Bolsonaro 36 per cent. The result was
therefore a huge surprise: Lula 48.4 per cent (57 million votes), Bolsonaro
43.2 per cent (51 million votes). Opinion polls on the eve of the second
round (30 October) again indicated a clear victory for Lula. However, the
result was an extremely narrow victory: Lula 50.9 per cent (60.3 million
votes), compared with 60 per cent in 2002 and 2006, Bolsonaro 49.1 per
cent (58.2 million votes. Support for Bolsonaro had been seriously
underestimated).
In the Congressional elections, the PT increased its seats in the Chamber
of Deputies from 54 to 68 (12 per cent of the seats), the same number it had
won in 2014 but still fewer than in 2002 (91) and 2006 (83). With its allies,
it could count on at least 125 seats. However, the PL would have 99 seats
(16.6 per cent) in the new Chamber, with its allies the PP and the REP 187
seats. In the Senate, the PT had increased it seats from seven to nine, with
its allies 14 seats. However, the PL had 14 seats, with its allies 23 seats.
Moreover, in 2023 supporters of Bolsonaro would govern 13 of Brazil's 26
states plus the Federal District (Brasília), including all three of Brazil's most
populated and economically developed states (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio
de Janeiro).
Lula returned to power on 1 January 2023 after an absence of 12 years,
the PT after seven years, albeit as one party, the dominant party, in a
coalition government. The challenges they faced were huge (far greater than
in 2003):
A deeply divided country (almost half the electorate had voted for
Bolsonaro); potential conflict between the PT and the other parties in
government; Centre-Right/Right majorities in both houses of Congress (to
govern Lula will have to do deals with at least three Centre/Centre-Right
parties); Centre-Right/Right governors in key states; the existence of an
extreme right-wing, neo-fascist bolsonarista movement inside and outside
Congress; a politicised military which had played a central role in the
Bolsonaro administration; a stagnant economy and an inherited fiscal deficit
timebomb; poverty as bad as ever (the IBGE calculated that in 2021, 60–70
million Brazilians, a third of the population, lived in poverty, 20–30 million
of them in extreme poverty); crises in education, health, and housing;
infrastructure deficiencies; public security concerns (and the urgent need for
gun control); issues, domestic and international, relating to the Amazon.
2
A NEW CHANCE FOR LULA

Thomas Traumann

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-3

“They tried to bury me alive. I feel like I've been resurrected,” Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva said in his victory speech in São Paulo, the night of 30
October 2022, after receiving 60.3M votes as against 58.2M for his
opponent, the then incumbent far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
A total of 1,150 days separate the afternoon of 8 November 2019 when
Lula da Silva left prison, and that of 1 January 2023, when he took up office
in Brasília again as president of Brazil for the third time. In those three
years of change, Lula went from prison to the presidential Palace in a
historic turnaround of destiny. Meanwhile, Brazil has turned upside down,
almost as much as Lula.
Lula's victory, by 51% to 49%, was by the smallest margin ever in
Brazilian presidential elections. Since Bolsonaro refused to concede, his
followers quickly began contesting the results, claiming _ without a shred
of evidence _ that the election had been rigged. The threat of a coup-d’état
at that moment was so high that, in the very first hours after the official
results came out, Lula received congratulatory calls from presidents all over
the world, from the United States to China, from Russia to Ukraine, to
diminish the risk.
 In the two months between election day and the inauguration, the country
went through weeks of tension, uncertain whether Bolsonaro would attempt
a tropical version of Trump's adventure on 6 January 2021. In the very first
week after the election, the bolsonaristas blocked federal roads. After that,
they set up camps in front of Army headquarters all over the country,
hoping to goad the military into a coup to prevent Lula from being sworn
in. When Lula finally did take office, on 1 January 2023, most people
thought the threat was over. Then, a week later, the bolsonaristas attacked.
The pro-Bolsonaro mob that invaded and ransacked Brazil's Congress,
Supreme Court, and presidential offices on 8 January was inspired by the
storming of the US Capitol on 6 January two years before, but there was a
crucial difference. While in the US the Army was clearly intent on staying
out of any involvement with the Trumpist riot, the Brazilian military played
a more ambiguous role in the Brasília assault. Less than two weeks after the
Brasilia assault, Lula fired the head of the Army, after he refused to restore
order in the ranks. The ambivalent loyalty of the Army is a sword of
Damocles Lula will have hanging over his head throughout his entire term.
To face a horrendous attack against Brazilian institutions during the very
first week of office, was a real shock for Lula and must have made him
understand how much Brazil has changed since he left the presidency at the
end of 2010.
The Lula years (2003–10) were symbolised by a cover of the British
magazine The Economist showing the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer
rising like a rocket, under the title “Brazil takes off.” Brazil's GDP grew
7.5% in 2010, inflation was low by the standards of the country and, during
Lula's term, more than 20M people overcame extreme poverty and another
30M reached a lower middle-class status. Four in five Brazilians approved
of the Lula government, the reason for which an envious Barack Obama
called him “the most popular man on earth.”
The boom didn't last long. With the effects of the global economic
downturn affecting the commodity market in the following years, the
Brazilian economy slowed down. Lula's successor, his former chief-of-staff
Dilma Rousseff still managed to get re-elected in 2014 but, right after that,
Brazil sank into its biggest recession ever. At the same time, prosecutors
started investigating corruption in the contracts of the state oil company
Petrobras involving dozens of politicians, many of them from Lula's
Workers Party, the PT, in the large-scale Operação Lava Jato (Car Wash
Operation). The combination of unemployment, inflation, and a major
corruption scandal caused millions of Brazilians to take to the streets.
Congress found a technicality based on which to impeach Rousseff in 2016.
Elected president in 2018, precisely because of his anti-Lula rhetoric,
Bolsonaro launched his government into a strategy of non-stop
confrontation, antagonising the Supreme Court, state governments, the
media, the scientific community, environmental activists, foreign leaders
(except for his idol Donald Trump) and, naturally, Lula.
So, while Bolsonaro united the right and the extreme-right around
himself, he made many enemies elsewhere, especially after his disastrous
handling of the Covid pandemic. It meant that any party with a viable
candidacy had a real shot at winning the 2022 election. So why was it Lula,
and not any other politician?
Lula had in his favour the reminiscence of the “good old times, when
even the poor could have a barbecue and a beer on Sundays,” as one of his
TV commercials put it. Nonetheless, with the wounds of the economic
crisis still unhealed and the corruption scandal fresh in people's minds,
those memories were not enough.
What Lula understood, before any other politician, was that the only way
to defeat this incumbent president – something unheard of in Brazilian
political history – would be by leading a broad political coalition that went
beyond the left and centre-left. He had to corner Bolsonaro.
Lula therefore invited a conservative politician Geraldo Alckmin, a
former direct opponent in the 2006 election, to be his running mate.
Alckmin was one of the founders of the PSDB (Partido da Social
Democracia Brasileira), the party that, since the restoration of democracy
competed with Lula and his Workers Party for the Presidency. Alckmin had
to switch parties to accept Lula's invitation and, in the second round PSDB's
most important figure, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, also
endorsed Lula.
During the campaign, Lula gathered the support of some one-time allies,
like environmental activist Marina Silva, and first-round adversaries, such
as senator Simone Tebet. All three – Alckmin, Silva, and Tebet – were
appointed ministers in the new cabinet. Lula ultimately won because he
represented more than just himself.
 Lula's trajectory is an epic. Seventh son of illiterate peasants from the
Northeast, the poorest region of Brazil, he started working as a child to help
his mother who had been abandoned by his father. Lula had no relationship
with his father, who died an alcoholic in 1978. He completed elementary
school, enrolled in a technical course to be trained as a machinist, and got a
job in the industrial belt of São Paulo, in São Bernardo do Campo. At 19
years old, Lula lost the little finger on his left hand in an accident, while
working as a press operator in the factory. When Lula was 26, his first wife
died in childbirth, as did the child.
He was so depressed after the tragedy that his friends found him a desk
job in the metalworkers’ union. There he found his talent for talking to
people, understanding what their concerns were, and how he could help
them. In 1975, not yet 30 years of age, Lula assumed the presidency of the
powerful metalworkers’ union.
In the biography “Lula and his Politics of Cunning,” the US historian
John D. French highlights how his trade union background formed the
backbone of Lula's signature style. French argues that, as a trade unionist
during the military dictatorship, Lula's character and style were forged in a
tense environment. Dialogues with adversaries were essential, such as when
he invited himself to explain his strike plans in 1978 to the São Paulo Army
Commander. After the meeting, the general gave interviews assuring
everyone that Lula was not a “communist puppet, but someone who just
wanted his workers to have better salaries.” The strike led to the first
victory for the demands of workers under the Brazilian military
dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. From then on, he became
known throughout the nation as “Lula,” a nickname for his given name
Luiz.
In the following years Lula founded the most important left-wing party in
Latin America – the Workers’ Party (PT); the largest organisation for
workers’ trade unions – the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT); and
ran and lost in three successive presidential elections in 1989, 1994, and
1998. After the third defeat, he told the Workers’ Party board he was “fed
up with losing.” He would only stand again if he, and not any party
committee, had control of the campaign. Without any other nominee as
popular as Lula, the PT gave in. He chose a billionaire businessman who
was a senator as his running mate, hired a skilled marketing and publicity
man, and won, promising Brazil he would be “Lulinha, Paz e Amor” (Little
Lula, Peace, and Love). It worked. He was elected in 2002.
An incident, which helps one to understand Lula's back and forth in
politics, happened in his second term. He was asked why he was endorsing
a tax bill that he had fought against for years while in opposition. “I'm not
ashamed to change my mind. I prefer to be a walking metamorphosis and
change whenever the facts change,” he said, quoting the chorus of
Metamorfose Ambulante, a 1970s Brazilian pop song by the writer Paulo
Coelho. The walking metamorphosis became a token of Lula's political
strategy.
However, which Lula is currently sitting on the presidential chair? The
shrewd negotiator that persuades adversaries into supporting him, the
centre-left political leader who had, in the same cabinet, both a banker and a
former guerrilla, a skilled politician from the 20th century, now pressured to
survive in a 21-century social media environment, or an angry ex-convict,
thirsty for revenge after being locked up for 580 days in Curitiba, in the
headquarters of the Federal Police in the state of Paraná? The most accurate
answer is probably “a little bit of each.”
As Brazil moved on while Lula was serving time, he also changed. His
hair got greyer and thinner. His voice became even raspier, resulting from a
larynx cancer from which he was declared free in 2012. While in prison he
learned one of his brothers died, but the judge didn't allow him to attend the
funeral. When his favourite grandson of only seven years of age died of
meningitis he was allowed to go but for only 90 minutes.
Although Lula remains the same friendly politician on the surface, who
talks to everybody, he became less trusting after his prison term. The
original sentence to more than 20 years on corruption charges was handed
down after a testimony given by one of his closest friends, who told the Car
Wash Operation prosecutors that Lula had participated in a corruption
scheme. The former friend never showed proof of these allegations, which
he made in a context of a plea-bargain deal. More cautious now, Lula relies
on fewer people and takes almost all his important decisions alone. One can
count the members of his administration's hard nucleus on the fingers of
one hand. And except for Vice-President Alckmin, they are all PT
members.
 Lula's centralising trait delayed political negotiations during and after the
campaign when forming his cabinet. Party leaders would refuse to speak to
other officials because they knew nothing could be done until Lula gave the
final word. Part of this comes from a generation gap. When Lula first
became president, his most important ministers were all PT founders like
himself. Twenty years later, he is the only one left.
When Lula appointed his political heir Fernando Haddad, a PT member,
as Finance Minister, he made sure to emphasise that, at the end of the day,
he would make the most important decisions. “The minister has a certain
autonomy, but I won the election. I know what's good for the people,” he
declared.
At the age of 77, Lula is the oldest politician ever to take up the Brazilian
presidential office, and he has publicly admitted that he will be a one-term
president. Four of his cabinet members are former presidential candidates:
Fernando Haddad (who ran as the PT candidate in 2018), Geraldo Alckmin
(2006 and 2018), Marina Silva (2010, 2014 and 2018), and Simone Tebet
(2022). Still, they all know that in this administration, there can be only one
star – Lula. This is a Lulacentric administration, where the power delegated
to each minister is a personal concession made by Lula that he can take
away at any moment.
The Lulacentric style could be seen from day one of his administration.
After Bolsonaro had fled to Florida days before his term ended, Lula
received the presidential sash from a 33-year-old Afro-Brazilian garbage
collector. He was joined on the ramp of the Planalto Palace by several
individuals intended to represent the soul of Brazil, among them an
Indigenous leader, a teacher, a metal worker, a human rights activist, an
artist, and a 10-year boy from a favela (slum). It was a memorable parade
but was more a representation of Lula's voters than of Brazil.
The parade was organised by Lula's third wife, sociologist Rosângela da
Silva, also known as Janja. Twenty-one years younger than her husband,
Janja is omnipresent since they made their relationship public. Officially
they first met in 2017, after Lula was already a widower from his second-
wife Marisa, who died from a stroke in February that year. Marisa was
Lula's wife for 44 years, raised their four sons, and though she had a strong
influence over her husband, she was extremely low-profile compared to
Janja. Lula's third wife is something else.
 During Lula's imprisonment, only his lawyers were allowed to visit him
on a regular basis. So Janja would give them a written note which they took
in the morning visits and received his answers when they came out. “Those
letters kept my hope alive,” he told a friend.
Besides Janja's letters and the lawyers’ advice, Lula's most important
connection with the outside world while he was in jail was a camp made
one kilometre from the offices of the Federal Police. For the 580 days, Lula
was in jail a dozen activists of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra
(Landless Workers Movement) held a camp to show their solidarity. Every
morning at 6 am they would yell “Good morning, President” to tell him he
wasn't alone. Janja attended the camp and adopted a mongrel female dog
that appeared there and called it Resistência (“Resistance”). The dog
climbed the presidential Palace with Lula and Janja at the inauguration.
A PT militant since the 1980s, Janja is not only from a different
generation than Lula but also has a distinct viewpoint on politics. She
convinced Lula that the addition of the conservative Alckmin to his ticket
should be counterbalanced by a speech to appease more left-leaning voters,
with a more aggressive tone against Bolsonaro. She also incorporated
environmental, gender, and race-related issues into Lula's discourse. During
the cabinet formation process, Janja vetoed a ministerial candidate accused
of violence against women and influenced the choice of the ministers of
Human Rights, Women's Issues, and Culture.
Janja became the voice of the common PT militant with access to the
president's ear. In a TV interview after the election, she said that her
inspirations as First Ladies are Evita Perón and Michelle Obama. When an
old friend told Lula that Janja was intruding on subjects that weren't hers,
the president answered, “Get used to it.” The leitmotiv of Lula's campaign
was to compare himself with Bolsonaro in many aspects. In one TV
advertisement, an angry Bolsonaro was symbolised as “hate,” while an
image of Lula kissing Janja represented “love.”
Their engagement was publicly announced in 2019 while the former
president was still in jail. At about that time, new evidence began to
surface, showing that the judge and prosecutors assigned to Lula's case
were permanently exchanging information about the matter, which is
prohibited by Brazilian law. In 2021, in a plot twist that only Brazilian
politics can generate, the Supreme Court deemed the judge biased and
annulled Lula's convictions, returning him his political rights.
Lula has always maintained his innocence and claims to be the victim of
a conspiracy by the judge, the prosecutors, and the political establishment to
stop him from running against Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential election.
The Supreme Court decision, however, didn't bury suspicions. A poll
undertaken by Genial/Quaest company one month before the 2022 election
showed that only 40% of Brazilians believed Lula was “completely
innocent,” less than the 51% who voted for him in the second round.
Clearing his name has become an obsession for Lula and is also a key to
understanding his new administration.
The country that Lula presides in 2023 won't respond to the same recipes
that worked in his previous two administrations. According to a definition
offered by political scientist André Singer, who worked as Lula's
spokesperson for four years, Lula's first two presidential terms between
2003–10 were marked by a “mild reformism.”
In his book “Os Sentidos do Lulismo” (The Meaning of Lulism), Singer
explains that “Lula was able to execute a vast and comprehensive
government action plan to reduce inequality without getting into clashes
with the financial elite and the status quo.”
While Lula's ability to achieve consensus out of discord is prized
worldwide, most PT party members think of it as a flaw. Lula and his party
are like different species that live in a symbiotic relationship. In the nine
elections held since 1985, Lula was PT candidate in six (in two he was
legally barred from running). Lula is much more popular and pragmatic
than his PT, born as an anticapitalist mass labour party that is still today the
most hated, and at the same time the most popular party in Brazil.
Lula and the PT depend on each other. Lula is a charismatic figure, in a
Weberian sense, who appeals to a much broader audience than the party
does. On the same day, he can have breakfast in a slum, lunch with a
teacher's union, and dine with agribusiness tycoons. Other PT members
wouldn't be welcome in the last event. But Lula also depends on PT's
superb party organisation and militants, and its loyal men and women in
Congress.
For a large portion of the PT, Lula's two terms did an extraordinary job in
getting people out of poverty but failed to politicise them, or make
structural changes to the Brazilian establishment.
In a second book, called “Lulismo em Crise” (Lulism in Crisis), about
Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, André Singer wrote that “Lulism, instead
of clarifying that the rise out of poverty of millions of Brazilians was the
result of PT public policies aimed at the popular classes, let the meritocratic
illusion, which divides workers, establish itself.”
For the PT, Lula's third term is a new chance to do these reforms.
The relationship between Lula and the establishment has been sour since
the economic recession faced by his successor, Rousseff. In the 2022
election, fewer businessmen were willing to declare their preference for
Lula than in 2002, when the PT's economic plans were still considered a
question mark. In the 2022 presidential campaign, Lula gave only a few
details regarding his economic policy, averring his previous administrations
proved he was committed to fiscal responsibility. The traders from Faria
Lima (São Paulo's equivalent to Wall Street as a financial centre), who
mostly favoured Bolsonaro, didn't buy it. After the 8 January events, they
were more concerned about whether Lula's reaction would worsen the
Brazilian fiscal framework than the risks of a coup-d’état.
Decades of anti-leftist indoctrination and 25 years of dictatorship have
made the Brazilian Armed Forces a challenge for every civilian government
since the restoration of democracy in the 1980s. Fernando Henrique
Cardoso reorganised the Armed Forces creating a Defence Ministry with a
civilian minister and establishing a tradition that was honoured by all the
PSDB and PT governments.
Lula won a truce, because his first two governments supported most of
the military's projects, from building a nuclear submarine to a joint venture
to develop new FX jets and taking a leading role in the UN peacekeeping
mission in Haiti. But this was before Bolsonaro, a retired Army Captain
who for 20 years had defended military interests as a Congressman, became
an important figure. As president, Bolsonaro appointed over 15 former
military officers as Ministers or CEOs of state-owned companies, exceeding
the numbers even during the dictatorship.
During Bolsonaro's term the Army became a part of his power project. At
the request of the president, the Defence Ministry investigated the
electronic voting machines and, though no malfunction, let alone tampering
was found, the final report was vague enough to breed conspiracy theories
among Bolsonaristas. Even so, most of the Armed Forces’ high command
refused to join Bolsonaro and intervene against the electoral result while he
was in power. To keep that Constitution-abiding majority is now a crucial
challenge for the new Lula administration.
Since Lula's second electoral victory in 2006, Brazilian presidential
elections have shown a clear geographical split: in the Northeast, where the
effects of Lula's social policies were felt the most, the region
overwhelmingly chooses the PT; in the South and Midwest, conservative
regions that live from the agribusiness, the people vote for anyone other
than the PT. Presidential elections are traditionally decided by the
Southeastern region, which concentrates over 40% of the country's
electorate, including the country's two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de
Janeiro.
However, what used to be an electoral alignment became a true point of
political friction under Bolsonaro's administration. In 2022, choosing
between Lula and Bolsonaro was no longer a mere electoral preference
anymore, but rather became a statement of identity. A non-white Catholic
woman, receiving less than twice the value of a minimum wage would
almost certainly vote for Lula, while a white farmer in the South would
surely be a Bolsonarista.
Several pieces of research show that Brazilian society was divided in
multiple ways: by income groups, the poor preferred Lula, and as the
average income grew, the number of Bolsonaro voters increased with it; by
gender and race, most women and voters who identified as black or non-
white chose Lula; by religious affiliation, evangelical voters
overwhelmingly supported Bolsonaro.
Research published after the election by the Genial/Quaest company
revealed that 90% of Brazilians believed the country came out of it divided.
Moreover, pro and anti-Lula voters disagreed on basically everything: from
educational choices for their children to abortion rights, from firearms to
privatisation, from taxing churches to gay marriage, and from military
interference to civil disobedience.
Forget about that old myth of a lively country where soccer and carnival
are remedies capable of turning sorrows into joy. Instead, Brazil today is an
embittered country, divided by adamant opinions and uncompromising
positions. Brazil has become a Latin American version of the polarisation
between Democrats and Republicans in the United States.
More than half of Bolsonaro's voters have told researchers that, if they
had a choice, they would leave the country to avoid living under Lula's
administration. More than one-third of Brazilians told researchers that they
would be unhappy to have a child married to someone from the other side
of the political spectrum. Almost one in every seven Brazilians said they
broke relations with friends or family members for political reasons during
the election period.
These divisions are overexposed by social media, a camp that
Bolsonarismo has mastered. One in four Brazilians say their main source of
information comes from social media, and among the Bolsonaristas that
number climbs to 40%. Bolsonaro had almost three times more followers
than Lula on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Tik-Tok, and his
leverage during the campaign was much bigger than these figures suggest.
It was through the Bolsonarista social media ecosystem that conspiracy
theories were born and weaponised. Two of them were decisive to the
January 8 assaults: an imaginary plot on the part of the Supreme Electoral
Court to help Lula's election, and an erroneous interpretation of the
Constitution, according to which the Army could intervene in the
institutions to restore order in situations of nationwide chaos. The brand-
new PT government was unprepared to monitor these threats.
However, this is not an exclusively Brazilian phenomenon, though. In
their book “The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the
Challenge to American Democracy,” political scientists John Sides, Chris
Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vareck perform an autopsy of the American
electoral campaign in 2020, which featured Democrat Joe Biden running
against the incumbent Republican Donald Trump. The authors portray the
race as an evolution from the concept of polarisation to that of
“calcification,” as if political ideas had become so hardened that it is
impossible to change them. This is how they describe it:

As it does in the body, calcification produces hardening and rigidity:

people are more firmly in place and harder to move away from their
predispositions. Growing calcification is a logical consequence of
growing polarisation, but the concepts are not identical. Polarisation
 means more distance between voters in opposing parties in terms of their
values, ideas, and views on policy. Calcification means less willingness
to defect from their party, such as by breaking with their party's president
or even voting for the opposite party. There is thus less chance for new
and even dramatic events to change people's choices at the ballot box.

Borrowing this US concept, Lula is now the president of a calcified

country. Half the country's voters do not – or even worse, do not want to –
understand what the other half thinks. It is a calcified country, divided
between two preconceived worldviews in which there is no room for
agreement.
During the 20 years the PSDB and the PT dominated the political arena
there was an “us against them” feeling, and as bad as it was, it still admitted
the existence of the other. Now, it has become a division where both sides
feel that they are the only ones with the legitimate right to represent Brazil.
It's a situation where the existence of someone else, with opposing opinions,
is no longer admitted.
Understanding the extent of political calcification among Brazilians is the
main challenge of the Lula government, not only for his administration but
also for the entire Brazilian establishment. The new Congress will be under
more pressure, patience with new state governors will be short, media
coverage will be challenged by the public from day one, and companies will
have difficulty positioning their brands. Brazil's calcified opinions are a
dilemma for all Brazilians.
To come back under such a nerve-wracking situation requires grace under
pressure. Lula has shown this before. During his first term, he survived a
political scandal called Mensalão (big monthly payment), a scheme of
monthly bribes to Congressmen to vote with the government. In his second
term, major Brazilian companies were caught in dangerous hedge risk
positions during the 2008 world financial crisis. Brazil came out of that
crisis better than most countries in what Lula defined as a “little wave,
while the rest of the world is suffering from a tsunami.”
He had a singular approach when things got personal. When it became
clear that the Car Wash Operation prosecutors would seek a prison term,
many friends advised him to leave the country and avoid putting himself at
the mercy of a predictably biased trial. He angrily refused. When the arrest
warrant was issued, he went back to the same Metalworkers Union in São
Bernardo do Campo where he began his career in the 1970s. Thousands of
PT militants surrounded the building and objected to his arrest and Lula had
to calm people down, telling them he would turn himself in to the police
and would come back as innocent. In a speech emulating Martin Luther
King, Lula said:

“I am no longer a human being, I am an idea mixed with your ideas,” he

proclaimed. “My ideas are already in the air, and no one can lock them
down. Now you are millions of Lulas.”

This almost messianic approach to what lay ahead kept Lula's myth alive,
even in prison.
In the interview book “A Verdade Vencerá” (The Truth Shall Win),
released just before his arrest in 2018, Lula jokingly said that he feared
returning to the presidency after his previous successful tenure because he
did not want to “finish like Michael Schumacher,” referring to the seven-
time F1 champion driver, who attempted a comeback and wasn't able to
regain his former level of performance. However, he changed his tune
during the campaign: “I have to be better than I was in my previous tenure,”
he vouched.
Successful comebacks are rare in politics. After serving two terms as
president, Theodore Roosevelt tried to defeat his successor Willian Taft,
splitting the Republican vote and getting Woodrow Wilson elected in 1912.
In Brazil, Getulio Vargas, a nationalist dictator between 1930 and 1945,
came back as “the father of the poor” in the democratic 1950s. Popular and
populist, Vargas governed besieged by an opposition that united the
business establishment, the media, and the military. In one of Brazil's most
dramatic events, Vargas killed himself in 1954.
Winston Churchill made his way back to 10 Downing Street in 1951,
after his surprising electoral loss in 1945. A warrior dealing with peaceful
times, Churchill made a low-profile comeback, aside from his Literature
Nobel Prize in 1953. Charles de Gaulle, on his return, brought back political
stability in his second chance in power. He changed the French
Constitution, creating the Cinquième Republic that is still the French
political system. He stepped aside in the aftermath of the 1968 May protests
and a referendum about another change in the Constitution. Coming back is
never simple.
Lula is back but which Brazil will he govern? Political violence became a
top issue and avoiding a repetition of the January 8 is of the essence.
Ensuring the loyalty of the Armed Forces will be a day-by-day test. Brazil
faces a severe fiscal challenge, while millions have voted for Lula to restore
social programmes and federal funding. The PT pressurises the president
for a more reformist administration, but there is no majority in Congress or
in society clamouring for a move to the left.
The country is deeply divided by gender, region, religion, and beliefs.
Right after the storm over Brazilian key federal buildings, there were a few
days of national unity, but it didn't take long before the Bolsonarista social
media ecosystem convinced his followers that Lula's government had
deliberately given days off to the security forces to allow the invasion and
painted themselves as “victims.” It's a false claim, but the fake news spread
around and was repeated by Bolsonaristas all over the country. In Brazil
there is no room for dialogue, just the one thing at Lula excels at more than
anyone.
There is an undertone of Greek epic in Lula's return to political power, 20
years after his first electoral victory, 12 years after finishing his presidential
term as a hallowed figure, and a little over three years after leaving prison.
Lula returns like Ulysses, finally reaching Ithaca after many years of war,
misadventures, and disasters. In Homer's epic poem Odyssey, the kingdom
of Ithaca is filled with unruly suitors competing for Queen Penelope's
throne and bed. Ulysses was able to defeat all of them because he was the
only one capable of handling the old bow and arrow he had left behind
when he sailed for Troy.
Back in power, Lula will try to prove that he is the only one capable of
bending the bow of popular desires. Once again. This is his last chance, and
he has no room for error.
3
WHY BOLSONARO FAILED, JUST

Oswaldo E. do Amaral

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-4

Introduction
In a statement now considered historic and frequently quoted, President Jair
Bolsonaro said at an official meeting at the Brazilian embassy in
Washington D.C., at the beginning of his term, that: “Brazil is not an empty
lot where we intend to build things for our people. We have to deconstruct a
lot of things. Undo a lot of things. After that, we can get things underway. I
hope to serve, at least, as a turning point.”1
During the most severe period of the pandemic, when Brazilians were
dying by the hundreds every day, more than once the President downplayed
the impact of Covid-19. Speaking against the effectiveness of vaccines, he
declared: “if you take the vaccine and turn into an alligator, I have nothing
to do with it.” In a statement that even led to an investigation by the Federal
Police, he said: “official reports from the UK government suggest that those
fully vaccinated (…) are developing Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) much faster than predicted.”2
In 2021, the country reached record levels of poverty with 29.6% of
people living below the poverty line, resulting in over 63 million Brazilians
(Neri, 2022). While the country needed to develop effective public policies
to deal with this situation, the president said: “Brazil is broken, and I can't
do anything about it.”3
The Bolsonaro government was, by any measure of public policy
evaluation, the worst post-redemocratisation government. After three
disastrous years of public administration in the context of fighting a
pandemic, failing to protect the poorest and most vulnerable populations,
and develop controversial public policies, in January 2022 Bolsonaro
entered the race for re-election as an underdog. Fifty percent of voters
evaluated his administration negatively – only 22% of voters had a positive
perception. In no sociodemographic stratum did the administration's
positive evaluation outweigh the negative, not even among evangelicals, an
important constituent base in 2018 in the election of the retired Brazilian
Army captain. Regarding voting intention, support for the Workers’ Party
(PT) and their candidate, former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (also
known as Lula) led with a wide advantage: 45% for Lula versus 21% for
Jair Bolsonaro – 9% of the voting intention was for the candidate Sérgio
Moro, the former judge who led the anti-corruption Operation Lava Jato.4
Ten months later, at the end of October, the election results showed a
very different scenario. In the most disputed presidential election in the
history of Brazil, Lula won with 50.9% of the valid votes. Despite
everything the country went through between 2019 and 2021, Bolsonaro
was almost re-elected, which probably would have had irreparable cost to
Brazilian democracy and the progressive public policies developed since
the end of the country's authoritarian military regime (1964–85).
It is no simple task to explain why Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in the
2022 elections. It was certainly not a “typical” election. For the first time
since redemocratisation, a President was unable to be re-elected in Brazil,
even using every advantage available to the incumbent. Also, in an
unprecedented way, the current President in the Planalto Palace faced a
former President.
This chapter argues that a combination of three factors contributed to the
defeat of Jair Bolsonaro by only a narrow margin: on the one hand, the poor
performance of the federal government in the development of public
policies coupled with the incumbent running against the popular leadership
of a former President with two highly evaluated terms acted to reduce the
President's chances of re-election; on the other hand, the economic recovery
in 2022 amplified by the manipulation of the electoral legislation made the
incumbent, considered practically defeated a year before the elections,
become a competitive candidate.
To explore this argument, the chapter is divided into four parts. In the
first part, we briefly present some of the outcomes of Bolsonaro's
administration and governance in the areas of health, education, and the
environment. In the second section, we tell the story of the 2022 elections
and the economic recovery. In the third part, we analyse Brazilians at the
polls considering the geographic and social division of society into two
camps: Lula's constituents and Bolsonaro's. Finally, in the fourth section,
we present our final considerations.

The Bolsonaro administration: Health, education, and the

environment
At the time of writing the present chapter, Brazil is approaching 700,000
deaths caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. In comparative terms,
the country ranked second in the number of deaths per capita in Latin
America, behind only Peru. Among the 20 most populous countries in the
world, Brazil and the United States led the ranking of deaths per number of
inhabitants.5 These figures show the brutal dimensions of the humanitarian
tragedy that befell the South American country, especially in 2020 and
2021.
With a strong tradition in pro-vaccination policy since the 1970s and with
a public health service with national coverage, the country could have
performed much better in its vaccination efforts had it not been for some of
the federal government's misguided decisions. The president of the republic
and some of his ministers minimised the impact of the pandemic. They
refused to take the lead in drawing up public policies that would lessen the
impact of the virus, such as restricting social gatherings, promoting mass
testing and masking, and issuing mandates across states and municipalities
to coordinate these measures – many of which would have insufficient
resources to implement such policies.
 Moreover, the prevalence of a discourse marked by unfounded denial of
the efficacy of the first vaccines available on the international market
delayed the country's investment in them. Rather, the government defended
the use of drugs widely known to be ineffective in the treatment of the
disease, such as hydroxychloroquine. In a letter sent to The Lancet, an
epidemiologist estimated that more than 150,000 deaths could have been
avoided in Brazil (Hallal, 2021, pp. 373–74), in 2020, if the government
had acted correctly.
As if the disastrous actions of the government in the context of the
pandemic were not enough, the Bolsonaro administration maintained an
austerity policy in the area of health, underfunding, and dismantling
important programmes in the area of primary care. The Mais Médicos
programme, which sought to expand basic health care in places with little to
no access to these services, was discontinued, and the teams of the Family
Health Strategy (Estratégia de Saúde da Família) began to receive fewer
resources (Oliveira & Fernandez, 2021). As a result, the number of primary
care physicians fell from 14.7 to 13 per 100,000 inhabitants and maternal
mortality rates increased by more than 70% between 2018 and 2021.6
The area of education suffered from the combination of “ideological
warfare” and underfunding between 2019 and 2022. The two first ministers
responsible for this sector, Ricardo Vélez and Abraham Weintraub,
represented a more ideological wing of the government, for which it was
essential to foster a “culture war” against the supposed left-wing values
present in society, along the lines of what the populist extreme right
preaches in other parts of the world. A manifestation of this strategy was
the hatred and permanent public condemnation of the educator Paulo Freire
– perhaps the best-known Brazilian intellectual in the world – who was
presented as the ultimate symbol of a “leftist” pedagogue bent on
degenerating the country and bequeathing to it only backwardness.
In this context, the ministry's main proposals were the implementation of
literacy through the purportedly less ideological phonic method, the
implementation of civic-military schools, the weakening of public
education networks, and the financial strangulation of federal universities,
treated as a breeding ground for doctrinaire communists. As a result, the
ministry distanced itself from the community of educators and public policy
makers who had been making proposals and debating the direction of
educational curricula and public education in the country since the advent
of the 1988 Constitution. This distancing and administrative
mismanagement led to programme discontinuity and a reduction of federal
spending on education (Abrucio, 2021).
The Bolsonaro government cut spending the most in the areas of
education and science and technology. Between 2019 and 2022, the
Ministry of Education had 20% of its approved budget reduced, while cuts
in the Ministry of Science and Technology totalled 44%. These budget
reductions particularly affected the National Fund for the Development of
Education (Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação), the entity
responsible for implementing actions and programmes in Basic Education,
which saw an average budget reduction of 27.5% under Bolsonaro's
government. Federal universities, in turn, saw their budgets reduced by
15%, on average, in the same period (Luz, 2022).
While concerns for the preservation of the environment and climate
change became central themes in the main global forums, in Brazil, under
the Bolsonaro administration, they became the object of attention due to the
dismantling of regulations and monitoring and regulatory agencies built in
the previous 30 years to promote environmental conservation efforts.
A statement made at a government summit in April 2020 by the then
Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, today is infamous: “There
needs to be some effort on our part (…) so we can drive these cattle, change
all the rules, and simplify the laws.”7 Salles’ logic was quite simple: with
public opinion caught up in the effects of the onset of the pandemic, the
time had come to interfere as much as possible in environmental monitoring
and regulation and to change all kinds of rules in such a way as to bypass
the Brazilian National Congress.
Since the beginning of his mandate, Bolsonaro sought to weaken the
institutional framework for environmental protection (Hochstetler, 2021).
As soon as he took office, he tried to transfer all the functions of the
Ministry of the Environment to the Agricultural sector. Rebuked by major
exporters concerned about international markets, Bolsonaro acted to
weaken important bodies. In 2019, he questioned the deforestation data
released by the internationally recognised National Institute for Space
Research (INPE) and dismantled the National Council for the Environment
(CONAMA), the agency responsible for defining standards in the area.
Following the strategy of institutional dismantling without necessarily
changing legislation, the Bolsonaro administration's financial and
administrative strangulation of government agencies such as the Brazilian
Institute of the Environment (IBAMA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for
Conservation of Biodiversity (ICMBio), which were unable to exercise
their environmental oversight and protection functions. During the
Bolsonaro government, notifications of violations against the environment
dropped by around 40% and deforestation increased both in the Legal
Amazon and in the Cerrado, breaking records in 2022.8
The list of problems with public policy management under the Bolsonaro
administration is immense. The rate of child malnutrition increased, no
Indigenous lands were established as acknowledged and protected, and
investment in sports and culture was reduced, among other indicators. The
challenge of the next section is to illustrate the poor government
performance between 2019 and 2022 and the narrow margin of defeat in the
presidential election.

The 2022 presidential elections

The electoral cycle that ended in 2022 was perhaps the longest and most
intense in the post-redemocratisation period. First, because since winning
the election in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro had not stopped campaigning explicitly
for re-election, acting in line with the populist playbook. He spent four
years seizing every opportunity to attack political rivals and keep his most
captive voter base mobilised. Almost every day he used the exit of his
official residence, Palácio da Alvorada, to send messages to his supporters
and would promote engagement through his social networks by making
controversial statements. His work schedule was often reduced to travelling
around the country to inaugurate unimportant public works or to participate
in military ceremonies of various kinds.
A legal ruling allowed Lula – the pre-candidate and opinion poll leader
who in April 2018 had been arrested on corruption charges as a result of
Operation Lava Jato (Car Wash) – to recover his political rights and run in
the 2022 electoral race, which had not been possible four years before. In
the previous election, his candidacy was deemed unfeasible and the
Workers’ Party (PT) put Fernando Haddad on the ballot, who was
ultimately defeated by Bolsonaro in the second round.
In June 2019, the press began to release a series of articles and evidence
that Operation Car Wash acted outside the parameters of the law at various
times, controversially conflating the roles of the prosecution and the
judiciary. In November of that year, a decision by the Federal Supreme
Court (STF) allowed Lula to leave prison after 580 days. In the first half of
2021, the STF annulled the convictions of the PT leader and decided that
Sérgio Moro had acted suspiciously in the trial.
The Bolsonaro government entered 2022 with the worst approval rating
since 2019, with more than 50% of respondents stating that the
administration was bad or terrible (Figure 3.1). When looking at the data
prepared by Instituto Datafolha, an opinion polling company, it is possible
to identify four shifts: (1) an increase in the negative assessment of the
government until June 2020; (2) an improvement in voter perceptions in the
second half of 2020; (3) followed by a consistent rise in negative ratings
through early 2022; (4) finally, an improvement in the positive evaluation
throughout the election year.

Long Description for Figure 3.1

FIGURE 3.1 Evaluation of Bolsonaro Government (%)

Source: Datafolha Institute. Data available at http://www.datafolha.com.br
 It is difficult to separate the elements that fully explain these movements.
However, they seem to respond, in large part, to the performance of the
economy in the country in the period, in particular the levels of
unemployment and Brazilians’ average income. In the first year of the
Bolsonaro government, expectations of a rapid improvement in the
economy were frustrated. Unemployment fell by just 0.6 percentage points,
remaining above 11% and average earnings practically did not change.9
During 2020, it is possible to see a reversal in the government's
assessment in the second half, despite the advance of the pandemic across
the country and the resulting economic problems, such as the increase in the
number of deaths, the reduction in economic activity and the increase in
unemployment to around 15%. As Zucco and Campello (2021) noted, it is
very likely that the improvement in the perception of government action
was due to the distribution of emergency aid in a total amount of 293 billion
reais (about 3.8% of GDP) benefiting about 68 million people, reducing
poverty to the lowest levels in 45 years, and raising average income by
around 5% in a short period of time.
With the end of emergency aid in December 2020, the economic situation
deteriorated very quickly. Inflation advances, reaching 10%, and the
average income drops to the worst levels of the historical series that started
in 2012. The slow recovery in employment levels was not able to outpace
the worsening in the day-to-day situation of Brazilians, and poverty and
misery levels rose rapidly. As a consequence, the assessment of the
Bolsonaro government reached its worst levels.
In the election year, the scenario changed slowly. Inflation subsided, the
unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%, the lowest level since 2015, and
average income rose again, growing by 6% precisely during the election
period. Part of this improvement was due to public spending and tax cuts
carried out by the government with the aim of producing a quick sense of
well-being and increasing its chances of electoral success.
In a typical case of an electoral economic cycle (Campello & Zucco,
2021, pp. 194–207), the government managed to approve a constitutional
amendment (EC 123) that declared the country in a “state of emergency”
due to the “extraordinary and unpredictable” increase in fuel prices and
ended legal restrictions on increasing spending in a year of presidential
elections. In just three months, the government increased the amount of the
“Auxílio Brasil” income transfer programme, granted resources to truck and
taxi drivers, increased the subsidy for families to buy gas, and reduced taxes
on fuel. The estimated expenditure in the three months prior to the elections
with these measures was around 68 billion Brazilian reais (0.7% of GDP).10
As it usually works in presidential regimes, responsibility for improving
voters’ living conditions fell on the president's lap (Campello & Zucco,
2021). The negative assessment of the government fell from 45% to 39%,
and the positive, rose from 28% to 38%, between August and the end of
October. In parallel, voting intentions for the president also grew during this
period.
Since Lula's convictions were overturned, the forecast of political
analysts was that the electoral dispute would take place between the PT
candidate and Jair Bolsonaro. It would be very difficult to break with this
duality, given the popularity of Lula and the PT, the only organisation with
robust party identification in Brazil, and the strength that the incumbent had
in the presidential race, especially as a representative with little regard for
the rules of the democratic game. All the other candidates who tried to
appear as a “third way,” such as Ciro Gomes, from the Democratic Labour
Party (PDT), and Simone Tebet, from the Brazilian Democratic Movement
(MDB), foundered during the electoral campaign and never managed to rise
above double digits in the polls.
Lula's campaign focused on presenting the former president as the leader
of a broad front in defence of democracy who is capable of restoring public
policies to prominence and bestowing on citizens the economic well-being
experienced in his first term in office, between 2003 and 2010. To do so, the
PT managed to get Geraldo Alckmin, a politician with a more conservative
background, former governor of the state of São Paulo, and former
candidate for the presidency in 2006, to accept the nomination for vice-
presidency on Lula's ticket.
On the side of Jair Bolsonaro, there was an attempt to exempt the
president from economic problems with the justification that the
government faced an extremely adverse exogenous scenario, with the
pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Along the same lines, Bolsonaro's
campaign tried to propagate the narrative that the president was unable to
act during the pandemic due to a decision by the Federal Supreme Court
that would have stripped powers from the federal government. Something
that was not true, given that the court only ensured that states and
municipalities could act to combat the pandemic in the absence of actions
by the national executive branch.
The pro-Bolsonaro campaign also mobilised anti-PT sentiment, a
rejection of the PT that grew rapidly from 2014 onwards (Samuels &
Zucco, 2018), by appealing to the public's memories of the corruption
scandals that occurred during the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government and the
conservative agenda linked to social values, especially those connected to
sexuality and reproductive rights. In 2018, this was an important asset of
Jair Bolsonaro's campaign, mobilising evangelical voters as well as
conservative sectors with a more authoritarian political profile (Amaral,
2020; Rennó, 2020; Chaguri & Amaral, 2023).
In this context, of the predominance of two candidates, the electoral
results brought the second-round dispute into the first: Lula had 48.4% of
the valid votes, and Bolsonaro, 43.2%. All the other nine candidates did not
add up to 10%. In the long, four-week second round, nothing substantially
changed between the sociodemographic groups and Lula was elected with
50.9% of the valid votes.

What came out of the polls? 2022 election results

The 2022 presidential election consolidated some divisions in the electorate
that had already appeared in the 2018 election. In this section, we analyse
data on the votes received by Jair Bolsonaro and the PT candidates
Fernando Haddad and Lula in the second round, in 2018 and in 2022. For
this, official data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and two waves of
the Brazilian Electoral Study (Eseb), carried out shortly after the last two
presidential elections, are used. As this is a post-electoral survey study, the
percentage of votes that respondents indicated for each candidate shows
little variation in relation to official data.
Like Fernando Haddad, in 2018, the only region of the country in which
Lula won was the Northeast region (Table 3.1). In both elections, the
candidates from the PT had more than twice as many votes as Jair
Bolsonaro. Since 2006, this region became the “stronghold” of PT
candidates, rewarding the party for public policies that provided a
significant improvement in living standards between 2003 and 2014. Four
years earlier, in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro won in the other four regions, but by
small margins. In the Southeast region, the most populous and economically
developed region in the country, Lula obtained 11 percentage points more
than Fernando Haddad, and this advance was fundamental for his victory.
TABLE 3.1 Percentage of valid votes in the second round of the 2018 and 2022 presidential
elections by region

Fernando Haddad Jair Bolsonaro (2018) Lula (2022) Jair Bolsonaro (2022)
(2018) (%) (%) (%) (%)
North 48.1 51.9 49 51
Northeast 69.7 30.3 69.3 30.7
Centre- 33.5 66.5 39.8 60.2
west
Southeast 34.6 65.4 45.7 54.3
South 31.7 68.3 38.2 61.8
Brazil 44.9 55.1 50.9 49.1
Source: Electoral Superior Tribunal (TSE)

Individual-level data also show that Lula won more votes in 2022 than
Fernando Haddad in 2018 across all sociodemographic groups (Table 3.2).
Data from the last Eseb portray important divisions among Brazilian voters.
Lula obtained more vote intention among women, Blacks (Black/Brown
voters), Catholics, and voters with only elementary school education as well
as their higher education-level peers. Jair Bolsonaro, in turn, received more
mentions among men, whites, evangelicals, and those who completed high
school.
TABLE 3.2 Percentage of valid votes in the second round of the 2018 and 2022 presidential
elections by sociodemographic groups
Fernando Haddad Jair Bolsonaro Lula (2022) Jair Bolsonaro
(2018) (%) (2018) (%) (%) (2022) (%)
Sex
Male 35.1 64.9 47.9 52.1
Female 46.5 53.5 57.5 42.5
Education
Elementary 45.4 54.6 61.0 39.0
Middle 37.3 62.7 45.2 54.8
High School 39.7 60.3 53.0 47.0
Race
 Fernando Haddad Jair Bolsonaro Lula (2022) Jair Bolsonaro
(2018) (%) (2018) (%) (%) (2022) (%)
Black/Brown 44.0 56.0 55.4 44.6
White 33.8 66.2 49.1 50.9
Other 41.6 58.4 66.7 33.3
Religion
Catholic 45.1 54.9 58.6 41.4
Evangelical 30.2 69.8 34.4 65.6
Other/None 49.3 50.7 67.3 32.7
Some
Total 41.0 59.0 52.8 47.2
Source: Brazilian Electoral Studies (ESEB) from 2018 to 2022. Data available at the Center for
Studies on Public Opinion (Cesop/Unicamp). http://www.cesop.unicamp.br

The combination of positive recollection (recall) of the Lula

administration (2003–10) and the Bolsonaro administration's mistakes in
several key areas help to understand these numbers. The PT leader found
strong support among voters with less schooling and Blacks, those
characterised as poorest and who most benefited from public policies
during the PT's administrations, as well as among women, who suffered
most from poor coordination and management of the areas of public health
and education under Bolsonaro, especially during the pandemic, when these
women became primary caretakers of elderly family members and children.
Bolsonaro won among those who benefited most quickly from the
economic recovery in 2022, men and voters who studied up to high school,
and among evangelicals, a group that has always supported him since the
previous election due to his commitment to the conservative agenda in the
area of social values.

Final considerations
Why did the Bolsonaro administration fail? Or rather, why, for the first time
in Brazil, did an incumbent fail to be re-elected president of the republic? In
an election as tight as the 2022 presidential race, it is difficult to isolate just
one aspect that explains the result. In this chapter, the approach adopted was
to analyse Lula's victory as the result of a sum of elements or necessary
conditions, as political scientists like to call them.
 It is interesting, however, to start by discussing why Bolsonaro almost
won, even after the administration's disastrous response to the pandemic
and its dismantling of several public policies in the areas of education and
the environment, among others. The incumbent almost won due to the
economic recovery in 2022 fuelled by public spending. In a poor country,
where the majority of the population struggles to get by, materialist
concerns overlap with post-materialist ones. Improvements in economic
conditions are more important, for most voters, than policies on the
environment and on gender and racial inequality, for example. Had the
election been two months later, would Bolsonaro have won if the pace of
economic recovery was sustained? It is hard to answer.
Bolsonaro was also defeated because he made many mistakes during his
government. He failed to meet the people's expectations of improvements to
their living conditions. Moreover, he contributed to the deaths of hundreds
of thousands of people and to the collapse of the health system during the
pandemic. As if that did not suffice, he failed to develop any effective
public policy programme. In other words, his administration was
objectively bad. If his government hadn't been so bad in these areas, would
Bolsonaro have won? In combination with the economic recovery, his
victory would have been likely.
Finally, the president faced, as a candidate, the most important popular
leader and political figure of the last 60 years in Brazil: Lula, the former
president who ended his first two terms with more than 80% approval and
who had a concrete platform to run on to counteract the incumbent's poor
performance. What if Lula had not been run against Bolsonaro? The latter is
likely to have been re-elected.
The 2022 elections in Brazil point to interesting aspects about
autocratisation processes in more recent democracies. The first is that
authoritarian leaders, once elected, will not play the democratic game
according to the established rules. They will consistently try to subvert the
rules in order to perpetuate their tenure in power. In the case of Brazil,
among other initiatives, this was evident with the manipulation of rules that
allowed excessive spending in an election year.
The second aspect stems from the first and points to the difficulty of
removing an autocrat from power by democratic means. Were it not for the
combination of factors we mention here, Brazilian democracy would have
been at serious risk of a second term for Jair Bolsonaro. However, these
conditions are not always present in other recent democracies.

Notes
1. Website: https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2019/03/18/nos-temos-e-que-desconstruir-muita-
coisa-diz-bolsonaro-durante-jantar.ghtml.
2. Website: https://www.metropoles.com/webstories/as-frases-mais-polemicas-de-bolsonaro-em-
2021.
3. Website: https://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2021/01/05/o-brasil-esta-quebrado-eu-
nao-consigo-fazer-nada-diz-bolsonaro-a-apoiadores.ghtml.
4. The polls used in this text were carried out by Quaest Consultoria e Pesquisa and are available at
https://lp.genialinvestimentos.com.br/nas-eleicoes2022/.
5. Data obtained at http://ourworldindata.org, on 25 December, 2022.
6. Website: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2022/12/indicadores-do-brasil-pioram-sob-
bolsonaro-que-encerra-governo-sem-marca-positiva.shtml.
7. Website: https://www.poder360.com.br/governo/salles-sugere-ir-passando-a-boiada-para-mudar-
regras-durante-pandemia/.
8. Website: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2022/12/indicadores-do-brasil-pioram-sob-
bolsonaro-que-encerra-governo-sem-marca-positiva.shtml.
9. Data related to economic activity were produced by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics (IBGE) and are available on their website.
10. Data available at https://valor.globo.com/politica/eleicoes-2022/noticia/2022/10/21/pacote-de-
bondades-tem-impacto-de-r-68-bi.ghtml.

References
Abrucio, Fernando. “Bolsonarismo e educação”. In: Avritzer, Leonardo; Kerche, Fábio; Marona,
Marjorie (Eds.), Governo Bolsonaro: retrocesso democrático e degradação política. Belo
Horizonte: Autêntica, 2021, pp. 255–270.
Amaral, Oswaldo E. do. “The Victory of Jair Bolsonaro According to the Brazilian Electoral Study of
2018”. Brazilian Political Science Review, 14 (1), 2020, pp. 1–13.
Campello, Daniela; Zucco, Cesar. The Volatility Curse: Exogenous Shocks and Representation in
Resource-Rich Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Chaguri, Mariana; Amaral, Oswaldo E. do. “The Social Base of Bolsonarism: An Analysis of
Authoritarianism in Politics”. In: Latin American Perspectives pp. 32–46 January 2023.
Hallal, Pedro. “SOS Brazil: Science Under Attack”. The Lancet, 397, 2021, p. 373–74.
Hochstetler, Kathryn. “O meio ambiente no governo Bolsonaro”. In: Avritzer, Leonardo; Kerche,
Fábio; Marona, Marjorie (Eds.). Governo Bolsonaro: retrocesso democrático e degradação
política. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2021, pp. 271–286.
Luz, Joyce. “Os cortes na educação no atual governo”. In: Observatório do Legislativo Brasileiro, 14
December 2022. Available at: https://olb.org.br/os-cortes-na-educacao-no-atual-governo/
Neri, Marcelo. Mapa da Nova Pobreza. Rio de Janeiro: FGV Social, 2022
Oliveira, Vanessa Elias; Fernandez, Michelle. “Política de saúde no governo Bolsonaro: desmonte e
negacionismo”. In: Avritzer, Leonardo; Kerche, Fábio; Marona, Marjorie (Eds.). Governo
Bolsonaro: retrocesso democrático e degradação política. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2021, pp.
287–302.
Rennó, Lúcio. “The Bolsonaro Voter: Issue Positions and Vote Choice in the Brazilian 2018
Presidential Elections”. In: Latin American Politics and Society, 62(4), 2020, pp. 1–23.
Samuels, David; Zucco, Cesar. Partisans, Antipartisans, and Non-Partisans: Voting Behavior in
Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Zucco, Cesar; Campello, Daniela. “O paradoxo do coveiro”. In: Revista Piauí, 30 March 2021.
Available at: https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/o-paradoxo-do-coveiro/
PART II

Context and issues

4
A TROPICAL GAME OF THRONES
Courts and executive – legislative relations from
Bolsonaro to Lula

Marcus André Melo and André Régis de

Carvalho

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-6

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva stated during the presidential race that his
opponent, Jair-Bolsonaro, looked like the “Court's Jester,” and “does not
wield control over anybody.” He claims that “Bolsonaro is a hostage of the
National Congress, Bolsonaro does not even take care of the budget, the
one who takes care of the budget is [House Speaker Arthur] Lira, this never
happened.”1 This surprising accusation is an oxymoron: how an undeniably
authoritarian ruler can be simultaneously a powerless buffoon?
Interestingly, the accusation sheds light on the institutional factors
explaining why Brazil's democracy has survived Bolsonaro. More
importantly, it points to the challenges facing Lula's new term of office.
Until Dilma Rousseff, presidents operated in Brazil in an equilibrium
with a highly constrained political system characterised by constitutionally
strong presidents, relatively strong checks and balances and media, robust
federalism, and hyper-fragmented party systems. Because presidential
parties typically amass less than 15% of the legislative seats, presidents
have to build oversized coalitions involving dozens of political parties,
resorting to a tool box consisting of “coalition goods” (Raile, Pereira and
Power 2011): pork (in particular budgetary amendments) and positions in
Cabinet portfolios and state-owned enterprises. Since the constitution of
1988 was enacted “the strong president equilibrium” shifted towards a
weaker form of executive dominance, in which the legislative and judicial
branches were empowered. Will Lula manage to shatter this equilibrium?
On top of those institutional constraints, corruption, poverty, and
inequality are permanent features of the political landscape. More recently,
bitter polarisation has become the most important feature of the political
environment and will continue to be so; Lula's slim margin of victory
suggests that will not disappear smoothly.
Lula 3 will face institutional structures that were present in his past
administrations, but the challenges now are formidable. While the
multiparty presidential regime remains unscathed, the executive branch is
much weaker now while Congress is both institutionally stronger and more
conservative. The right turn in legislative elections exacerbates the
difficulty for a weaker presidency. Also, political fragmentation has
decreased (the effective number of political parties is down to 9.8, from
16.4, in 2018) in the wake of the 2017 political reform, which imposed
stricter minimum threshold for access to legislative rights. Parties are much
wealthier too as a result of the distribution of electoral campaign funds
amounting to USD 1 billion.
The extreme recent polarisation matters: bargaining and accommodation
across different ideological camps, which is a prominent feature of
Brazilian politics, is much more difficult in the present context. Lula 1 and
Dilma 1 and 2 were characterised by oversized and extremely
heterogeneous coalitions (which included, for example, politicians and
bishops from the Universal Church of God's Kingdom)
New important contextual elements compound the difficulties:
inflationary and fiscal pressures arising from the post-covid scenario and
the Ukrainian War contrast with that created by the optimistic expectations
surrounding the commodity boom of the 2000s.
 This chapter offers an overview of these features and will highlight issues
of continuity and change in Lula's third stint as president in relation to Lula
1 and Lula 2. It focuses on Executive-Legislative relations under Bolsonaro
and discusses how they will play out in Lula's administration, but shows
that the picture is incomplete at best if it doesn't consider the role of a
much-empowered judicial branch in the process.

The rise of a weak strongman

Bolsonaro's rise to the presidency was the product of a perfect storm: the
combination of a gargantuan corruption scandal and an unprecedented crisis
resulting from economic mismanagement and the demise of the commodity
boom. The fallout was a window of opportunity for an outsider of sorts –
Bolsonaro was in his 7th term of office as a lacklustre congressman, who
had changed parties seven times. Bolsonaro chose one of the Brazil's
microparties for hire – the PSL – to run for the presidency in 2018 and
consistently counted with the support of a core group of firebrand online
militants, amounting to 15% of the electorate. This was enough to secure
him a place in the runoff, when he benefited from PT's high rejection
among voters and won by a 10% lead.
Bolsonaro's victory reflected a problem of supply in the political market
rather than demand: PT's arch rival party in the previous races – the PSDB
– was also hurt by corruption scandals involving its leader Aécio Neves.
Although Bolsonaro repeatedly bashed the political horse trading of
coalitional presidentialism as dirty pork (velha política), there was no
demand for a radical right politician like him, except from an insignificant
constituency. He certainly tapped into the “abashed right” (Power 2000),
which became politically voiceless since the end of the military regime and
into the rapidly growing neopentecostal Evangelicals constituency. But the
core authoritarian Bolsonaristas are a relatively small – though noisy and
unwieldy – group.
A large group of congressmen rode Bolsonaro's coattails to victory, but
he and his loyal followers left the party, which merged with the Democrats
(a centre-right party) to found União Brasil. Bolsonaro remained in that
party for half of his term of office, counting on a cacophonic group of
supporters which he accommodated in the state bureaucracy only to see
them departed when they become dysfunctional after he sought the
Centrão's legislative shield against an impeachment. A heterogeneous group
of over 200 centre-right and some radical right legislators, the Centrão core
consists of three parties – PL, Progressistas, and Republicanos – along other
small parties whose main characteristic is its relentless progovernment
stance and non-programmatic, rent-seeking behaviour, which is a product of
its size and pivotal position in the political spectrum.
Bolsonaro's mismanagement of the pandemics and his son's accusations
of illicit activities made the rapprochement with the Centrão a matter of
political survival, a move that culminated in the dismissal of one of the
bulwarks of his presidency, former judge Sérgio Moro. In his second year in
office Bolsonaro's dropped his rejection of parties and antisystem rhetoric
and morphed into an entirely new political animal: a firebrand president in
alliance with ancien régime's political bosses of the Centrão, which he
decried during his campaign.
Bolsonaro alienated an important electoral constituency – the Lava Jato
supporters – while building a key legislative constituency with the Centrão.
This alliance proved very successful when it secured the speakership of the
House in early 2021, leading also to an array of legislative victories.
The architect of the new strategy candidly described the metamorphosis
and its legislative impact: “we met with party whips and said: do you want
to participate in the government? And started building this parliamentary
base. From that moment onwards (April 2021), we managed to pass our
agenda.”2
Covid was Bolsonaro's achilles heel while paradoxically providing him
with the opportunity to introduce the Auxílio Brasil, a version of Bolsa
Família on steroids: a monthly transfer thrice the value of Bolsa extended to
a third of the country's population. Social spending sustained the
competitiveness of Bolsonaro in the tight race against Lula. Along with the
so-called orçamento secreto (OS, or secret budget), which enhanced
legislative power of the purse, social transfers boosted Bolsonaro's support
and mitigated anti-incumbent sentiment associated with the pandemics and
the poor economy.
The OS got its name from the fact that a large chunk of the government
funds that line ministries could allocate freely (rubric RP 2) were put under
the discretion of the budget commission rapporteur (rubric RP 9), which
could allocate them freely in non-transparent and murky dealings with
Congress leaders (a third type of rubric is RP 1, which are mandatory
budget amendments proposed by individual lawmaker or state delegations).
Bolsonaro's hyperdelegation of executive budgetary powers to the
Centrão in the OS led Lula to accuse him of being a powerless court jester.
Lula's benefited from his mismanagement of the pandemics and from
calamitous outcomes in the area of environment and education. He also
exploited voters’ rejection of Bolsonaro's authoritarian rhetoric and the
threat he posed to democracy.
The legislative outcomes reinforced the pattern of weak presidents and
strong legislatures: the parties of the Centrão (PL, Progressistas, and PR)
secured nearly 40% of seats in the lower house, while the left secured 23%.
Centrist parties (MDB, União Brasil, and PSD) account for most of the rest,
making this group a pivotal player in the formation of the Lula's
government. Lula's vote in the northeast contrasts markedly with the
legislative outcomes in the region, which favoured centre right and Centrão
candidates. Lula got 70% of the vote in northeastern states but the PT
candidates for the Senate and Lower House fared poorly in the region. In
the state of Pernambuco, Lula's home state the PT got one seat out of the
state's 25 deputies. Similar outcomes can be found in the northeastern states
of Paraíba, Alagoas, and Sergipe. The share of votes of the Centrão in the
region is similar to the national pattern (36%); however, all four elected PT
governors hail from the northeast. The regional fault line is reflected in the
formation of the new ministries: four former northeastern governors have
been appointed to key ministries. Governors, however, have also lost
powers vis-à-vis the legislators, the only exception being the São Paulo
governorship which commands vast resources and employs more people
than the federal government.
Despite Lula's victory, the elections of 2022 point to a highly polarised
and fractured country. The right turn in Congress compounds governability
issues. The divorce between Lula's vote and the PT vote underscores Lula's
dependence on the centrist parties, which, however, is not enough to reach
the supermajorities needed for constitutional amendments; the Centrão
parties will enjoy veto powers and could block Lula's agenda in moral
issues and culture as well as in many areas of tax reform.
 Bolsonaro in his first two years and Lula 3 share three important
commonalities that explain part of their weaknesses: they do not count on
significant legislative support from large parties/electoral coalition; nor
enjoy the backing of governors of rich states; and they both have to deal
with high levels of rejection in the electorate amidst intense polarisation.
But off course there are marked (non-ideological) differences between
the two presidents. While Lula is the quintessential political negotiator,
Bolsonaro's reinvention half away through his term of office was never
completed; he chose to delegate power to the Centrao rather than to return
to the practices of coalitional presidentialism.

The governability challenge: a PT-dominated Cabinet faces a

right-wing Congress
“Lula 3 looks more like Dilma 2 than Lula 1, despite the fact that the
overconcentration of governmental positions for PT members [in Lula 1] is
also taking place now.” This remark by former Speaker of the House and
“Dilma's executioner” in the impeachment process captures potential future
governability problems.
Undeniably, Lula's approach to the formation of his government coalition
did not depart from Lula 1: the Cabinet is oversized (37 ministries, up from
23 under Bolsonaro) and the PT and the left in general are overrepresented.
In Lula 1, the PT members held 21 ministries, 60% of the portfolio (total of
34 ministries). Fourteen parties nominally support the government but only
ten are represented in the Cabinet; the number of parties holding ministries
is higher in Lula 1 (8) and 2 (9). The four smaller parties will be allocated
top positions in the federal machinery and state-owned enterprises.
While accounting for less than a quarter of Congress seats, members of
Lula's electoral alliance (PT, PC do B, PV, Rede, PSB e PSOL) along with
non-PT appointees for senior positions in former PT administrations have
been appointed to 27 of the 37 ministerial posts (72%). In terms of the
coalition, the PT formally got 25% of seats and 26% of ministries; if the
non-affiliated appointees who are de facto but not de jure member of the PT
are included – figures such as Nísia Trindade and Silvio Almeida – they
account for 85% of the portfolio. A large number of political appointees
suggest a strategy of concealing the fact that Lula reneged on his campaign
appeal for a broad front against Bolsonaro.
Centrist parties such as União Brasil (59 seats), MDB (42), and PSD (42)
will control only three ministries each and are very poorly represented in
the governing coalition. With 59 (22%) of the seats of a coalition made up
of 268 seats, União Brasil got 7% of the ministerial portfolio; it is the most
underrepresented party in Congress; and this will be a source of discontent.
The three parties account for over half (53%) of coalition seats, but only
22% of all seats, which will lead to significant defections.
This is therefore a PT government, just as much as Congress is
essentially right wing. The distribution of the ministerial portfolio in Lula 3
secures a total of 120 votes (23%) in the chamber of deputies (68 seats from
the PT; 14 from the PSB; 12 from PSOL, 6 from PC do B, 3 from Rede; and
17 from PDT, which joined the electoral alliance only in the runoff).
Additional cooptation by distribution of key federal posts in the federal
bureaucracy may result in not more than 140 votes, short of the additional
117 required for a simple majority (257 out of 513). The centrist parties are
expected to provide 143 votes but this may be wishful thinking: parties are
not cohesive and coalition agreements in Brazil's multiparty system are
informal arrangements. Pork and Cabinet positions are dispensed to
potential allies at a considerable cost because the “president coalitional
necessity” is high (which depends essentially on the level of overall party
fragmentation and on the share of seats not held by the president's party, as
argued by Power et al. 2015). The costs are both political – in public
opinion – and reputational, in that they may arise from “agency losses” by
appointees unrelated to the PT.
The costs of governing in Brazil's multiparty coalitional presidentialism
are largely a function of the congruence between the executive coalition and
the legislative median: the greater the mismatch, the higher the costs
(Pereira, Bertholini and Melo 2022). The implications are self-evident: a
centre-left hyper minority president is overrepresented in the Cabinet, while
centrist parties that were key to Lula's victory are underrepresented: a
mismatch that will be a source of governability issues. In Lula 1, this led to
the mensalão scheme (2005–6), monthly payments to centre-right parties to
secure support for the PT's agenda in Congress. This evolved into a scheme
centred on state-owned enterprises, whose modus operandi came to the fore
during the Petrolão scandal (2014–6). The new government will be under
strict scrutiny – although Lava Jato has died – and illegal side payments
will probably decrease, which may cause an increase in the value of their
substitutes (pork and budgetary resources). This would represent a radical
break with PT's past practices. It remains to be seen how this will play out.

A new court jester? The changing nature of the Brazilian

presidential system
From an institutional perspective, one could expect Lula 3 to govern as a
much weaker president than Lula 1 and 2. The differences are significant,
suggesting a radical departure from the institutional arrangement
established by the constitution of 1988. The strong president equilibrium
that predominated until 2016 definitively is broken. The legislature and the
judicial branch have been empowered and share many of the executive
prerogatives which were under the exclusive purview of presidents. The
Supreme Court is no longer just the guardian of the constitution; it has veto
powers over virtually all policy areas; considering the very detailed nature
of the Brazilian constitution, policy change involves constitutional
amendments and therefore ultimately involves the Supreme Court (STF).
The origins of the strong president equilibrium are the constituent
assembly of 1987–88. Consistent with the transition to democracy the
drafters of the constitution aimed primarily at strengthening the legislative
and judicial branches. But the constituent assembly – a motley group of
opposition politicians and activists, that included social reformers and
liberals – were also committed to the idea of a strong developmental state
and therefore sought to strengthen the executive branch. The solution was
to delegate vast powers to the judicial branch and institutions such as the
public ministry – which in Brazil because of its great autonomy and
prerogatives is virtually a fourth branch of government – and Tribunal of
Accounts, thereby creating a “strong leash for a big dog” formula favoured
by liberal sectors.
The executive branch was vested with exclusive powers to propose
legislation in administrative and budgetary affairs, as well as the ability to
issue provisional measures (MPs) with immediate force of law, which
subsequently had to be ratified by the legislature (that bears the costs of any
reversals). The Courts were empowered in special ways as the General
Prosecutor (and future STF chief) stated when the constitution was
promulgated: “no constitution has delegated so much power to the judiciary
and particularly to the Supreme Court.” The constitution also vested
presidents with a line item veto and the discretion about budget
appropriations. In the Nova Rebublica, Presidents could govern virtually
unopposed except for the powerful governors.
Over time, however, the judicial branch saw their powers grow. Initially
Presidents benefited from the process – empowered Courts, for example,
helped Cardoso implement the Real Plan against recalcitrant governors and
opposition politicians. Governors were the losers – and ultimately had to
sell their crown jewellery, the state-owned enterprises, and banks. Both
presidents and governors were empowered by the approval of the
amendment allowing their reelection, which eliminated the lame duck effect
in their first term of office.
Under Cardoso the legislative opposition and civil society resorted to a
judicialisation strategy: legislative setbacks triggered constitutionality
challenge petitions in the Supreme Court, prompting the rapprochement
between Courts and executive.
A crucial change introduced during Cardoso's era was the Supreme
Court's discretion to determine when the effects of judicial decision's effects
are to take place. Additional powers – the súmula vinculante, introducing
some elements of stare decisis (the policy of court to stand by precedent) in
the judicial system – were mandated by Constitutional amendment 45/2004.
The non-anticipated effects of the Courts’ powers became clear over time
subsequently. The contrast with the pre-1988 courts cannot be overstated.
The empowered Supreme Court was critical in the mensalão and petrolão
scandals, and more importantly under Bolsonaro, when it was critical in
containing the illiberal leader, to the point of overreaching its powers
(Arguelhes 2022).
The legislative branch delayed reaction to the expansion of executive
authority was a constitutional amendment barring the reissuing of
provisional measures (MPs) in 2001 (EC 32) and mandating an immediate
vote in the chamber of deputies in case of legislative inaction within 45
days. The strategy backfired because as MPs built up in the legislative
agenda, they allowed the executive branch to dictate the congressional
agenda. Under Dilma, however, Congress managed to reassert its
dominance: it approved a new interpretation of EC 32 (ratified by the STF
much later) to the effect that the mandatory vote for MPs was only
applicable to ordinary bills, not constitutional amendments, organic laws,
legislative decrees, and resolutions). The legislative branch also reasserted
its powers by raising the compulsory retirement age for STF justices (EC
88/2015), thereby not allowing Dilma to appoint new justices. The
Legislature's power of the purse was subsequently expanded by making
mandatory the budgetary amendments proposed by both individual
lawmakers (EC 86/2015) and state legislators’ caucuses (EC 100/2019).
Two weak presidents (Dilma and Temer) followed two strong presidents
(Cardoso and Lula) with radically divergent outcomes. Dilma succumbed in
a perfect storm. Temer governed under the new weak president equilibrium
and was successful by securing the congruence of legislative median
preferences and his Cabinet (Pereira, Bertholini and Melo 2022).
Ascending to the presidency on the shambles of the PSDB-PT era,
Bolsonaro failed to reframe the “game of powers” to his advantage. His
attempt to aggrandise the executive branch was met with great resistance by
existing institutions, despite his remarkable victory in 2018.
Bolsonaro, like Dilma, began his presidency by confronting the President
of the chamber of deputies, and rejecting legislative politics altogether, only
to delegate enormous powers to a congressional majority. His most
important accomplishment – social security reform – was approved because
of Congress majority's own preference and the support of a reform-minded
house Speaker Rodrigo Maia, rather than to executive stewardship.
Bolsonaro's coalition with the Centrão was enough to shield him from the
impeachment petitions by the opposition; it was not sufficient to guarantee
success in his legislative initiatives: the success rate of Bolsonaro's
administration, measured by the percentage of legislative initiatives of the
executive approved by Congress, was the lowest among all his predecessors
(Vilhena et al. 2022).
Bolsonaro was the president who issued the highest number of executive
orders (1462) of all democratic governments (FHC: 1255; Lula: 1230;
Rousseff: 839). The covid emergency may explain part of the surge, but
probably not all of it. In addition to having issued the highest number of
provisional measures (254) of any president since the redemocratisation
(FHC 206; Lula1, 149; Dilma, 128), MPs account for the largest share of its
legislative activity (76.5%). Again, the covid emergency played a role here
too. And Bolsonaro has the worst rate of conversion of provisional
measures (45.3%) into law. Congress was a formidable constraint on his
legislative initiatives: Bolsonaro saw 30 of his vetoes overridden; Lula and
Dilma only two vetoes had the same fate; and Temer 4.
Bolsonaro also openly clashed with the Supreme Court, a process
heralded by Eduardo Bolsonaro's claim, shortly before he was elected with
the least number of votes for a federal deputy for São Paulo, that “in order
to close the STF all that is required is a Jeep and a corporal.” He threatened
STF justices with impeachment and with measures to reduce their powers,
including by increasing its size and packing the court.
Under Bolsonaro the STF was itself under attack – rather than a referee
of Presidents vs Congress – for the first time since the beginning of
redemocratisation. While successful in building a shield against his own
impeachment, his strategic alliance with the legislative branch failed in
confrontation with the STF. The Senate shelved his initiatives to impeach
justices Luis Roberto Barroso and Alexandre de Moraes, in August 2021.
Also, his threats of contempt of court decisions had the same fate. He
accumulated judicial defeats early in his administration, including his
appointment of a nominee for the powerful Federal Police. Similarly, the
Minister of the Environment, one of the most vocal Bolsonaristas, resigned
amid allegations that he had obstructed a police investigation of illegal
logging. Bolsonaro's plans to concentrate power during the covid
pandemics also failed: the STF ruled that municipal and state governments
were autonomous to decide about lockouts among other rulings.
The STF faced a trilemma: to contain an illiberal president, to support
Lava Jato operations, or both. It chose the first option. Supporting the Lava
Jato operation meant a direct assault on the legislative majority in Congress,
a very high proportion of which faced corruption charges. This eliminated
the third option. But the choice was also a reactive move: the Court reacted
hyperbolically to Bolsonaro's attacks on the Court.
The presidential race led to an escalation of the confrontation between
the higher courts (TSE and STF) and Bolsonarismo – critically the electoral
court is presided by a STF member – and bitter charges that it favoured the
opposition in a bitterly polarised context. STF's disproportionate reactions
to the existential threat posed by Bolsonaro is an oxymoron. It confronted
Bolsonaro with an array of measures whose legality startled the country's
legal establishment. It started with the Fake News Inquiry and the defence
of democracy measures, which the STF itself – not the Prosecutorial agency
– initiated, an unprecedented move. Interestingly, the most effective
measures related to the STF's singular role as a criminal court, with
jurisdiction over a host of federal elected public officials.
The future relationship among the three branches of power under Lula
remains to be seen, but it is unlikely that the judicial or the legislative
branches will abdicate the extended informal and formal powers they have
come to wield. The interaction is complex and the outcome of the last two
significant episodes – the approval of a constitutional amendment allowing
spending above the cap and the STF decision on the “secret budget” – at the
twilight of the Bolsonaro administration – provide a graphic example that
strategies may backfire.
The two episodes are intertwined: the first involves the budget for 2023,
which had been approved short of funds necessary for the continuation of
cash transfers disbursements and minimum salaries raises, among other
Lula's electoral promises; Lula's failure to honour them might unleash a
backlash, turning the tug of war into a high stakes game. The second, STF's
decision to declare the secret budget (OS) unconstitutional, prompted a
reaction on the part of Congress funnelling half of the OS funds to the so-
called individual mandatory amendments. The legislators extended their
power of the purse because now these funds are mandatory and not subject
to executive impoundment. The STF decision had great importance because
the OS funds were the currency for legislative horse trading managed by
Arthur Lira and Rodrigo Pacheco, the lower house and the Senate Speakers,
respectively. The decision undercut Lira's power but this occurred at a very
high cost: by reducing the President's discretion over budgetary
amendments. Congress reasserted its powers and Lula acquiesced in
exchange for the approval of the elimination of fiscal caps in the 2023
budget.
Another individual decision by a STF justice affected the payoffs
involved in the political dynamics of the approval of the “Pec da gastança”
(spending cap amendment): Gilmar Mendes issues a provisional injunction
allowing presidents to allocate funds above the constitutional spending cap
in case of emergencies. This decision undermined the ability of Congress
leaders to negotiate approval of the spending cap rule. But it backfired:
Congress restored its budgetary prerogatives and even expanded them. This
decision is another graphic instance of the Brazilian Supreme Court as a
political actor involved not in megapolitics but in ordinary politics.
Lula actively engaged in negotiations with Congress leaders; Bolsonaro
delegated powers. But the outcomes are similar: an empowered Congress
and an overpowering Supreme Court imposed their preferences. The
sources of executive weaknesses have remained unscathed: high levels of
rejection in a highly polarised polity; political fragmentation and the poor
partisan powers of the president; institutional changes weakening executive
prerogatives and its agenda and budgetary powers; and an autonomous
judiciary emboldened by success in three colossal tasks: enormous
corruption scandals, a presidential impeachment, and containing an illiberal
radical right populist.
Lula will be able to nominate two STF justices, which will have great
importance because it will secure him a majority of sympathisers in the
court. Due to the intense individual processual activism (Falcão, Arguelhes
and Recondo 2016) enjoying a majority in the Court is not of critical
importance because Justices have the ability to delay decisions and
ultimately act as a veto player. But a reform of the Court curbing such
activism has been heralded recently, the timing of which is highly
significant. Justices will no longer be able to delay strategically their
decisions (in cases they favour the status quo).
Lula has benefited from the rampage on January 8, which weakened
Bolsonarismo, and generated a strong rally round the flag in the country as
a whole. Unlike its American counterpart the President played no public
role in the mobilisation and the turmoil did not interrupt a legislative
session (the buildings were vacant). Congress – including Bolsonaro’ party,
the PL – reacted in unison against the perpetrators. Also unlike the US
event, it targeted mostly the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace,
generating a strong united response. It remains to be seen how long the
rapprochement between Court and President will last. There is, however, a
critical similarity between the US and American cases: those involved have
been punished.
Conclusions
In an op-ed former House speaker Eduardo Cunha claims that “Lula 3 is
more like Dilma 2 than Lula 1.” We should take this provocation with a
grain of salt; there is nothing to suggest an imminent institutional crisis in
the near future. Nonetheless, Lula is a centre-left minority President facing
a right-wing legislature and a much-empowered judicial branch. His
attempt to build a broad front Cabinet has largely failed because centrist
parties that were key to Lula's victory are underrepresented: a mismatch that
will be a source of governability issues. The president's ability to build
coalitions now is not comparable with his previous stints in the presidential
office: he enjoys fewer agenda and budgetary prerogatives and is much
more vulnerable. Lula's tool box is much smaller, not least because of the
daunting challenges regarding the economy in a turbulent environment. The
contrast with the commodity boom era is stark.
Parties now have access to a multibillion-dollar funds and are less
dependent on governments. Therefore, the relative value of budgetary
amendments and Cabinet positions is smaller than before. As Pereira,
Bertholini, and Melo argue, the costs of governing in Brazil's multiparty
coalitional presidentialism are largely a function of the congruence between
the executive coalition and the legislative median: the greater the mismatch,
the higher the costs. Polarisation has increased the costs of reaching out
across the two camps in order to reach consensus.
The nightmare of a confrontation between the President and the
legislative branch, which Juan Linz famously associated with
presidentialism, is out of the picture (Linz 1990); the likely scenario is of a
lacklustre government in a highly uncertain fiscal situation. The focus on
politically low-cost issues such as environment and climate change where
strong international cooperation is expected will be the likely outcome. Like
many other leaders, in the US and UK, for instance, legislative frustration at
home will lead to him spending more effort on his international policy
abroad.
The violent invasion of the Praça dos Tres Poderes on January 8th
suggests that Brazilian institutions are stronger than most scholars and
pundits anticipated. A weak President does not imply a weak democracy.
Notes
1. Website: https://noticias.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2022/08/25/lula-jornal-nacional-bolsonaro-bobo-
da-corte.htm
2. Website: https://veja.abril.com.br/paginas-amarelas/luiz-eduardo-ramos-e-ultrajante-dizer-que-
o-exercito-vai-dar-golpe/

References
Arguelhes, Diego W. (2022) Public opinion, criminal procedures and legislative shields-how supreme
court judges have checked president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Georgetown Journal of International
Affairs.
Falcão, Joaquim, Diego W Arguelhes, Felipe Recondo (2016) Onze Supremos: o Supremo em 2016.
Belo Horizonte: FGV Rio.
Linz, Juan (1990) The perils of presidentialism, The Journal of Democracy, 1(1) (winter), 51–69.
Pereira, Carlos, Frederico Bertholini and Marcus Melo (2022) Congruent we govern: Government
and Oposition, May 1–19.
Power, Timothy (2000) The Political Right in Post-Authoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions and
Democratisation. College Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Power, Timothy, Paul Chaisty and Nic Cheeseman (2018) Coalitional Presidentialism in
Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Raile, Eric, Pereira, Carlos and Power, Timothy (2011) The Executive Toolbox: Building Legislative
Support in a Multiparty Presidential Regime. Political Research Quarterly 64(2), 323–334.
Vilhena, Oscar et al (2022) Bolsonaro tem recorde de vetos derrubados e menor taxa de projetos
aprovados, Folha de São Paulo, December 24.
5
THE RETURN OF LULA AND THE
CHALLENGES FACING BRAZIL'S
ECONOMY
Will the chicken fly?

Edmund Amann

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-7

Introduction
The inauguration of President Lula in January 2023 marked the 20th
anniversary of his first accession as Brazil's head of state. Now, as then,
Brazil's economy, so replete with potential faces enormous challenges as it
seeks to raise itself from the ranks of the middle-income nations into a fully
fledged developed economy. The dream of breaking free from a legacy of
underdevelopment, economic volatility, and poverty is a longstanding one.
It is shared across a broad political spectrum, ranging from the radical left,
through the social democratic centre, to the economically liberal right.
While the goal of development may be embraced by diverse political
groupings, there has nevertheless been a notable lack of consensus as to
how to achieve it.
As elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil has proven something of a
laboratory for testing out competing economic ideologies and the policies
associated with them. During the post 1945 period, the country has
variously experienced waves of state-driven industrialisation (commonly
referred to as import substitution industrialisation [ISI]), attempts at full-
blown economic liberalisation (under Presidents Collor de Melo, 1989–92,
and Bolsonaro, 2019–22), market-driven social democracy under President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 1994–2002, and attempts to revive the role of
the state and rein in the market under Presidents Lula and Rousseff, 2003–
16. The problem with all these approaches is that, as practised at least, none
of them has finally succeeded in severing the ties that bind Brazil to low
economic performance. Some of these fetters to progress date right back to
the colonial era; indeed, they embody the very way in which Brazil interacts
with the global economy.
At the beginning of Lula's third term in office, the need to embark on a
path that might deliver lasting economic and social success has never been
greater. Since 2012, Brazil has been locked in a form of economic
permacrisis, triggered partly by the end of a strong upswing in the global
commodities market. The crisis, associated with recession, stagnation,
raised unemployment, and latterly inflation, has been slowly undoing the
progress made by Brazil between the early 1990s and the start of the 2010s.
Without doubt, the ongoing economic malaise has provided fertile soil for
the fomenting of populism both on the left and on the right. The most
obvious manifestation of this was crystallised in the election of Jair
Bolsonaro as President in October 2018.
The new Lula administration, which came to office in January 2023, in
many ways faces a much more challenging scenario in trying to turn
Brazil's economic fortunes around than did its predecessor exactly 20 years
earlier. Then, emerging from eight years of relative stability and progress
under the social democratic President Cardoso, Brazil enjoyed low inflation
and accelerating progress in tackling poverty and inequality. Moreover,
Latin America's largest nation was about to enjoy the economic tailwinds
generated by a global commodities boom. Perhaps more fundamentally,
Lula's first administration was able to find its feet and implement
imaginative policy ideas in a more benign political environment. Compared
with today, the Brazilian political landscape of the early 2000s was less
polarised, more pragmatic, and more readily committed to a shared
understanding of the political rules of the game.
In trying to take forward economic progress, the new Lula administration
will not only have to navigate the fractured and fractious political landscape
of the 2020s; it will also have to overcome the less than benign legacies of
its previous incarnations. While in power, the first two Lula administrations
were associated with a systemic cash for votes scandal, the Mensalão
(Power et al., 2008). This did much to undermine public trust in democracy
and the institutions designed to sustain it. More specifically, in the
economic sphere, Lula's attempt to bring the state back in as the prime
mover of the economy generated unhealthily close relations between
business and government. This would provide the environment in which a
public sector contracts kickback scheme which financed a range of political
parties (the Lava Jato scandal) would emerge. The latter would come back
to haunt the administration of Lula's hand-picked successor, Dilma
Rousseff. The scandal would ultimately contribute to the political (but not
the legal) basis for her impeachment in 2016.
Moving beyond political legacies and the political environment in
general, the new administration faces profound uncertainties and challenges
relating to the track of the global economy. As already noted, the first two
Lula administrations (2003–10) were able to benefit from buoyant demand
for Brazil's key commodities exports (Arbache & Sarquis, 2018). The surge
in such exports by volume and value provided the basis for healthy
economic growth and, relatedly, strong growth in the revenue side of the
fiscal accounts. This, in turn, offered the means of financing a slew of
ambitious programmes designed to energise the economy (mainly through a
reinvigorated industrial policy) and to ensure that the fruits of economic
progress were more widely shared than in previous boom periods. The latter
challenge was addressed through bold social policy innovations, notably the
introduction of a conditional cash transfer programme, known as the Bolsa
Familía, in 2004.
Returning to the present, while there has been an uptick in commodity
prices – partly related to the war in Ukraine – it is far from clear that the
world is on the brink of another commodity boom of the type experienced
during Lula's first two terms. Moreover, where it once appeared self-evident
that the global economy was moving towards ever-closer integration, this is
now far from clear. Indeed, it may well be the case that a period of de-
globalisation has begun. Unlike 20 years ago Brazil will not be able to
count unconditionally on accelerated commodities demand and ever greater
global market openness to sustain its fortunes. Instead, it is likely that the
wellsprings of economic and social progress will need to be found in a more
balanced mixture of domestically focused ventures and shrewdly identified
international opportunities
To gauge fully the economic challenges facing the new Lula
administration, the rest of this chapter adopts the following structure. First,
it offers a summary of Brazil's economic performance over the long term,
highlighting the achievements (some of which were realised during the
earlier Lula years), the failures, and the emerging challenges. A theme
which arises here concerns longstanding issues of growth volatility, and a
failure to ensure that the fruits of economic progress are adequately shared
by all.
Following this overview section, this chapter moves on to highlight
priority areas which the new administration will have to grapple with if
Brazil is to escape from what could be characterised as a middle-income
trap. Some of the areas to be discussed include patterns of trade
specialisation (especially reversion to dependence on primary products),
anaemic productivity growth, low levels of fixed investment, and
challenges surrounding training, education, and the environment. Finally,
by way of a conclusion, this chapter briefly considers the prospects of
appropriate reforms being accomplished in the light of longstanding
concerns surrounding the nature of state-business relations in Brazil.

Brazil's economic development in long-term perspective

Over the decades, observers and analysts have been both captivated by
Brazil's enormous economic potential and flummoxed by its seeming
inability to fully achieve it. The clear scope for Brazil's economy to rise and
become among the world's very largest and most prosperous can be traced
to a number of attributes. In first place, in terms of sheer scale it is obvious
that Brazil has the potential to rank as a major if not preeminent global
economic power. With a population of around 214 million and a land area
of 8.5 M km2, Brazil is the second most populous in the Americas and the
third largest in terms of geographical extent. The country ranks in the global
top five for exports of critical products such as iron ore, soya, coffee,
orange juice, and beef.
In terms of technological achievement, Brazil has registered notable
feats, ranking among the top four producers of civilian passenger jet aircraft
and holding the world record for deep sea oil production. For an economy
which is commonly viewed as too fixated on commodities production and
export, it is remarkable the degree to which world level competences have
been built up in non-traditional sectors such as Fintech, business services,
and social media. Collectively, these elements – and others besides – lend
the Brazilian economy tremendous strengths and resilience. They also
create potential for much further advance than has hitherto been realised.
Having sketched out some of the potentials what of the realities of
Brazil's economic progress over recent decades? Table 5.1 summarises
growth and inflation indicators over the past thirty years. One fact which
immediately stands out relates to the country's growth trajectory and points
to the gulf between economic potential and realised outcomes. As will be
noted, GDP growth has been both volatile and, on average, rather subdued.
Since 1993 – the year when the anti-inflationary real stabilisation plan
began, and Brazil's present currency launched – only in four years has
annual GDP growth exceeded 5%. While the past 30 years has generally
witnessed favourable performance in inflationary terms, with annual
increases in consumer price inflation mostly well below 10%, the economy
has expanded far less than was the case in the three decades between the
end of the Getúlio Vargas administration in 1954 and the eruption of the
debt adjustment crisis in the early 1980s. Moreover, the modest annual
average growth of the past three decades conceals significant volatility in
output change, this being reflective of frequent economic crises. As can
been seen, for example, there were very sharp drops in output in the early
1980s, the start of the 1990s and 2013–6, with a further plunge related to
the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The modest and volatile growth realised
over the past three decades has meant that in relative terms Brazil has lost
ground compared with some of its key emerging market peers. Compared
with China and India, for example, Brazil's output per capita growth has
been very muted. Between 1980 and 2017 China's GDP per capita rose
approximately 30-fold, while for India the respective increase was around
8-fold. Over the same period, in the case of Brazil, the increase registered
was just twofold, admittedly from a higher base (Amann, 2021).
TABLE 5.1 GDP growth and inflation, Brazil 1990–2022

GDP annual change IPCA consumer price annual change

(%) (%)
1990 −4.35 1,620.97
1991 1.03 472.70
1992 −0.54 1,119.10
1993 4.92 2,477.15
1994 5.85 916.46
1995 4.22 22.41
1996 2.21 9.56
1997 3.39 5.22
1998 0.34 1.65
1999 0.47 8.94
2000 4.39 5.97
2001 1.39 7.67
2002 3.05 12.53
2003 1.14 9.30
2004 5.76 7.60
2005 3.20 5.69
2006 3.96 3.14
2007 6.07 4.46
2008 5.09 5.90
2009 −0.13 4.31
2010 7.53 5.91
2011 3.97 6.50
2012 1.92 5.84
2013 3.00 5.91
2014 0.50 6.41
2015 −3.55 10.67
2016 −3.28 6.29
2017 1.32 2.95
2018 1.12 3.75
2019 1.78 4.31
2020 −3.88 4.52
2021 4.62 10.06
2022 2.80* 5.79
*Est.
Source: IBGE, World Bank, IPEA Data, OECD
 As will be discussed later on, the roots of this modest average GDP
Brazilian performance are complex, but a critical driver has been low
productivity growth which itself derives from the operation of ingrained
structural constraints. What is clear, however, is that the issue relates not
only to the trajectory of average growth but also to its volatility. The fact
that growth has been so variable, and the course of progress so waymarked
by sharp booms and busts, is indicative of vulnerability to shocks, both
internal and external. Aside from the output shock engendered by the
Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (which saw GDP contract by 3.9%), sharp
drops in output in 2015–6 can be traced to the twin effects of a commodities
market slump and the acute uncertainties generated by political crisis.
Going further back in time, sharp slowdowns or recessions in 1999–
2000, 1989–91 and 1983–7 variously resulted from the effects of
commodity market slumps, evaporation of investor confidence in the
macroeconomic policy framework, and political crisis. By the same token,
sharp contractions have frequently been followed by short-lived booms (as
for example in 2010–1) as investor confidence surges back in the wake of a
spike in commodity prices. This rollercoaster trajectory has periodically
been likened in Brazil to the “flight of the chicken” in which the economy
appears poised for take-off, gains flight for all too short a time, and
eventually plummets to earth.
Part of the explanation for the volatile track of growth over the past three
decades centres on the evolving structural characteristics of Brazil's
economy. During the 1980s and 1990s, as Brazil cemented civilian rule
after two decades under the military, the country adopted a slate of liberal
economic reforms (Abreu, 2004). These centred on a rolling programme of
trade liberalisation, the bulk of which was enacted between 1989 and 1994.
While this boosted efficiency, it did accelerate the pace of de-
industrialisation, and pivoted the economy towards greater relative reliance
on exports of natural resource-based (NRB) products.
This process was witnessed in other Latin American economies during
the same period, notably Brazil's counterparts elsewhere in the Southern
Cone of the region, Argentina and Chile. Reversion to specialisation in
primary products in Brazilian and other Latin American economies has
enabled the region to better grasp opportunities in global commodities
markets (notably those created by the rise of China). This has been partly
facilitated by record investment and innovation in the NRB sectors, as a
result of which, for example, Brazil has become a global agricultural
powerhouse (Alston & Mueller, 2016). However, the flip side of this coin
has been an increased tendency for the economy to be buffeted by the
impact of external commodity market shocks, both positive and negative.
As will be discussed later, a key challenge facing Brazil concerns how to
mitigate the vulnerability to such shocks, while building on the undoubted
strengths and potentiality of the NRB sectors.
Our brief summary of Brazil's trajectory thus far tends to suggest a less
than positive evaluation of the country's economic performance. However,
any such assessment needs to be tempered by generally impressive
developments in two critical spheres, price stability and social development.
Turning to the first of these, Brazil made major advances in the
management of its macroeconomic affairs in the mid-1990s with the
introduction of the aforementioned Real Plan. The plan cleverly combined a
new currency, initially pegged to the US Dollar, alongside a phased
programme of fiscal adjustment (Baer, 2013).
Within two years the plan had succeeded in banishing quadruple digit
hyperinflation, with annual rises in consumer prices subsequently rarely
moving beyond single digits. Despite an earlier spike in inflation related to
the end of the Covid-19 lockdown measures, and a surge in global prices,
the benchmark Brazilian IPCA consumer price inflation measure registered
5.79% for 2022 as a whole. In contrast, by November 2022 on an annual
basis, consumer price increases for the OECD economies had hit 10.3%.
The success of the Brazilian authorities in containing inflationary pressure
is all the more impressive when one considers that the exchange rate anchor
– the real-US Dollar peg – had been effectively abandoned in 1999.
Subsequently, the containment of inflation has rested on a targeting
framework operated by the Brazilian Central Bank. This centres on the use
of interest rates as the key policy variable. Time and again, experience has
demonstrated the monetary authorities to be proactive and ahead of the
curve in addressing inflationary threats. For example, over the course of
2021–2 they proved to be far quicker to respond with interest rate hikes to
global inflationary pressures than did many of their counterparts in Europe
and North America. In this regard Brazil shared the hawkish approach of
Russia, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and South Korea (Financial Times, 23
September, 2021)
The second area in which genuine progress has been made centres on the
themes of poverty and income distribution. Over the decades spanning the
period between the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the debt crisis of the
1980s, Brazil pursued a state-driven industrialisation strategy, ISI, which
structurally transformed the economy and resulted in historically high rates
of growth in GDP per capita (Baer, 2013). During this period Brazil
experienced profound change as it rapidly urbanised and began to engage
with the global economy in different ways, experiencing a surge in inward
foreign direct investment (FDI) and significant growth in industrial exports.
All of this progress appeared to be placing Brazil on a track where it would
be well placed to eventually close the development gap which lay between
it and the rich industrialised countries of the North.
However, there were two glaring omissions in this surge forward. In first
place, little account was taken of the environmental consequences of the
growth and development that was taking place. One consequence of this
was to set in train a process of rapid deforestation of the Amazon basin and
other environmentally sensitive areas, notably the Mata Atlântica, the
coastal forest belt. The other lacuna in the strategy adopted lay in the social
development sphere. From the 1930s to the dawn of the 1990s very little
was done to ensure that the fruits of economic progress were evenly
distributed or that individuals were prevented from falling into poverty or
indigence. As a consequence, as Table 5.2 indicates, the distribution of
income became remarkably skewed, leading to Brazil becoming one of the
world's most unequal societies. On top of this, rates of poverty and extreme
poverty (indigence) remained remarkably high and would only climb
sharply in the 1980s as Brazil entered a period of debt-related economic
crisis known as the “lost decade.”
TABLE 5.2 Brazil: key social indicators, 1992–2020

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2
Gini 53.2 60.1 59.6 59.9 59.8 59.6 59 58.4 58.1 57.6 56.5 56.3
coefficient
Poverty 1992
19.3 1993
18.5 1994 1995
12.7 1996
13.5 1997
13.5 1998
12.3 1999
12.9 2000 2001
11.2 2002
10.3 2003
10.9 2004
9.7 2005
8.8 2
headcount
ratio at
$3.65 per
day (2017
PPP)
Source: World Bank

Against this background, by the 1990s it had become clear that first,
poverty and income inequality had reached unacceptable levels and, second,
expecting them to sharply subside in lockstep with any economic recovery
ran counter to recent historical experience. As a consequence, starting with
the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 1995–2002, much more
systematic efforts were made to ensure that social outcomes were
commensurate with any economic progress realised. At the beginning,
explicit anti-poverty measures concentrated on food provision and hunger
relief. However, in terms of addressing chronic poverty and income
inequality, much of the heavy lifting was achieved by the advent of pro-
poor macroeconomic policy. In particular, the Real Plan strongly boosted
the real incomes of the poorest sections of society by reducing inflation
from quadruple to single digits, while at the same time ushering in a period
of relatively steady growth (Amann & Barrientos, 2016). On coming to
power in 2003 President Lula built strongly on this legacy, not only
retaining in place key elements of the Real Plan (so as to maintain price
stability) but also ramping up more targeted approaches to the promotion of
social development. Chief among these was the celebrated Bolsa Familía,
introduced in 2004 and rolled out to a client base of millions in record time.
The Bolsa constitutes a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme, the
essence of which is to target poverty by providing qualifying families with
grants to maintain their children in school. The idea here is to prevent the
inter-generational transmission of poverty by granting youngsters the
education they require. This would enable them to be more productive and
adaptable in the labour force while, in the short term, preventing their
families from sinking into poverty. As Table 5.2 shows, the rollout of the
Bolsa and other related programmes in the mid- to late 2000s was
accompanied by sharp reductions in poverty and, at the same time, a fall in
interpersonal income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient.
The falls in poverty and inequality were sustained until towards the
middle of the 2010s, since when the onset of a chain of economic crises has
stalled further progress. The lack of such further real progress despite the
maintenance of CCT programmes in place (President Bolsonaro expanded
and renamed the Bolsa, now termed the Auxílio Brasil) suggests that
economic fundamentals remain vital drivers of social development
outcomes. An important study (Ferreira et al., 2016) suggests that when
poverty and inequality were in free fall during the first two Lula terms,
much of the momentum behind this originated from more buoyant and
inclusive labour markets rather than CCTs per se. All of this suggests that a
sustained and inclusive economic recovery – and not just targeted welfare
programmes – will be required to help Brazil resume its march towards
better social development outcomes.

The challenges ahead

From the discussion so far, it will be obvious that as Lula begins his third
term in office, Brazil stands at something of an economic crossroads.
Economic experimentation and policy innovation, especially in the social
sphere, have undoubtedly yielded positive results. However, it has proven
very difficult to sustain real momentum; the past decade has seen a mixture
of recession, stagnation and a downtick in social progress as measured by
poverty and distribution indicators. At the same time, as has been well
documented, the malign environmental footprint of Brazil's economic
model has been growing. The past decade has seen accelerated
deforestation amid intensifying evidence of the damage being wrought to
the country's most sensitive biodiverse spaces. Looking ahead, the key
question concerns how Brazil can begin to move forward again and resume
the progress it had started to make in the 1990s and 2000s. To this end, this
section sets out some of the key challenges which will need to be met if the
factors which have been holding Brazil back are to be properly addressed.
The first critical area concerns how to overhaul and revise Brazil's motor
of wealth generation in such a way that it is rendered less vulnerable to
swings in global commodities demand while mitigating its negative
environmental impacts. During the first two Lula administrations, the global
optimism that surrounded Brazil's apparent new, positive trajectory very
often overlooked the fact that, at root, better economic performance could
be traced to a traditional driver: improved commodities demand and prices.
Thanks to earlier liberal reforms and investments, Brazil's NRB export
sectors had become dramatically more agile and efficient, enabling them to
seize opportunities rendered by global economic recovery and the rise of
China.
However, as already noted, the flip side of the reinvigoration of Brazil's
traditional export sectors was a lingering stagnation in the performance of
the industrial sector, which, in a previous era, had contributed to greater
export diversification. As a result of these developments, Brazil would
always prove vulnerable to the effects of a global retraction in commodities
prices and demand, which is precisely what happened from around 2012
until the beginning of the current decade.
Although specific factors relating to domestic political developments
intensified the economic crisis of the mid to late 2010s, like many Latin
American economies Brazil proved incapable of fighting the foul tide of the
global commodities slump. Thus, as so often in the past, Brazil was swept
rapidly backwards and its recent social and economic achievements started
to come undone. Another dimension surrounding Brazil's reliance on NRB
activities as a motor of growth surrounds their environmental impacts. Part
of the explanation for the agricultural boom experienced over the past three
decades relates to the expansion of the area under cultivation (Alston &
Mueller, 2016), some of which has come at the expense of the erasure of
environmentally sensitive biomes, most notably in the Amazon basin.
Thanks to withdrawal of funding for environmental enforcement, the
situation worsened notably during the Bolsonaro administration when the
pace of deforestation elicited unprecedented global outcry.
All of this suggests the need for fresh thinking surrounding how Brazil
integrates with the global economy, and the ways in which fresh sources of
growth and export opportunity can be identified and promoted. To this end,
a number of promising options are already in sight. To grasp them, it is
important to dispense with older conceptions of economic development and
structural transformation whereby a binary divide existed between the
traditional primary products sector and the emerging and supposedly more
dynamic industrial one.
By contrast, developments over the past 30 years in Brazil (and beyond)
suggest the frontier between NRB activities, industry, and services, both in
terms of products produced and the systems in place to produce them, is a
good deal more blurred in practice than in theory. The Brazilian agricultural
sector, for example, has been transformed by innovation, investment in
logistics, and the smart use of internet-based systems. As this has happened,
the sector has been able to move up the value chain and raise its
productivity. It has engaged in downstream processing of raw materials to a
greater extent. This has been witnessed in relation to paper production from
eucalyptus and the rise of the processed meats sector, to name but two
examples. At the same time, innovation has given rise to ever greater scope
for product differentiation. In other words, looking ahead, there is no room
for the notion that the primary products sector is in some sense a
technologically inert brake on growth that requires discarding in favour of
“high tech” export activities.
Consequently, the role of NRB-related sectors needs to remain central to
Brazil's future economic model. Indeed, efforts need to be made to
strengthen them further and to find fresh pathways through which further
value can be added and diversification within them enhanced. A critical part
of the challenge here will involve trying to mitigate as much as possible the
environmental damage wrought by such activities. This will involve a
combination of innovation, but also more effective enforcement of the
environmental policy framework already in place. With that said, it is clear
that, given the inherent volatility of global markets for commodities and
NRB products, it will make sense for Brazil to step up attempts to nurture
and bring to fruition activities in other sectors, notably services. Here, there
is clearly much unrealised scope for development, especially where exports
are concerned.
In terms of which emerging activities might be usefully identified with a
view to engineering a careful reconfiguration of Brazil's position in the
international division of labour, strong candidates include biotechnology,
business services, and finance. These are areas where the country has
traditionally enjoyed a lower international trade profile. In terms of
biotechnology and life sciences, Brazil has already developed significant
capabilities in large part due to years of public sector investment in these
areas. Public sector-funded institutions such as Embrapa (in relation to
agro-technology) and Fundação Osvaldo Cruz (in relation to human health)
have achieved global leadership in areas such as the genomic sequencing of
crops and the fight against tropical diseases.
In terms of realising export success based on these achievements, this has
been partially accomplished at least in respect to the surge in agricultural
trade: this has embodied innovation such as new disease resistant crop
strains which have strengthened Brazil's position in the international
market. However, there potentially exists scope to leverage life sciences
capabilities further, especially in relation to the pharmaceuticals sector and,
in particular, the development and export sale of vaccines.
To take one more example of a promising candidate that may assist the
quest to redefine Brazil's place in the global division of labour, it is worth
looking at financial services. Traditionally, finance in Brazil was dominated
by oligopolistic domestic private sector groups and, in the area of
infrastructure and mortgage finance, large public sector banks. However,
over the past decade a myriad of new-generation (Fintech) financial
institutions such as Nubank have emerged which have used technology to
reduce the cost of financial intermediation (Amann, 2021). In so doing, they
have increased access to private sector capital, notably for small business.
In some cases, they have also expanded the scope of retail investment
offerings, thanks to better technology, lower overheads, and effective,
disruptive business models.
The imperative for fresh export sectors to emerge cannot be divorced
from another, even broader issue: the need to increase market contestability.
Thanks to years of consolidation and, arguably, an excessively liberal
approach taken towards the framing and enforcement of antitrust
legislation, large swathes of the Brazilian economy, from the
aforementioned financial sector through to food processing, beverages,
manufacturing, and energy have become associated with high market
concentration and (with the partial exception of finance) a lack of new
entrants. Such a situation has not been generally conducive to the pursuit of
innovation or systematic efforts to raise productivity. Amann and
Figueiredo (2012) draw attention to the fact that, while cases of world
leading technology capability and efficiency exist (for example the aircraft
manufacturer, Embraer) these stand out as comparatively isolated examples
amid a sea of technological inertia. Thus, one of the challenges for the new
Lula administration will be to engender more market dynamism in sclerotic
sectors with a view to unleashing greater competitiveness and, by
extension, their ability to compete in global markets.
The related questions of market openness to new challengers
(contestability) and productivity connect with two further structural
challenges which Brazil will need to grapple with if it is to embark finally
on a path of sustainable and inclusive growth. These are, respectively,
investment in human and physical capital, and the nature of state-business
relations.
In terms of the former issue, there has long been concern that, thanks to
the high cost or raising funds for investment, economic volatility and
underinvestment in education and training, many firms and sectors lack the
capital and skills necessary to keep pace with international best practice and
drive their unit costs down to levels necessary to compete at the world
level. In the Brazilian context, the failure to do so has not necessarily
jeopardised firms’ survival. This is because they have continued to benefit
from very high levels of protection from global competition, despite the
aforementioned trade reforms of the 1990s. Still, the fact that productivity
and efficiency growth have failed to keep pace with emerging markets
elsewhere – or indeed with developed economies such as the USA – has
unavoidable consequences. These centre on the impossibility of closing the
living standards gap which divides Brazil from the advanced industrial
countries of the North. Therefore, in the years ahead, any meaningful set of
proposals aimed at engineering a step change in economic performance
must tackle the productivity and efficiency crisis. Given the roots of the
issues at stake, such reforms must necessarily address the legacy of low
fixed capital investment and skills shortages which have been holding large
parts of the Brazilian productive sector back.

Towards a conclusion: state-business relations and the way

forward
In considering how to engender competitive change and inject greater
economic dynamism, attention must inevitably be given to the nature of
state-business relations in Brazil. As the Lava Jato scandal has made clear,
Brazil's state-driven economic development model, which made a
comeback under Presidents Lula and Rousseff, had a dark flipside: the
emergence of corrupt networks of influence and the use of public sector
investment projects as vehicles for illicit political party finance.
Over the course of the new administration, it is clear that the state will
once more be seen as the prime mover for realising economic change and
addressing some of the challenges this chapter has set out. Against this
background, it is vital that future policy initiatives, whether in the fields of
competitiveness, investment in infrastructure, education, or environmental
protection, can be rolled out without giving rise to the corrupt practices of
the past. This will require more strenuous attempts to maintain arm's length
relationships between state agencies and the private sector entities with
whom they interact and contract. Avoiding backsliding into the corrupt
ways of the past will in many ways be one of the sternest tests for the new
administration given the scale of the cultural and attitudinal change it
represents.

References
Abreu, M. (2004) ‘Trade liberalization and the political economy of protection in Brazil since 1987’,
INTAL-IADB Working Papers, SITI 08b, 1–56.
Alston, L. & B. Mueller (2016) Economic backwardness and catching up: Brazilian agriculture,
1964–2014 NBER Working Papers 21988, 1–29.
Amann, E. (2021) The Brazilian Economy: Confronting Structural Challenges. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Amann, E. & A. Barrientos (2016) ‘Is there a Brazilian development model?’, Quarterly Review of
Economics and Finance 62 (November): 7–11
Amann, E. and P. Figueiredo (2012) ‘Brazil’ in E. Amann. and J. Cantwell. (eds.) Innovative Firms
in Emerging Market Countries, 210–247, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arbache, J. & S. Sarquis (2018) ‘Growth volatility and economic growth in Brazil’ in E. Amann, W.
Baer and C. Azzoni (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Brazilian Economy, New York: Oxford
University Press.
Baer, W. (2013) The Brazilian Economy, Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Ferreira, F, S. Firpo & J. Messina (2016) A more level playing field? Explaining the decline in
earnings inequality in Brazil, 1995–2012, IRIBA Working Papers No. 12, 1–30.
Power T., C. Pereira & E. Raile (2008) ‘Coalitional presidentialism and side payments: explaining
the Mensalão scandal in Brazil’, Oxford Brazilian Studies Occasional Paper BSP-03-08, 1–19.
6
SOCIAL POLICIES, POVERTY, AND
HUNGER IN BRAZIL
The social and institutional legacy of the
Lula/Dilma governments

Paulo Jannuzzi and Natália Sátyro

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-8

Introduction
The governments of presidents Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) and Dilma
Vana Rousseff (Dilma) produced significant changes in the Brazilian social
panorama between 2003 and 2016. The significant decrease in hunger,
poverty, income inequality and child labour are the best-known social
advances, due to the pace at which they occurred and the large number of
people and regions which benefited. Less frequently cited, but equally
relevant social changes, were the increase in formal employment
opportunities, access to universities and technical schools, and the
resumption of upward social mobility.
The recognition of this improvement is registered, on one hand, by
scholars in a vast body of research, both national and international,
produced in recent years (FAO 2014, IPEA 2014, UNDP 2014) and, on the
other hand, is evidenced by the popular vote in five presidential elections
that Lula (2003–6, 2007–10) and Dilma (2011–4 and 2015–6) have won in
the last 20 years. These election results, and a considerable share of the
studies produced, point out that the changes were a result of the
strengthening of universal policies in the fields of education and health.
However, the argument we develop here sheds light on the
implementation of a systemic set of social assistance programmes that
involved not only cash transfers, but also different types of social
assistance, and investment in fighting food insecurity, all of which strongly
impacted core indicators of well-being. At that time this set of redistributive
and/or affirmative action programmes were implemented in a favourable
economic context, and in a world more sensitive to the fight against
poverty. The economic and social disaster that followed from 2015 onwards
provides additional counterfactual evidence to testify to the importance of
these explanatory factors for the positive social changes listed.
The questioning of the 2014 presidential election results by centre-right
parties with the support of the president of the Chamber of Deputies,
strongly opposed to the government of the re-elected president, led to the
impeachment of President Dilma in May 2016 and her removal from office
three months later. This caused political instability that, added to the
campaign of persecution against former President Lula by the press and
sectors of the Brazilian judiciary, have changed Brazilian social history
since then. Public policies that had provided dramatic social changes only a
few years ago, were progressively dismantled. The turning point in the
government of Michel Temer, sworn in in place of Dilma Rousseff, was the
December 2016 Constitutional Amendment known as the Spending Cap
Amendment that represented a New Fiscal Regime. The codename
“Spending Cap Amendment” comes from the fact that it set an extremely
restrictive limit on investment in social policies over the next 20 years
while preserving, however, the regular payment of public debt (Sátyro
2021). The election of Jair Messias Bolsonaro (2019–22) has only worsened
the social policy landscape, leading Brazil into the humanitarian catastrophe
that the most recent statistics illustrate for hunger, poverty, and excessive
mortality from COVID-19.
 The recent social history of Brazil – and the legacy of the Lula and Dilma
governments in this field – demands an exposition based on a broad set of
indicators in the field of health, education, urban infrastructure, inequality,
and social mobility. The brevity of this text requires us to be less ambitious.
Hence, we illustrate the social change through two of these social indicators
– poverty and food insecurity – and analyse them in light of the combined
effects of cash transfer programmes, the offering of social assistance
services and the delivery of massive actions in the field of food security
implemented in the period.
Successive sections develop this argument.

Poverty and food insecurity in a game of social inclusion and

exclusion
The social policies that started in the first Lula administration had an
immediate redistributive impact, with a real drop in poverty and inequality
(Sátyro et al. 2022, Vinhais et al. 2022). Between 1992 and 2014, Brazil
saw a dramatic decrease in poverty, from 55 million people to 19 million
people (or from 38% to 10% of the population) with per capita household
income below $3.2 purchasing power parity (ppp) per day (Figure 6.1). In
the same period, the number of people in extreme poverty ($1.9 ppp)
dropped from 31 million to 8 million (from 22% to 4.5% of the population).
 Long Description for Figure 6.1

FIGURE 6.1 Poverty and extreme poverty (in millions of people) Brazil
1992–2021
Source: Prepared based on the data of PNAD and PNADC1

As can be observed, the most significant and systematic drop in poverty

occurred from 2004 on, one year after Lula took office, a trend corroborated
by extensive literature on the subject (ECLAC 2015, World Bank 2016,
Vinhais et al. 2022). This was a substantial change from previous decades,
when poverty levels remained high as a result of low economic growth,
high monthly inflation rates, and worsening job prospects. The
implementation of an economic stabilisation plan in 1994 (Plano Real) in
the last year of the Itamar Franco government (1992–4) had earlier had an
immediate effect on poverty reduction, due to the strong reduction in
monthly inflation and a small real gain in worker income (Paes-Sousa &
Jannuzzi 2016). But after this reduction, poverty levels remained stable,
even though cash transfer programmes began to be implemented in
wealthier municipalities, through local initiatives and funding, and more
broadly in Brazil, starting in 2001 at the end of the Fernando Henrique
Cardoso government (1995–2022).
The systematic decrease of poverty began in fact in 2004, with the
maturing of the effects of the implementation of a redistributive political
project that, on the one hand, through Fome Zero Plan (Zero Hunger Plan),
the expansion of cash transfer coverage, especially through the Bolsa
Família programme, the offer of social assistance services to combat other
dimensions of poverty (not only income insufficiency), actions in food
production and distribution, and, on the other hand, the increase in the
minimum wage and the dynamisation of the labour market through public
and private investment in the economy (Dweck 2019).
From 2015 onwards this promising scenario of poverty reduction was
interrupted. This came at a time of an economic crisis that was already
looming the previous year, added to the political crisis that also began soon
after Dilma's victory in the presidential elections in October 2014, with the
questioning of its results. From then on, the social situation worsened.
Poverty rates in the Brazilian population returned to levels of ten or more
years ago (Vinhais et al. 2022). In 2018, over 13.5 million people (6.5% of
the population) in extreme poverty, a level identified around 2008 (Sátyro et
al. 2022). The economic recession in the country reversed the previous
virtuous process, both in poverty and inequality. As pointed out by Barbosa
et al, 80% of the income growth observed between 2015 and 2018 was
appropriated by the wealthiest segments in the country.
In 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress and the
Bolsonaro government formulated and approved a massive cash transfer
programme – Emergency Aid Programme (PAE) – that, for its coverage (68
million people) and funds transferred, had a significant impact on the
Brazilian population, either by reducing poverty at the time, or by
mitigating the more general effects of the economic slowdown which had
caused social isolation. Nonetheless, because of its brevity, the PAE failed
to reduce poverty to the levels seen at the end of the Rousseff
administration: in 2021 there were about 33 million people in poverty, of
whom 18 million were extremely poor (IBGE 2022).
When one takes a deeper look at poverty and what it represents from a
second, more refined indicator related to food insecurity, it can be said that
a second legacy of the Lula and Dilma governments was the mitigation of
hunger and food insecurity in Brazil. The results of the Food Insecurity
surveys conducted by IBGE in 2004, 2009, and 2013, allowed for a national
and regional evaluation of the effectiveness of the fight against hunger in
the country (IBGE 2014). Indicators from the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), although delayed, also pointed
in the same direction: the State of Food Insecurity 2014 report from FAO
presented the estimate of malnutrition in the country at a level below the
statistical floor of 5% in the three-year period 2011–3, removing Brazil
from the Hunger Map (FAO 2014). This picture of hunger mitigation was
corroborated by a later study by the same multilateral organisation which,
with a methodology more sensitive to the effects of social policies, assessed
severe food insecurity at less than 2% of the population aged 15 years or
more in Brazil in 2015 (FAO 2016).
With the ousting of President Dilma and, with Bolsonaro's subsequent
victory in 2018, social policies suffered a serious setback, with increasingly
scarce resources, more disorganised at the national level, and less
importance in the government's agenda. In fact, more recent surveys and the
computation of food insecurity indicators comparable with previous surveys
illustrate a strong reversal of the hunger situation in the country since the
middle of the last decade (Figure 6.2). The population exposed to different
levels of food insecurity had been decreasing between 2004 and 2013,
especially those in recurrent food deprivation (severe food insecurity),
which dropped from 10% to 4% of the population in the period. However,
since then food insecurity has only increased, reaching 15% of the
population (33 million people) at the most critical level at the end of the
pandemic in 2022. The picture is even more dramatic if we consider the
portion of the population with some degree of food insecurity: between
2004 and 2022, total food insecurity increased from 35% to almost 60% of
the Brazilian population. This was a social catastrophe. Brazil has not only
returned to FAO's Hunger Map, but has also regressed more than two
decades in the fight against malnutrition.
 Long Description for Figure 6.2

FIGURE 6.2 Food insecurity (% population) Brazil 2004–22

Source: Penssan (2022)

How to explain the trajectory of these two indicators? How to understand

the positive change and its reversal after 2015–6? Understanding poverty as
a multi-causal phenomenon, the government strategy in the Lula/Dilma
governments involved the structuring of plans such as Fome Zero and Plano
Brasil Sem Miséria (Brazil Without Poverty Plan or BSM Plan) with
actions not only for cash transfers, but also for food security programmes
and the implementation of social assistance services with a federal format,
covering the entire national territory. It is worth remembering that the cash
transfers then not only included the Bolsa Família programme but also the
Benefício de Prestação Continuada and the set of social security benefits,
structured previously in the country.

Contributory and non-contributory cash transfer programmes,

the flagship of the fight against hunger and poverty
The Bolsa Família Programme created in 2003 and, to a lesser extent, the
Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC), created in 1996, are two non-
contributory conditional cash transfer programmes in the country. In
popular opinion and for a good part of the political community and of
journalists, these two programmes were mainly responsible for the
reduction of hunger, poverty and inequality in Brazil (Sátyro & Soares
2011). And, indeed, their weight is considerable. The Federal Constitution
of 1988 (CF88) guaranteed the institution of a non-contributory income in
the amount of one minimum wage for two groups recognised as particularly
vulnerable: the elderly over 65 years old, and people with disabilities living
in extreme poverty. It was President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who
implemented BPC, which in the following decades, especially between
2004 and 2014, expanded its coverage from 1.2 million to 4.8 million
individuals who benefited between 1995 and 2020. As a benefit with a
value constitutionally linked to the minimum salary, the policy of real
increase of the minimum wage implemented by the Lula government had a
direct impact on poverty and, to a lesser extent, on income inequality in the
country.
As mentioned briefly in the previous section, at the end of the Cardoso
government, in 2001 and 2002, three non-contributory conditional cash
transfer programmes were created: the Bolsa-escola, the Bolsa Alimentação
and a third called Auxílio Gás. Although they revealed a more structured
and decisive concern with the anti-hunger agenda than the previously
existing Comunidade Solidária federal programme (Peliano 2010),
implemented in 1995, the fact is that the scale of these programmes was
very restricted, as were the amounts transferred. However, they were the
basis for the Bolsa Familia programme (PBF) created by Lula's
government, responding to a political priority of the government chosen in
the elections held in October 2002. The programme expanded rapidly, from
3.6 million to 11.1 million families living in poverty between 2004 and
2006 (Souza et al. 2019). With the creation of the BSM Plan in 2011, during
the Dilma Government, incorporating the institutional lessons learned from
Fome Zero and expanding the range of sectoral actions, with greater
involvement of state governments (Campello et al. 2014), the programme
expanded again until 2015, covering a little over 14 million families, and
remained so until the end of 2021. Unlike BPC, the benefits of PBF never
had their values linked to the level or the readjustments of the minimum
salary and, during almost all its existence, the average benefit transferred to
families was equivalent to a value below 30% of that. However, considering
its wide coverage, the programme had a significant impact on the reduction
of hunger and poverty, even greater than the BPC (Vinhais et al. 2022).
However, less reported in political circles and in the media, more
restricted to academics, was a recognition of the impact of the real increase
in the minimum wage on poverty reduction. It's important to mention it
since 70% of Brazilians receive amounts linked directly or indirectly to it,
either as income from work or as a benefit provided by contributory social
security. During the period in analysis, the number of those benefiting
annually via the National Institute for Social Security (INSS) had a
systematic growth, reaching 31.5 million beneficiaries – urban and rural –
in 2021.2 Such growth derived from the inertial ageing of the labour force
in the country, in addition to changes that favoured the inclusion of people
who had not contributed regularly in their employment. The active search
for potential beneficiaries of social security in the strategies mobilised in
the Fome Zero and BSM Plans also contributed to ensure the transfer of
income to large segments of urban and rural workers who lived their
working lives informally. Although almost two thirds of retirees or
pensioners receive the social security minimum in the country, the value of
the minimum salary, it is worth remembering, had doubled in real terms
between 2003 and 2015.3
The decline in hunger and poverty was also caused, not only by the
growing inclusion of low-income Brazilians in the PBF, BPC and social
security (which together covered about 51 million families in 2021), but by
strong dynamism in the labour market and possibilities for social mobility
in the Lula/Dilma years (Jannuzzi & Montagner 2020). Symptomatic in this
sense was the 4.2% unemployment rate in 2014, the lowest level in the
historical series, and the fact that labour incomes grew up until the end of
2015 (Vinhais et al. 2022).

Social assistance services and food and nutritional security

programmes, supporting actors that must not be forgotten
In addition to contributory and non-contributory cash transfer programmes,
the fight against hunger and poverty in the Lula/Dilma governments also
included social assistance and food security policies. It is important to
remember that “Fome Zero” and the “Plano Brasil Sem Miséria” (BSM)
were government strategies that coordinated the actions of various
Ministries, and mobilised states and municipalities, to fulfil the
commitment announced on 1 January, 2003 by President Lula to ensure that
“every Brazilian should have, every day, at least three meals.”
During the first months of the government a series of actions were
structured, from the creation of the Bolsa Família programme to the
organisation of two interfederal public policy systems which, in addition to
contributing to meeting the commitment to eradicate hunger, had more
ambitious objectives of ensuring the social rights of the population,
especially the most vulnerable. In 2005 the Sistema Único de Assistência
Social (Unified Social Assistance System – SUAS) was created with the
aim of articulating the efforts of the federal, state and municipal
governments to finance and provide social protection services to families
and individuals in situations of social vulnerability. In 2006 the Sistema
Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (National System for Food
and Nutrition Security) (SISAN) was created to guarantee financing and
greater synergy of the actions of production, distribution and provision of
food for the population throughout the national territory. The Ministry of
Social Development and Fight Against Hunger (MDS) was responsible for
coordinating, through national secretariats, the actions of the Bolsa Família,
SUAS and SISAN.
The creation of a Ministry with the role of centralised coordination of
three sectoral areas – income transfer, social assistance, and food security –
and with a mandate for interfederal coordination was a successful
institutional innovation to ensure focus and synergy in actions to combat
hunger and poverty. In this context, some institutional innovations
mimicking health policies stand out: the participatory spaces for society,
materialised in the public policy councils. In this case, the National Council
of Social Assistance, the state councils and the councils present and
obligatory in all Brazilian municipalities with deliberative and supervisory
capacity of the state and municipal governments. A second extremely
important forum was the Tripartite and Bipartite InterManagement
Commissions (these in the states). In these institutional forums, the federal
government, states, and municipalities agreed on actions to implement the
guidelines drawn up by the conferences and councils. At SISAN, there was
also a similar national council: the Consea. These forums are an important
social innovation within a federal regime where the federal entities have
political autonomy and there is no hierarchy between them. Hence each of
them (26 states, the Federal District and the 5,570 municipalities) have the
constitutional right to join or not a federal public policy (Sátyro & Cunha
2018).
The existence and improvement of the Unified Registry for Social
Programmes, created in 2001, was also fundamental in enabling the
registration and identification of vulnerable families in poverty mitigation
programmes. This registry made it possible to periodically measure the
population exposed to the risk of food insecurity, as well as their access to
public services, education, work, housing, water, and sanitation. Finally, the
creation within MDS of a Secretariat responsible for the management of
information, the production of monitoring indicators, and the undertaking of
research to evaluate the Ministry's programmes contributed to the improved
monitoring and, eventually, correction of its actions.
According to Sátyro et al. (2021), including adequate nutrition as a social
right secured by the Federal Constitution indicated that a new level had
been reached in the public debate regarding food and nutrition security, and
strengthened the agenda for rights related to fighting poverty. Actions to
help the families of small farmers, a population that is overrepresented
among the poor, were initiated or consolidated. Some examples include the
creation of the Food Acquisition Programme and the expansion of the
National Programme for Strengthening Family Farming. Credit access
strategies, rural development resources, public purchase guarantees, water
access programmes (for consumption and production), technical assistance
provision, and rural extension were consolidated in order to strengthen
small family farming, which accounts for 70% of the production of basic
food items in the country (Menezes et al. 2013). Making progress in the
area of a solidarity economy was also a goal. The government provided
funding for collective forms of urban productive insertion and expansion of
the modalities in professional technical education and of access to them,
especially after the BSM Plan was launched in 2011 (Fonseca et al. 2013,
Paes-Souza & Jannuzzi 2013).
It is important to emphasise the effort to provide social assistance
services. The expansion of assistance services from 2004 onwards stood
out. They were meant to deal with other dimensions of poverty and took
shape when the Social Assistance Unified System (SAUS) was created in
2005 to deal with social risks other than insufficient income (Sátyro et al.
2021). It encompasses Basic Social Protection and Special Social
Protection. The latter targets medium and high complexity risks when there
is violation of rights with or without preservation of family bonds. Basic
social protection services are offered at Social Assistance Reference
Centers, which had 8,357 units in 99% of the 5,570 Brazilian municipalities
in 2019. For Special Social Protection services, there are public institutions
known as Social Assistance Specialised Reference Centres, of which there
were 2,723 units in the same year. Additionally, there is a whole social
assistance network with state and non-state units that reached over 19,000
entities linked to SUAS and offers varied services. These systems are
directly connected with the Justice System at all government levels.
However, federal funding for the maintenance of these services has become
scarcer, putting the preservation of SUAS at risk.

In conclusion … the social counter-legacy of a far-right

ultraliberal government
The return of hunger and food insecurity in the country from the middle of
the previous decade is associated less with the unfavourable economic
situation and more intensely with the change in focus of public policies
since the coup-impeachment4 of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. The
fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality that was at the centre of the
political agenda for 13 years, involving various federal and sub-national
actions through Fome Zero and the BSM Plan, was no longer a priority
agenda in the governments of Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro.
In 2016 and the following years, periodic blockages, suspensions, and
cancellations of Bolsa Família benefits began, without any concern for
readjustment of the value of the benefits. It is revealing in this sense that
between 2016 and December 2021, the PBF incorporated less than 500,000
families, despite the increase in unemployment, as well as the increase in
food prices over that period. In the Bolsonaro government, specifically,
there have been systematic actions to exclude Bolsa Família beneficiary
families, as well as delays in including others. By the end of 2019 there
were about 1.7 million families on the waiting list for Bolsa Família, which
had reduced its coverage to 13 million on the eve of the COVID-19
pandemic. This caused the PBF to lose its protective capacity (IPEA 2020).
With the arrival of COVID-19 and the approval of emergency budgetary
resources in March 2020, the inclusion of beneficiaries in the programme
was resumed, reaching the level of 14.3 million families that had been
reached five years earlier.
In relation to BPC, a similar situation was also seen. According to IPEA
(2021), during the first year of the Bolsonaro government, in 2019, there
were five months (unprecedented) of systematic reduction in the number of
beneficiaries of the programme, and at the end of the year there was a
number well below the historical data. That is, with COVID-19, when one
would imagine that the historical strategy of inclusion of elderly and
disabled people with low-income would be maintained, the order was
reversed.
With the supplementary resources approved, the Emergency Aid
Programme (PAE) could be implemented. In 2020 alone, R$294 billion
were invested, reaching the equivalent of 32% of the population and 43% of
Brazilian households (IPEA 2021). However, in 2021, Bolsonaro ended the
PAE and, at the end of that year, ended the PBF by instituting Auxilio Brasil
(PAB) cash transfer programme, from November onwards, with a duration
guaranteed only until the end of 2022. The redistributive design was
completely modified with a meritocratic approach, but there is no doubt that
the scope was extraordinary, reaching more than 20.6 million beneficiary
families in July 2022. The average benefit transferred, for years with no
correction for inflation, rose from R$220.00 to over R$600.00 in six
months, from December 2021 to July 2022.5
All this would be very positive as a policy to combat hunger and poverty
if it were not for two important aspects. First, the PAB had a populist
connotation, with the almost tripling of the value of the average benefit on
the eve of the presidential elections, but with a budgetary guarantee limited
to December 2022, and supposed extinction of the programme in 2023
since no provision in the budget law was sent to Congress until October
2022. The second aspect to comment on is that all the measures were taken
outside the SAUS. In other words, the government completely ignored the
entire institutional framework of the National Social Assistance Policy,
including the entire network of social assistance services, which remained
totally neglected. Furthermore, at the end of 2020, the Union's transfers to
the municipalities were lower than in 2004, even with a new authorisation
from Congress for the federal government to have extraordinary resources
(IPEA 2021).
The significant increase in food insecurity in recent years was not only
due to the procrastination in incorporating new families into Bolsa Família
or Auxílio Brasil. The various programmes aimed at food security for the
poorest population, such as the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos,
Restaurantes Populares, Cozinhas Comunitárias, Cisternas (Food
Acquisition Programme, Low-Income Restaurants, Community Kitchens,
and Cisterns), had their budgets drastically reduced during this period.
Furthermore, the Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (National
School Feeding Programme), which assist more than 30 million school
children, has had no readjustment in the average value of meals for seven
years. In other words, the mechanisms that explained the mitigation of
hunger and food insecurity until the middle of the last decade were
dismantled with the de-funding of SUAS and SISAN.
It was in this scenario that Lula returned to the presidency on 1 January
2023. If there is no doubt of the enormous political and operational
challenges to be faced in the fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality,
there is a renewal of public feelings in the country, in which solidarity,
tolerance, and empathy are returning. This was well symbolised by the
arrival of Lula in the inauguration at the Planalto Palace, seat of
government, flanked by poor people, blacks, children, the elderly, men,
women, and transsexuals. Could anyone imagine a better picture to show
how to bring back Brazil to Brazilians?

Notes
1. Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra Domiciliar (PNAD) e Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de
Domicílios Continua, that succeded it from 2012 on.
2. Including social security benefits such as old age, by contribution and disability pensions, death
pensions, sickness, accident and confinement aids, maternity leave pay.
3. At April 2022 prices, the minimum wage in 01/2003 was 608.48 Reais, having increased in
01/2015 to 1,220.27 Reais, a little more than double. In 01/2020, it was equivalent to 1,245.77
Reais, or just 2% higher.
 4. Coup-Impeachment or simply Coup are the terms that a growing number of political actors are
adopting to portray the impeachment process of President Dilma Rousseff in May 2016.
5. It is worth noting that the creation of the Emergency Aid during the Covid-19 pandemic was
fundamental for the families of workers who lost their jobs or economic activities. However, its
short duration did not guarantee effective food security in the most prolonged period of the
pandemic.

References
Campello, Tereza, Falcão, Tiago, Costa, Patricia Vieira da. O Brasil Sem Miséria. 1st ed. Brasília:
Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social, 2014.
DWECK. O Brasil em queda livre. Jacobin Brasil. São Paulo, 1:62–71, 2019.
ECLAC. Desarrolo Social Inclusivo. Santiago: Eclac, 2015.
FAO. State of Food Insecurity in the World. Rome: FAO, 2014.
FAO. Voices of Hungry: Methods for Estimating Comparable Prevalence Rates of Food Insecurity
Experienced by Adults Throughout the World. Rome: FAO, 2016.
Fonseca, Ana, Jaccoud, Luciana, Karam, Ricardo. Do Bolsa Família ao Brasil Sem Miséria: o desafio
de universalizar a cidadania. Fonseca; Fagnani (orgs), Políticas sociais, desenvolvimento e
cidadania, vol. 2, 2013, pp. 307–334.
IBGE. Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios: Segurança Alimentar. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE
2014.
IBGE. Síntese de Indicadores Sociais 2022. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 2022.
IPEA. Relatório de Acompanhamento dos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio. Brasília:
IPEA, 2014.
IPEA, 2020. Boletim de Política Sociais: acompanhamento e análise. n 27. Brasília: IPEA, 2020.
IPEA, 2021. Boletim de Política Sociais: acompanhamento e análise. n 28. Brasília: IPEA, 2021.
Jannuzzi, Paulo M., Montagner, Paula. Estado de bem-estar, políticas públicas e mobilidade social no
Brasil. In: Castro, Jorge Abrahão de., Pochmann, Marcio. (org). Brasil: Estado social contra a
barbárie. São Paulo: FPA, 2020, pp. 231–254.
Menezes, Francisco, Soares, Adriano, Romano, Jorge. Segurança alimentar e nutricional: balanço e
novos desafios. In: Fonseca, Fagnani (orgs), Políticas sociais, desenvolvimento e cidadania, vol. 2,
Sao Paulo: Fundacao Perseu Abramo, 2013, pp. 256–277.
Paes-Sousa, Romulo P., Jannuzzi, Paulo M. Going beyond the eradication of extreme poverty in
Brazil: the case for sustainable development goals. In: Cimadamore, Alberto; Koehler, Gabriele;
Pogge, Thomas (org.). Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals. 1st ed., vol. 1. London,
UK: Zed Books, 2016. pp. 112–125.
Peliano, Ana Maria Lições da história — avanços e retrocessos na trajetória das políticas públicas de
combate à fome e à pobreza no Brasil. In: Aranha, Adriana (org.). Fome Zero: uma história
brasileira. Brasília: MDS, 2010, pp. 26–41.
Penssan. Rede de Pesquisa em Soberania e Seguranca Alimentar e Nutricional. Relatório do II
Vigisan. São Paulo, Penssan, 2022.
Sátyro, Natália. The paradigmatic radical reform in Brazils social policies: the impact of the Temer
administration. In: Sátyro, Natália; del Pino, Eloísa (Org.); Midaglia, Carmen (Org.). Latin
American Social Policy Developments in the Twenty-First Century. Cham: Springer International
Publishing. 1, 2021.
Sátyro, Natália, Cunha, Eleonora. The transformative capacity of the Brazilian federal government in
building a social welfare bureaucracy in the municipalities. Revista de Administração Pública, 52,
pp. 363–385, 2018.
Sátyro, Natália, Jaccoud, Luciana, Januzzi, P.M. Brazilian social policies against poverty from a
longitudinal perspective. In: Baikady, Rajendra; Sajid, S.M.; Przeperski Jaroslaw; Nadesan
Varoshini; Rezaul Islam M.; Gao Jianguo. (Org.). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social
Problems. 1st ed. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 1–20.
Sátyro, Natália, Soares, Sergei. Bolsa Família e Benefício de Prestação Continuada: diferentes
impactos na redução da desigualdade estadual. Revista Teoria & Sociedade. 19(2). julho-
dezembro, pp. 114–143, 2011.
Souza, Pedro H. G. F., Osorio, Rafael G., Paiva, Luis H. e Soares, Sergei. Os efeitos do programa
Bolsa Família sobre a pobreza e a desigualdade: Um balanço dos primeiros quinze anos. Texto
para Discussão n. 2499, Brasília: IPEA, 2019.
UNDP. Relatório de Desenvolvimento Humano. UNDP: Lisboa, 2014.
Vinhais, F., Dick, P., Jannuzzi, P. Desigualdade, Pobreza e os efeitos do mercado de trabalho e das
políticas de transferência e garantia de renda no Brasil: evidências da década de 2010. In Mattos,
Fernando Augusto Mansor, et al. Desigualdade no Brasil. SP: Hucitec, 2022, pp. 126–139.
World Bank. Retaking the Path to Inclusion, Growth and Sustainability. World Bank: Brasília, 2016.
7
A STATE OF IGNORANCE
Bolsonaro and Brazil's historic hostility to mass
education

Eduardo Bueno

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-9

For over three centuries, keeping the bulk of the population illiterate and in
ignorance was State policy in Brazil.
For these 300 years, the lack – when not a total absence – of resources
for public education was not a matter of chance: it was the result of
premeditated action, stemming from decisions taken first by the Kingdom
of Portugal, maintained by the Empire of Brazil after independence in 1822
and, finally, taken forward and pushed ahead by the Republic from 1889
until the beginning of the 20th century. Even in the reign of Emperor Pedro
II – the man of letters, who loved arts and science, was seen as a “sage,”
and was called the “grandson of Marcus Aurelius” by the French writer
Victor Hugo – access to education, to school, and to learning was only ever
a privilege for the ruling class, excluding the great majority of the
population.
 Never had the article in Brazil's first 1824 Constitution, which instituted
“free and universal primary education for all Brazilian citizens” been fully
honoured or applied. This Constitution was not agreed but was decreed by
Emperor Pedro I, after he had sent the Army to occupy and close the
constituent assembly. Soon after, the central government arranged new laws
to transfer responsibility for education to the provinces. These provinces
had neither the structure nor money, not to mention the interest or will, to
make them work in practice.
Furthermore, it must be stressed that, in that first Constitution, it was
“mandatory” to provide primary education only for Brazilian citizens. This
excluded slaves and Indigenous peoples, arguably a majority in the imperial
era, who did not have citizenship. Also, the benefits of education failed to
reach the children of white people if they were poor, and most of the people
were poor indeed.
It is interesting and revealing to recall the beginnings of education in
Portugal in the 16th century. It helps one understand the roots and purposes
of governmental dispositions to veto access to education by the subjects of
the King and then Emperor, and subsequently to make it difficult. Bringing
the story up to date, the central argument of this chapter is to show clearly
that seldom in Brazilian history was there such a wide abyss between the
educational policies of the Jair Bolsonaro administration from 2019 to
2022, in contrast to those of the first two Lula administrations, 2003 to
2010, and that of Dilma Rousseff, from 2011 to 2016. While the PT
governments tried to follow and improve programmes started by the
previous Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, in order to make
access to education, and particularly college education more inclusive, the
Bolsonaro administration tried hard to demonise culture, education, and the
universities, which the president attacked.
A simple summary of the course of policies by the Ministry of Education
in the dreadful four years of Bolsonaro – as well as the mere exhibition of
the CVs, real and the false, of the four ministers; their declarations, actions,
suspicions – are enough to show the really terrifying picture of how
hardwon conquests in education were intentionally dismantled. More than
that, the striking contrast between what happened in the Bolsonaro
administration and the actions of the third Lula government in its first
month show there has been a radical turn. This could pull education out of
the swamp in which it was submerged.
A clear-eyed analysis shows that the Bolsonaro administration was
replaying in the 21st century many of the obscurantist, exclusivist and
retrograde policies of the past. These were policies which had denied most
Brazilian people the possibility of a good education since the beginning of
Portuguese colonisation in the New World.
It is important to emphasise that Portugal's colonisation of Brazil only
really started with the establishment of Royal Government in 1549, nearly
50 years after the official “discovery.” With the first governor general Tomé
de Souza, the first Jesuits to disembark in the Americas arrived in Bahia
under the leadership of Father Manoel da Nóbrega. The Society of Jesus or
Jesuit Order was founded in 1534 by a former military of noble origin,
Ignacio de Loyola, and became the vanguard of the Counter-Reformation.
As its name indicates, the Counter-Reformation was a reaction by the
Catholic Church against the Lutheran (Protestant) reformers. Luther
translated the Bible into German. He led and promoted a wide campaign for
literacy, in all the regions that adhered to Protestantism. He wanted to
enable people to get directly in touch with the “word of the Lord,” without
the intermediation of clergy or the church. On the other hand, the Counter-
Reformation was opposed to the dissemination of books and the study first
of Greek and later even of non-classical Latin. It argued that the Bible
should not be read, much less interpreted, by ordinary people who had not
graduated in theology. The conquests of the Renaissance and humanism
were also seen with suspicion by the Vatican, and by the kingdoms of
Portugal and Spain, which ardently supported the Counter-Reformation.
In Portugal the most dramatic example was the controversial closing of
the Colégio das Artes, a humanist and secular school of a Renaissance style.
It was founded in 1542 by André de Gouveia, advised by the brilliant
philosopher Damião de Góis. After a series of intrigues and slander –
including baseless accusations of homosexual relations between staff and
students, and a lack of school discipline – the College was closed in 1550
and given to the Jesuits. They made a radical change in the curriculum.
Many other schools were closed in Portugal so that, by 1555, there were
only three schools left, all founded by the Jesuits. At that same time, there
were more than 300 schools in the Netherlands, and the same number in
what is now Germany.
Father Manoel da Nobréga was part of this Counter-Reformation
movement before he came to Brazil. Arriving in the New World he resolved
to prevent heterodox Lutheranism, and the spirit of humanism, from
blowing through the colony. As Jesuit leader he and his accomplices created
many schools. But they were dedicated to catechism and evangelising the
Amerindian natives who, by the way, died en masse with outbreaks of
plague in their settlements in Salvador, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Nobréga believed that education of the Portuguese colonists was the
responsibility of the Crown, not the Society of Jesus. However the leader of
La Compania made sure not only that their children had no access to any
books with the exception of the Bible, and even that was in a scholastic
version, virtually impossible to be read and understood by anyone without a
formal education. And virtually no one had one.
Thus, for three centuries, education, science, books, the press, and
universities were forbidden by law in Brazil. That state of affairs led the
journalist, historian, and literary critic Wilson Martins to write in his classic
study, the seven-volume História da Inteligência no Brasil, a phrase that
echoes the name of the book and defines the issue, “The history of
intelligence in Brazil started under the aegis of ignorance.”
The situation improved a little in March 1808, with the arrival of the
Portuguese royal family, fleeing the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal. Even
then the press was only a royal press, working all the time under censorship.
Books and newspapers were still seen with suspicion, and most of them
were forbidden. There was no literacy campaign or incentive for education
for the rest of the 19th century. Hence, at the dawn of the 20th century when
the slaves were emancipated and Brazil became a republic, some 90% of
the Brazilian population were still illiterate and had had no schooling.
At the beginning the Portuguese Crown had wanted to stop the
circulation of liberal and “revolutionary” ideas, even when the risk of a
Protestant rebellion was over. After Brazilian independence, only citizens
with a minimum income had the right to vote. The right to vote of illiterates
was limited by a series of rules, going back to one in effect since 1595,
established by the Phillipine Ordinances, which said that illiterates could
vote “if accompanied by a good man who would write down the vote, but
not disclose the secret ballot.” It was the beginning of what would be called
in the future “vote under the yoke” (voto de cabresto). One should point out
that these were not real electors in the usual meaning of the word: they just
chose those who would be the real electors in the final poll.
From the Constitution imposed by the Emperor in 1824 up until the
municipal elections of 1985 the situation stayed almost unchanged, with
highly restrictive electoral lists from which illiterates were definitively
banned by the Lei Saraiva of 9 January 1881. This forbade an illiterate
person from casting a vote, even when “accompanied by a good man.”
These restrictions on the franchise may well explain why education was
for so long given a low priority by Brazilian governments, both in the
imperial and republican eras, at least until the revolution of 1930 led by
Getúlio Vargas. This launched changes in education which, from a certain
viewpoint, the Bolsonaro government has tried to reverse.
Although it went down in history as the “Revolution of 30” the
movement that broke out in October 1930 against the Old Republic was, to
all extents and purposes, a military coup. Led by the gaúcho warlord,
Getúlio Vargas, who had lost the presidential election in March of that year
to the “official” candidate of the federal government, this “revolution”
responded to the aspirations of the military movement known as
“tenentism.”
Following the military coup of 1889 which overthrew the imperial
monarchy and “provisionally” instituted a republic, the barracks were
divided between the so-called tarimbeiros and the “scientists.” The
tarimbeiros were career officers. The “scientists” were young lieutenants –
hence the name tenentismo – who were reformers, whose project was to
modernise Brazil.
They were in favour of electoral reforms for they thought, with good
reason, that elections were rigged. They also wanted reforms in education.
They had attempted coups in 1922, 1924, and 1926. They only became
victorious in 1930 with political allies, so doing away with the Old
Republic, also known as the Republic of Farmers, or Republic of Milk and
Coffee (Minas Gerais and São Paulo). That Old Republic had never been
interested in educational projects, and had continued to veto illiterates at the
ballot box – the veto in force since the Saraiva Law of 1881, maintained in
the first republican Constitution of 1891. This was although one of the main
leaders of the coup in 1889 was the intellectual Colonel Benjamin Constant,
a professor at the Red Beach Military School, which was an epicentre of the
coup. The only concrete change in education after the overthrow of the
monarchy was for “lay teaching in state schools” for there was a separation
between Church and State in the republic.
Vargas seized power by force of arms. He tore up the 1891 Constitution
and resisted convening a constituent assembly for as long as possible, and
the drafting of a new Constitution. In fact it did not meet until 1933, after
the outbreak of the so-called “São Paulo war,” the Constitutionalist
Revolution of 1932, which he put down.
The 1934 Constitution was the first to allocate a chapter to education and
to proclaim it as a right for everyone. It made primary schooling free, and
compulsory. It set down a portion of the budgets – of the federal
government, states, municipalities, and the federal capital – as required to
pay for the development and maintenance of educational systems. It made
provision for the organisation of education, with a national plan and
educational networks in all the states. It was the first time there had been a
concern to create an articulated national system. Another article gave
women the right to vote, so long as they too could read and write.
But this liberal constitution lasted only three years. In 1937 Getúlio
Vargas triggered his own coup d’état, plunging Brazil into its most
repressive dictatorship and issuing a new and authoritarian constitution,
described as “Polish” because it was based on the rigid Polish constitution
then in force. It was written by Francisco de Campos, a brilliant but
extremely reactionary jurist. Nicknamed the “Chico Ciência” he had been
the first Minister of Education in the Vargas era, between 1930 and 1932.
The 1937 legislation suppressed passages in the 1934 Constitution and
reduced funding, strongly affecting access to schools. Among the changes
was a limitation on free schooling. The new wording of Article 130 stated
that, although primary education was free and compulsory, “free, however,
does not exclude the duty of solidarity to those most in need; thus, at the
time of enrolment, a monthly contribution to the school funds will be
required.”
The federal government now took control of education. Teaching in
Brazil took on fascist contours, with the cult of the dictator Getúlio Vargas,
“civic” manuals distributed in schools so that students should sing hymns of
praise to the homeland, and march in military order. But this regime only
lasted until the “white coup” of 1945, when Vargas was deposed by the
military. Marshal Eurico Gaspar Dutra became president in 1946, after
rigged elections. Dutra convened another constituent assembly and enacted
a new constitution, the fourth to enter force in Brazil in just over half a
century.
The 1946 Constitution brought back articles from 1934, ensuring
responsibility for education lay with the states, which had been abolished in
1937. The text also addressed issues such as a mandatory minimum
budgetary spend for the Union, the states, and the municipalities,
emphasising the importance of public education. Article 168 reestablished
free primary education for all, and made post-primary education free for
those lacking the ability to pay. But in practice, as had been happening for
centuries, these intentions were not effective and the situation remained
restrictive and stagnant.
This was so much so that nearly half the population was still illiterate,
and denied the right to vote. The 1940 Census showed that only 53.3% of
Brazilians could read and write. Although these literacy rates were higher
than in 1881, attitudes remained similar to those expressed by Lafayette
Rodrigues, Minister of Justice, who had stated when the Saraiva Law was
being debated, “Just because it is general, must ignorance acquire the right
to rule? If there are eight-tenths of the population of the Empire who are
illiterate, I say they must be governed by the two-tenths who can read and
write.” As late as 1960, when Brazil had 60 million inhabitants, the total
number who voted in presidential elections which brought President Janio
Quadros briefly into office was only 11.67 million.
Getúlio Vargas returned to power in 1950, elected as president “in the
arms of the people.” This began a populist period for Brazil, and plotting
against him led to his suicide in August 1954. Vargas’ extreme gesture
postponed a potential coup for a decade. But in 1964, after the reforming
governments of Juscelino Kubitschek and João Goulart, Brazil became
victim to a new, dark military coup.
Education then acquired a doctrinaire quality under the Brazilian
dictatorship, reprising aspects of the Estado Novo of 30 years before.
Students were subjected to the kind of brainwashing typical of fascist
regimes, with classes in morals and civics. There was a vast literacy
campaign concentrated around MOBRAL, the Brazilian Literacy
Movement, a government agency. This was set up in the 1960s, replacing
adult literacy methods advocated by Paulo Freire, recognised as one of the
greatest innovators of pedagogy. Freire had been recruited by President
Goulart to develop a National Literacy Plan, aborted by the military
takeover.
The anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro, who had been Goulart's Minister of
Education, and Paulo Freire were seen as symbols of “communist
indoctrination” in schools. Their methods, more libertarian and progressive,
were replaced by programmes that were more ideological, more
conservative, and reactionary. Suffice it to say that, among the politicians
who occupied the Ministry of Education during the military regime were no
less than four signatories of the infamous AI-5 of 1968, the institutional act
which tried to give “legal” contours to the dictatorship, and plunged the
country into the horrors of injustice, censorship and torture. They were Luís
da Gama Filho, Pedro Aleixo, Tarso Dutra and Colonel Jarbas Passarino, a
colonel who openly favoured torture.
After the military dictatorship came to an end in 1984 a new constitution
was introduced in 1988, the so-called Citizens’ Constitution. It finally gave
all illiterates the right to vote. Arguably it was the first year in which the
country at last became a democracy. Education was, on paper, the right of
everyone, with a duty laid on the state to provide a service. The wording of
the constitution was specific.
Article 208, for example, concerns the provision of specialised
educational care to people with disabilities, and regular education to be
available in the evening, at times students may require. These show an
expansion in understanding the needs of different groups. Another aspect
highlighted in this constitution is that Brazil is a multilingual and
multicultural nation. This recognises the rights of Indigenous peoples, and a
commitment to a differentiated education which takes account of their
needs.
The governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 1995–2002, Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, 2003–2010, and Dilma Rousseff, 2011–2016, all tried
in their own ways to comply with the constitutional requirements laid down
in 1988 regarding education. Nonetheless, the term of President Cardoso,
although he was a former university professor, was widely criticised within
Brazilian federal universities. The biggest advances were undoubtedly
during the Lula administration.
Lula himself suffered from the lack of access to public education. Born in
Pernambuco in the Northeast he moved with his impoverished family aged
seven to São Paulo, attending primary school while working as a shoeshine
boy, selling peanuts and in a cleaner's. Aged 17 he trained as a lathe
operator getting his first qualification at a technical night school (SENAI,
Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial). He was in tears in
December 2002, when he became Brazil's 35th president and said, “If there
was anyone in Brazil who doubted that a lathe operator, coming from the
factory floor, could reach the Presidency of the Republic, the year 2002 has
proved the opposite. I, who for so many times have been attacked for not
having a higher education degree, now have my first degree: that of
President of the Republic for my country.” He was the first president from
outside the political and economic elite, and the only one not to have a
degree.
Perhaps it was due to the president's personal history that his
administration, from 2003 to 2020, provided unprecedented access to the
less privileged classes and minorities, through programmes of quotas,
scholarships, and various forms of incentive and finance.
But after the impeachment of Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff in 2016,
Brazil became more polarised. Educational issues were at the epicentre of
ideological clashes that ignited the country. In the days leading up to and
following the 2018 election, Jair Bolsonaro used the jargon of the world's
extreme right. He tried to confront not only the educational policy of the PT
but the teaching methods in both the state and private schools. He contested
the national curriculum laid down in the BNCC (the Common National
Basic Curriculum), established by the 1988 Constitution, with regulations
laid down by law since 1996.
For Bolsonaro and his aides and supporters, all the schools, as well as
federal and private universities, had been “captured by the ideology of the
left,” by “identity and gender issues,” and students were subjected to
constant “brainwashing.” Conservative parents came together to form
movements. The most notorious was called “School without party,”
responsible for raids and occupations of classrooms, and for purges of
“Marxist titles” from school libraries. Most of these parents had Olavo de
Carvalho as their guru, an astrologer, and self-styled philosopher who
advocated theses including that the songs of the Beatles were really
composed by Theodor Adorno, with the aim of “perverting the mentality”
of young people in the West. With fiery and delusional rhetoric, Carvalho
would soon become the main intellectual mentor for Bolsonaro and his
sons.
As one might have assumed after the victory of Bolsonaro at the polls
and his inauguration in January 2018, harassment of teachers began with
full force. The Ministry of Education has the largest discretionary budget in
the Union, over R$20 billion, surpassing even that of the Ministry of
Health. It was therefore the Ministry intended to play a central role in the
ideological struggle with the PT, at least until the denialist anti-vaccine
campaign by Bolsonaro at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Everything started with the swearing-in of Bolsonaro's first Education
Minister, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, on 2 January 2019, who launched a
series of policies from which he had to retreat. Vélez was born a
Colombian, naturalised as Brazilian, who had graduated in theology and
philosophy. He was a disciple of Olavo de Carvalho, who defined himself
on social media as “father, spouse, patriot, liberal conservative, Christian
and teacher by vocation.” From the start, he created controversies, and was
forced to retreat every time.
The same day when he was sworn in, 2 January, the government
announced changes to the rules for purchasing books to be used in teaching.
The tender document no longer required bibliographic references, or books
relating to the defence of ethnic and cultural diversity, or combat of gender
violence. This proposal caused a crisis, and the tender document was
withdrawn a week later.
In his first week the Ministry of Education sent an e-mail to schools all
over the country, asking teachers and students to raise the national flag and
sing the national anthem every day – and that a video of the ceremony
should be recorded and sent to the Ministry. The e-mail concluded with the
slogan of Bolsonaro's election campaign, “Brazil over everyone. God above
everything.” After a storm of criticism, the Minister backed down.
In his first week too, Vélez dismissed 12 key officials at the Ministry.
They included the chef de cabinet of the FNDE, the powerful and until then
efficient National Fund for the Development of Education; the president of
INEP, the National Institute for Study and Research; as well as Maria Inês
Fini, the head of the famous ENEM exam system. ENEM, the National
Exam for High School Students, provides the main route for admission to
higher education. It was created in 1998 and expanded in 2004 with the
University for All programme. It is the biggest higher education entrance
exam in the world after the Gao Kai in China. Maria Fini had tried to ensure
that Jair Bolsonaro would not have access to ENEM questions in advance,
and that a government should not interfere in the exam.
Under Bolsonaro and Vélez, however, INEP set up a “special
commission” to reevaluate questions used by ENEM, to see whether they
“accord with Brazilian reality.” One of Bolsonaro's demands, supported by
Vélez, was that the 1964 military coup was no longer so described. Both in
exam questions and teaching materials it was to be renamed “a democratic
regime of force.”
Vélez backed the expansion of so-called civic-military schools,
established by a National Programme for Civic-Military Schools. This was
described by the government as “a partnership between the Ministry of
Education and the Ministry of Defence that creates a new concept in the
didactic, pedagogic, and administrative areas, with the participation of the
teaching staff and the permanent military presence.” The goal was to open
216 civic-military schools in Brazil by 2023, an average of 54 a year. Only
46 ever opened, and the new Lula administration closed the programme in
January 2023.
After two weeks as Minister, Veléz made Iolena Maria de Lima his
Executive Secretary. She stated that “education in schools should be based
on the word of God.” In a 2014 interview, she declared that, left to her, “the
student will learn that the author of history is God, that the creator of
geography is God. God made the plains. God made the mountains. God
made the climate. The greatest mathematician was God.” According to her,
“the Sacred Books don't limit knowledge, because based on them a teacher
penetrates all areas of knowledge.” After ten days of controversy, Veléz
withdrew the nomination.
To complete his horror show, Veléz stated that “this idea of a university
for all does not exist” and that university courses should be “restricted to
the intellectual elite.” This was in a speech arguing for an expansion of
technical education, and a cut in investment in higher education. It tallied
with a declaration by the Minister for the Economy, Paulo Guedes, who
said that FIES (a federal programme to pay for higher education for low-
income students) was a” disaster” or “a grant for everyone.” The son of his
doorman had gone to university “despite getting zero in all his exams” and
FIES was giving grants to “those who don't have any capacity.”
Contrary to Guedes the FIES, differing from another federal
programmme, PROUNI – does not give grants. It offers interest-free loans
to students at private colleges and universities with a family income of less
than the value of three minimum wages (R$3,906 a week).
In the middle of all these crises, which resulted in the fall of Ricardo
Veléz on 8 April 2018, less than 90 days after his appointment, Bolsonaro
wrote a series of posts on Twitter. He thought universities had been
“slaughtered” by a leftist ideology that “despises capitalism.” One of his
government's priorities would be to “break the cycle of the hypnotised
mass, eating crumbs while their leaders swim in the millions diverted from
the Exchequer …. Unfortunately, it is a long and tough job because you
don't rebuild something so big overnight, but we are doing our part. We
wish for other generations to organise themselves, and carry forward the
small seed we are sowing.”
When it was thought that the powerful Ministry of Education could not
be led by anyone worse than Vélez, Bolsonaro chose Abraham Weintraub.
Weintraub was an economist, lecturer in accountancy, and another disciple
of the astrologer and flat-earther, Olavo de Carvalho – the unvaccinated
denialist who died of Covid on 22 January, 2022 after stating that it had not
killed anyone.
Soon after taking over the Ministry of Education, Weintraub announced a
cut of 30% in the discretionary budget of some federal universities.
“Universities that are promoting agitation, instead of trying to improve
academic performance, will have their funds cut,” he threatened. Later, in
the second half of 2019, this freeze was extended to all federal universities.
In November of 2019, without any evidence, Weintraub claimed that
marijuana was being cultivated on the campus of many universities. “You
have marijuana plantations, not just three plants but extensive plantations in
some universities which need to spread pesticides…. in marijuana
cultivation they want all the technology available.” Again, without
presenting evidence, he accused university chemistry laboratories of
producing methamphetamines, when police could not enter the campus.
For Weintraub, the “sovereignty” and autonomy of universities were to
blame. He compared Brazilian universities to the Muslim religious schools,
madrassas, for their indoctrination and promised to reduce their “absolute
and hegemonic power.” As expected he tried to intervene in the
appointment of principals (reitores) at federal universities, changing the
system whereby the institution submitted a choice of three names to the
President of Brazil. He faced, but could not solve, problems in the
evaluation of the 2019 ENEM exam results, which were postponed for
weeks. After getting involved in other issues, declaring that “the scoundrels
in the Supreme Court should all be arrested,” Weintraub was dismissed in
June 2020, one year and two months after becoming Minister.
His successor was announced as Carlos Decotelli, on 25 June 2020.
Bolsonaro praised his career on Twitter: “Decotelli has a bachelor's degree
in economics from the UERJ (the State University of Rio de Janeiro), a
master's from the FGV (Getulio Vargas Foundation), a PhD from the
University of Rosario in Argentina, and a post-doctorate from the
University of Wuppertal,” (which is a scientific institution in Germany.)
The next day the Rector of the National University of Rosario, Franco
Bartolacci, said that Decotelli never got a PhD. Soon after, the Rector of the
University of Wuppertal denied that he had a post-doctorate from that
university. Finally, Decotelli had to respond to allegations of plagiarism in
his FGV master's. Decotelli tried to explain the inexplicable but withdrew
before he could be sworn in.
Then the Ministry of Education fell into the hands of Milton Ribeiro, an
evangelical priest, noted for his homophobia and prejudice. For instance, he
criticised the inclusion of children with special needs in classes with those
without problems. In the course of two turbulent years, he said that young
homosexuals were products of “maladjusted families.” In November 2021,
a month before the ENEM exam for which they were responsible, 37
members of staff at INEP (the National Institute for Studies and
Educational Research) resigned in protest at the “technical and
administrative weakness of the current management.” Many staff deplored
cases of moral harassment at INEP, and that members of the Federal Police
had entered to check exam content.
 But the prejudices of Milton Ribeiro – more shocking because they came
from the Minister of Education – paled into insignificance compared with
overwhelming evidence of a scheme of corruption operating around him, in
the heart of the Ministry. Bribery with gold, purchase of bibles, and cash
hidden in a tyre were exposed in a scandal known as “the parallel cabinet”
of the Ministry. Two evangelical pastors had captured the Ministry's agenda
and were diverting money into road-building.
The group was led by Pastor Gilmar Silva dos Santos, president of the
National Convention of Churches and Ministers of the Assemblies of God
(Assembléias de Deus) in Brazil, and Arilton Moura, responsible for
political affairs in the convention. Usually, the distribution of funds for a
municipality is bureaucratic and slow. With the help of these pastors, some
local authorities got funding in record time, with money diverted from the
billions in the National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE).
Municipalities controlled by three parties – Progressistas, Partido Liberal,
and Republicanos – had preference for help from the pastors. All three were
part of the so-called Centrão, the centrist bloc in Congress, which was also
in control of the FNDE. At a meeting of Milton Ribeiro with mayors of
some of these authorities Gilmar Silva dos Santos explained that he
prioritised “Mayors who also work with the church,” his own evangelical
church. The two pastors were also recorded asking for bribes in gold,
forcing authorities to buy bibles at much above the market price, which had
photos on the back cover not only of Minister Ribeiro but of the two pastors
behind the racket.
Speaking in public, at the Ministry offices, Ribeiro said he was following
the orders of Bolsonaro, then with the Partido Liberal. “This was a special
request from the President, regarding Pastor Gilmar.” Arilton Moura and
Gilmar dos Santos were present. As the recording continued, the Minister
stated, “My first priority is to attend to local authorities in greatest need
and, secondly, to all those which are the friends of Pastor Gilmar.”
When the scandal exploded, Bolsonaro said he had put “his face on the
fire” for the Minister, who was an honourable man. But when Milton
Ribeiro could no longer resist the pressures and asked to resign on 28
March 2022, Bolsonaro let him go. In June the Federal Police, suspected of
having suffered undue influence from the President, arrested the ex-
Minister and two pastors in an operation “to clean up influence-peddling
and corruption in the distribution of public funds at the FNDE.” Ribeiro had
special treatment in detention and was not taken to the headquarters of the
Federal Police in Brasília, where agents were working on the case, as
required by law. Agents involved said off the record there had been
interference from above.
Milton Ribeiro and the two pastors were released, and the legal process
got stuck. But then Brazil changed. The former lathe operator, Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva, received his third diploma as President of the Republic in
December 2022 and climbed the ramp at the Planalto Palace on 1 January
2023.
On 19 January, 11 days after the terrorist attacks of 8 January, when
hordes of Bolsonaristas attacked and trashed the Tres Poderes (Three
Powers), the heart of the constitution, President Lula invited the principals
of all the federal universities to meet him at the severely damaged Planalto.
He wanted to restart a dialogue with them. He announced at the opening,
“We are now beginning a new moment, I know of the obscurantism we've
had to live through in the last four years. I wish to assert that we are leaving
the darkness to return to the light of a new era.”
Politicians in general abuse metaphors and exaggerations when they
speak. But anyone who has studied or lived through the improprieties in
Education, during the dreadful government of Jair Bolsonaro, has to admit
that Lula was right.
8
BLACK IDENTITY, MOBILISATION,
AND POLITICS IN BRAZIL

Gladys Mitchell-Walthour

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-10

Within the past 20 years, the discourse of race in Brazil has changed from
one in which affirmative action policies based on race were viewed as
controversial, to most of the country accepting that university quota
programmes are necessary, especially when they are also class-based.
Whereas historically the Brazilian nation was viewed as a racial democracy,
free of racism as there were purportedly no distinct races, today, many
Brazilians acknowledge there is racism in the country. Of course, the
contradiction is that the percentage of Afro-Brazilians perceiving they have
personally experienced discrimination is much lower than those admitting
the existence of racial discrimination.
In general, those of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to
perceive discrimination (Lamont et al. 2018, Figueiredo 2009). Today,
Afro-Brazilians (Browns and Blacks) are 56% of the population and
although most of this percentage is made up of Brown people, in general, it
is more common now for Afro-Brazilians to embrace a Negro (Black) racial
identity than in the past when Blackness was viewed negatively.
Throughout this chapter, I use the term Afro-Brazilians as an umbrella term
that includes the census category Blacks (Pretos) and Browns (Pardos). I
use it in the same way that black activists and journalists use the racial term
Negro (Black) which includes Blacks and Browns. I also use the English
term Black interchangeably with Afro-Brazilian, to indicate both Pretos and
Pardos.
Policies of affirmative action and policies to guarantee Afro-Brazilian
political candidates more funding have resulted in an embrace of Blackness.
In 2021, Brazil's Congress passed Constitutional Amendment 111, with
incentives to elect Afro-Brazilians and women. The distribution of electoral
funds to political parties has to be in proportion to the number of Afro-
Brazilian candidates. Black organisations today can mobilise based on
Black identity, and a steady pool of potential students to mobilise is in part
due to the increasing number of Afro-Brazilian university students due to
university quotas. Young Afro-Brazilian university students are exposed to
Black consciousness and discourse. In the past, Blackness was more
explicitly stigmatised. However, there are several mediums through which
young Afro-Brazilians are learning to embrace Blackness and one way is
through their university experiences.

Blackness and affirmative action

Although some academics claim that race or colour in Brazil is determined
by one's skin colour, socioeconomic status, and physical features, other
scholars have pushed back against this idea as high socioeconomic status
does not prevent high-income Afro-Brazilians from experiencing racism
(Figueiredo 2009, Caldwell 2006). Blackness has always been political and
Black movement activists have organised Afro-Brazilians with an agenda of
empowering and improving their lives. Traditionally they have not defined
black identity as simply a person's skin colour or physical features. In other
words, Blackness and black identity are not predicated on skin tone as Afro-
Brazilians or Negros, an umbrella term for Blacks and Browns include very
light-skinned Afro-Brazilians as well as dark-skinned Afro-Brazilians.
University quotas have facilitated the process of Afro-Brazilians embracing
Blackness, perceiving racial and class discrimination, and gaining a sense
of racial consciousness.
 University affirmative action programmes or quotas began more than 20
years ago with the University of Brasilia (UNB) being the first Federal
University to enact quotas (20% places were set aside for black students) in
2003. The State University of Rio de Janeiro was the first state university to
implement quotas, in 2001. UNB's Council of Teaching, Research and
Extension overwhelmingly voted in favour of the 20% quota with 24 votes
in support, one opposing vote, and one abstention (Maio and Santos 2005).
Since its implementation in the early 2000s, there has been an increase in
Afro-Brazilian students. There were many debates among faculty, students,
administration, and Black movement leaders. In fact, as Maio and Santos
noted UNB's Timothy Mulholland, Vice Chancellor; Matilde Ribeiro, chief
minister for the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality
Policies; and José Carvalho, an anthropologist at UNB were some of those
present in the auditorium, during the vote. Some leaders gave presentations.
In other words, there was participation from a number of stakeholders to
discuss how quotas should be determined and implemented.
In 2012, President Dilma Rousseff signed legislation that all public
federal universities had to enact class-based quotas (for students from
public schools) with sub-quotas for Afro-Brazilians, Indigenous, and
disabled students. The sub-quotas for Afro-Brazilian students must be in
proportion to their representation in the state. In 2000, only 2.2% of Afro-
Brazilian students graduated from university (Brito 2018). By 2017, this
number reached 9.3%. In comparison, 22% of white Brazilian students
graduated from university. While some scholars and the population first
viewed it as controversial, with the argument that it was difficult to
determine who was Black, and that Brazil was importing notions of race
from the United States, today most Brazilians agree with university quotas.
Black movement activists advocated quotas because Afro-Brazilians were
severely underrepresented in universities. According to the Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics, Blacks and Browns are 50.3% of
public university students. There was also an increase at private
universities, but they are not the majority of students in them. Although
there is more Afro-Brazilian student representation, there is still less
representation in certain fields such as medicine and engineering. In
addition, underrepresentation of Afro-Brazilian professors at universities
continues. Yet quotas have been successful.
 Quotas are also important because attending universities helps shape
racial identity. Vania Penha-Lopes (2013) found that black students at the
State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) were exposed to Black
movement discourse as students. They were exposed to Black movement
activists outside the university, such as community activists, as well as
student activists. She conducted interviews with quota students who
graduated from UERJ. They face many challenges, even difficulty in paying
for bus fares. Yet these students successfully completed their studies.
Although there was initial criticism that quota students could not compete at
the same level as non-quota students, Berry and Valente (2017) found that,
in some courses, quota students outperformed the rest. Although arguments
against quotas are less prevalent today than they were in the past, there is
still a segment of the population that does not support the programme,
including past President Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro criticised quotas but did not change them. Although Brazil
elected Bolsonaro, demonstrating the conservative leanings of the
population, a survey in 2022 found 50% of Brazilians in support of racial
quotas and only 34% against quotas (Globo n.d.). Quota programmes at
public federal universities were due for renewal ten years after the 2012
legislation. In President Lula's inauguration speech, in 2023, he discussed
the importance of university quotas and his belief that there should be an
increase. He also noted that Blacks should not be a majority of those living
in poverty. His commitment to support policies to improve the social and
economic conditions of Afro-Brazilians indicates that university quotas will
continue.
However, the challenge is that Afro-Brazilian university students with a
college degree still face barriers to employment, especially compared to
their white peers. A high-profile case of the argument that many white
employers make, was the case of Lula's 2023 Minister of Planning and
Budget, Simone Tebet who claimed it would be difficult to have a diverse
team as she could not find black women who would be qualified candidates.
Anielle Franco, Brazil's new Minister for Racial Equality, responded by
sending Tebet a list of qualified black women. This case, at the federal
level, replicates the stereotype and assumption that employers hold: that
Afro-Brazilian job candidates, including Afro-Brazilian women, are not
qualified, so their resumés and applications should not be considered. There
has been an increase in Afro-Brazilian college graduates, but they are
overlooked where employers deny their existence.

Contemporary challenges to Black identity

As previously mentioned, Blackness and Black identity are not limited by
skin colour. This is a political identity that embraces Black causes and Afro-
Brazilian cultures such as religion, history, and the ways in which people
live, and how their communities are structured. For example, Blackness can
be viewed as a political identity, so that someone with a progressive
political agenda can be considered black as was found by Mitchell-
Walthour's 2005 study of Afro-Brazilians in Salvador, who often cited Lula
as a black politician (Mitchell-Walthour 2018). Black activists have long
argued that Africans and Afro-Brazilians have contributed to Brazilian
culture in particular ways. For example, Leila Gonzalez's notion of
pretoguês (combining Blackness and Portuguese) exemplifies the African
influence on Brazilian Portuguese. Brazilian society accepts African
contributions to the Brazilian nation-state and this acceptance, historically,
has made it difficult for black activists to distinguish Afro-Brazilian culture
or identity from Brazilian culture. However, in the contemporary context,
Afro-Brazilians have articulated various forms of culture manifested in
music such as Hip-Hop (Santos 2016). Hip-Hop is a space where social
issues particular to Afro-Brazilians and low-income people have been
addressed. In addition, Carnaval groups also acknowledge African and
African diaspora cultures. With the passage of Law 10.2369 in 2001, which
requires schools to teach African and Afro-Brazilian history, black activists,
scholars, and artists have all articulated Brazil's Black history. This involves
embracing black heroes such as Zumbi, who led black resistance in the
Quilombo settlement of Palmares, Pernambuco, in the seventeenth century,
and the contributions of past intellectuals such as Machado do Assis,
Abdias do Nascimento, Leila Gonzales, as well as those of notable present-
day intellectuals such as Evaristo Conceição, Sueli Carneiro, and Djamila
Ribeiro. They are all a part of black history and identity.
Nonetheless, because of Brazil's history of racial mixture, there have
been cases in which white Brazilians have identified as Black or Pardo to
use quota admissions, or they have switched their race when running for
election. Many times, these people will claim they have a black family
member such as a grandmother. In some cases, they will present photos
with a tanned skin to appear with a darker skin tone. They have been met
with resistance by black activists who challenge their assertion of a black
identity if they have no past experiences with racial discrimination, racial
causes, or efforts to improve the status of Afro-Brazilians. This resistance
exemplifies the notion that Blackness is political.
Santos and Freitas (2020) found evidence that white students committed
fraud using university quotas. Another example of white Brazilians
attempting to claim a Black identity for advantage are politicians who
switch their race from election to election to garner votes (Janusz 2021).
Janusz shows that from 2014 to 2016, more than 25% of candidates
changed their race. It was more common for white candidates to switch to
Brown rather than for Browns to change from Brown to Black.
Nonetheless, white candidates have switched to Afro-Brazilian identities in
an attempt to win in regions where the Afro-Brazilian population is
substantial.
In 2022 this trend continued. In a highly contested race to be governor of
Bahia, ACM Neto, the grandson of Antônio Carlos Magalhães, who was
governor for three terms and a prominent national figure, was pictured with
darker skin in an interview, and self-declared as Brown during the election.
He was a former mayor of Salvador in the state of Bahia. Salvador's Afro-
Brazilian population is 80% and the state too is predominantly Afro-
Brazilian. Black movement leaders criticised him because he never
supported legislation that would benefit Afro-Brazilians.
Vilma Reis, a longtime black activist and coordinator of the Coalition of
Black Rights stated, “ACM Neto is a member of a [political] party that, in
two decisive cases for the black population in Brazil, went to the Federal
Supreme Court (STF) against us: in the case of quotas, they filed a direct
action of unconstitutionality in 2003 and were defeated in 2012; then, in
2006, they filed a lawsuit against Decree 4.887 of 2003, created by
President Lula with the backing of the Brazilian Black movement, for the
demarcation of Quilombola lands, which was defeated in 2018 (Da Redação
2022).” In ACM Neto's case, he is not Brown or Afro-Brazilian, according
to Afro-Brazilian leaders, because he does not support political projects for
Afro-Brazilians. In other words, Blackness is political and is determined by
one's commitment to progressive policies that will benefit the Afro-
Brazilian population.

Black mobilisation under Bolsonaro

There is a long history of black mobilisation in Brazil, dating back to
slavery. Yet, in the past, Black movement activists found it difficult to
mobilise Afro-Brazilians strictly based on racial issues. Organisations such
as the Brazilian Black Front, the first black political party, founded in 1931
and the United Black Movement, created in 1978 fought for black rights. In
2006, Mães de Maio (Mothers of May) was created in São Paulo to fight
against police brutality and on behalf of victims of police executions. Reaja
ou Será Morta (React or Be Killed) was created in 2005 in Salvador, Bahia
in response to police executions of black citizens. Both these groups were
created before the Black Lives Matter in the USA, founded in 2013.
Technology and the increase in young Afro-Brazilians in universities who
have been exposed to black movement rhetoric and cultural elements such
as Hip-Hop and social media make it easier to mobilise all Afro-Brazilians.
Today the Coalition of Black Rights, an umbrella organisation, includes
over 200 Black organisations. They fight on behalf of diverse rights for
Blacks, from religious freedom to LGBTQ+ issues, and women's issues.
This coalition was founded in reaction to the election of Jair Bolsonaro.
Given the long history of Black mobilisation and the harsh context of the
Bolsonaro era, it is no surprise that black Brazilians have continued to
mobilise.
In 2001 the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South
Africa marked a pivotal moment in Black Brazilian mobilisation. Activists
mobilised before and during the conference to show the world the glaring
inequalities between black Brazilians and whites. As previously mentioned,
affirmative action policies have increased the number of black students and
the potential for a growing racial consciousness. This has resulted in a
readily available pool of young people who can be involved in protests and
activism. Because the Coalition for Black Rights is composed of
organisations that have long existed as well as newer organisations, I do not
claim that university quotas led to an increase in the number of
organisations. However, quotas produce potential participants for the
movement. Bolsonaro ran on a tough-on-crime stance and wished to
implement policies such as a loosening of gun control to keep his campaign
promises. Black activists opposed a loosening of gun control and protested,
because of the disproportionate number of Afro-Brazilians routinely killed
by police.
In 2020, the Coalition of Black Rights called for Bolsonaro's
impeachment because of his handling of the pandemic crisis. He failed to
respond initially and, and throughout its duration, called Covid 19 “a little
flu.” Emergency aid was eventually dispensed so that low-income
households could buy food. Civil society groups such as the Coalition for
Black Rights and others ran fundraising campaigns such as A Gente Tem
Fome (We Are Hungry) to raise money and distribute food.
This umbrella coalition organised events to highlight progressive political
candidates running in 2022. They also supported Lula's 2022 presidential
campaign and met him. Their significance is that they emphasised that
black Brazilians should be a part of Brazilian democracy: they should be
represented in Lula's government, not simply viewed as a voting bloc. After
winning the 2022 election, Lula appointed ten people who self-identify as
Black or Brown to federal positions including Anielle Franco as Minister of
Racial Equality, Silvio Almeida as Minister of Human Rights, Flavio Dino
as Minister of Justice, Marina Silva as Minister of the Environment,
Margareth Menezes as Minister of Culture, Waldez Góes, Minister of
Integration and Regional Development, Carlos Lupi, Minister of Social
Welfare, Rui Costa, Minister of Civil House of the Presidency of the
Republic, Juscelino Filho, Minister of Communications, and Luciana
Santos Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovations (Rosario 2023).
While formal mobilisation has been significant, social media platforms
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have also served as sites of Black
mobilisation (Jackson, Bailey, and Wells 2020). In Brazil, social media
served as a tool to discuss Blackness, push back against racism, and rally.
Before and during the Bolsonaro presidency, social media played a role in
increasing media representation of marginalised groups, including black
Brazilian women (Rosa 2020). Mitchell-Walthour and Gilliam (2023) found
that Afro-Brazilian YouTubers were engaged in digital activism that
challenged politics, including the 2018–2022 far-right government in Brazil
and police abuse against citizens. They focused on five YouTube channels
run by black Brazilian women and black Brazilian gay men. These channels
offer intersectional perspectives that focus on issues of race, class, gender,
and sexuality. Their discourse is different from the past in which the general
Brazilian population discussed discrimination in class terms, ignoring race.
These YouTubers acknowledge racism and how it intersects with other
types of discrimination. They participated in the #EleNão (NotHim)
campaign, which discouraged voters from voting for Bolsonaro. They
explained why Bolsonaro was dangerous to LGBTQ+ people, women, and
black people. They discussed identity in an intersectional manner,
acknowledging identities as black women or as black gay men. They served
as teachers, by disseminating information about political candidates running
for president and stood firmly against Bolsonaro's hateful rhetoric and
practices.
While social media has served to empower potential voters and Afro-
Brazilian women (Mitchell-Walthour 2020) it is also a means of
disseminating racism and anti-Blackness. Anti-Blackness is evident in
everyday life through police killing black people and in social media. In
fact, Luiz Trindade (2020) found that Facebook posts that employ racism,
often disguised as humour, often attack black Brazilian women, especially
those who are upwardly mobile. Alves and Vargas (2018) argue that Brazil's
anti-Blackness aided Bolsonaro's rise to power. Social media also served as
a tool for extremist groups and conservative evangelicals who spread
misinformation and disinformation, which some attribute to Bolsonaro's
win (Belli 2018). Thus, under the Bolsonaro presidency, social media
continued to mobilise voters with conservative viewpoints. In contrast, they
have also been tools that progressives, including social media influencers
and black activists, can use to empower vulnerable groups and help them
win their rights.

Black women and politics

Black women's participation in politics became a more important point of
discussion after the 2018 assassination of Marielle Franco, a councilwoman
in Rio de Janeiro, which led to worldwide protests. It led to efforts,
especially those organised by black Brazilian women themselves, to
increase the number of black women in politics. In 2020, nearly 250,840
black Brazilians ran to be city councillors (Teofílo 2020), up from 235,105
in 2016. Afro-Brazilians now make up 44% of the membership of city
councils nationwide. Afro-Brazilian women also saw significant firsts in the
2020 election, winning 14% of city council seats. This was a notable
increase considering they won just 3.9% of city council seats in 2016
(Gragnani 2018). While local elections have proven more victorious for
Afro-Brazilian women, they are still significantly underrepresented in the
national Congress.
In 2020, 13 of the 513 representatives in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies
were Afro-Brazilian women (Assis, Ferrari, and Leão 2018) and Senator
Eliziane Gama was the only Afro-Brazilian woman in a Senate of 81
members. In 2022, Brazil elected an Indigenous woman as a federal deputy,
Sônia Guajajara, as well as two Black transwomen, Erika Hilton, and
RoBeyoncé Lima, to the Chamber of Deputies. In total, in 2022, nine Afro-
Brazilian women were elected to the Chamber (Utida 2022), so the total of
black women representatives in the Chamber of Deputies rose from 13 to
29.
While they are all to be celebrated, the reality is that the number of black
women politicians remains small – only 5.6% of the 513 deputies in the
national Chamber of Deputies when Afro-Brazilian women make up 26%
of the population (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais 2021).
Throughout the 2022 campaign season, organisations such as the Coalition
of Black Rights and the Marielle Franco Institute were extremely active,
highlighting progressive candidates’ platforms and generating excitement
and support for black and progressive candidates. The Marielle Franco
Institute supported more than 140 progressive candidates while the
Coalition of Black Rights endorsed 130.
The Marielle Franco Institute conducted a study of black women
politicians who also work on human rights issues, including pressuring the
Bolsonaro Administration for those suffering from hunger due to Covid-19,
and those who signed the Marielle Franco Agenda 2020. The Marielle
Franco Agenda is a progressive agenda that advocates many of her policies
and causes. Eleven Black woman politicians were interviewed from eight
states. Interviewers found that women were threatened with political
violence as candidates, and while in office. Benny Briolly, a black
transwoman who was on the city council in Niterói has been threatened
while in office. Taliria Petrone, a federal deputy who represents Rio de
Janeiro, was also threatened while in office. In 2023, Bolsonaro supporters
took over three buildings in Brasilia including the Presidential palace, the
congress, and supreme court damaging windows and furniture. It was on a
Sunday so fortunately they did not attack any politicians.
The Marielle Franco Institute therefore advocates more protection for
black women when they are political candidates and for those who get
elected. While there are decrees guaranteeing protection, many of the
security budgets have not been increased since 2018. The Protection of
Defenders of Human Rights, Social Communicators and Environmentalists
(PPDDH) was instituted to protect and provide security for activists and
politicians who are under threat because of their human rights work. The
Ministry of Women, Family, and Human Rights is responsible for the
programme. However, in 2020, only 44% of their budget went to the
PPDDH (Pinto, Decothé, and Lima 2021). While there has been an increase
in black women running for elected positions, the political environment
remains especially dangerous for them. In 2022, Taliria Petrone, for
instance, was finally guaranteed protection.
While there have been victories of progressive Afro-Brazilian women,
such as the appointment of Anielle Franco as Minister of Racial Equality,
Marina Silva as Minister of the Environment, Luciana Santos as Minister of
Science and Technology, and Margareth Menenzes as Minister of Culture,
Bolsonarismo will continue to be a challenge. This is evident in the 2022
election results. Of the 27 new senators elected, 20 were Bolsonaro
supporters. This means that nearly a third of Brazil's 81 senators in Lula's
new term support Bolsonaro's conservative agenda. They, along with their
conservative counterparts in the Chamber of Deputies, pose a challenge to
black women politicians and Ministers, and to Lula's government. Yet, as
Anielle Franco has already shown with her quick response to Tebet, they
are up to the challenge and are committed to a democracy that accepts a
diverse population and works to improve the lives of all, especially those
most marginalised in society.

Conclusion
In summary, Brazilian Black identity is not restricted to scholarly
definitions of Blackness. Black movement activists shape what it means to
be Black, for one must have a commitment to improving the lives of Afro-
Brazilians. Black identity also includes the embrace of black history and an
awareness of various forms of discrimination. Black women have been
successful at addressing multiple forms of marginalisation and while they
are still significantly underrepresented in national and state politics, their
numbers have increased.
Although it will be challenging, there is potential for a substantial and
positive change in the lives of Brazil's black population with Lula as
president once more. Many Brazilians fell into poverty during the pandemic
and many of these were Afro-Brazilians. His support of racial policies such
as affirmative action and social policies such as Bolsa Família both
benefited Afro-Brazilians. Lula's commitment to marginalised people can
help to decrease high levels of poverty. Furthermore, because of black
representation as Federal Ministers, including several black women, there is
hope that the tide will turn.

References
Alves, Jaime A. and Joao Costa Vargas. 2018. “Antiblackness and the Brazilian Elections.”
November 21. North American Congress on Latin America.
https://nacla.org/news/2018/11/21/antiblackness-and-brazilian-elections
Assis, Carolina de, Marília Ferrari, and Natalia Leão. 2018. Câmara dos Deputados Terá Menos
Homens Brancos e Mais Mulheres Brancas, Negras e 1a Indígena em 2019. October 8. Accessed
on December 27, 2022. https://www.generonumero.media/reportagens/camara-dos-deputados-tera-
mais-mulheres-brancas-negras-e-indigena-e-menos-homens-brancos-em-2019
Belli, Luca. 2018. WhatsApp Skewed Brazilian Election, Showing Social Media's Danger to
Democracy. The Conversation, December 8. https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-
brazilian-election-showing-social-medias-danger-to-democracy-106476
Berry, Brian and Rubia Valente. 2017. “Performance of Students Admitted through Affirmative
Action in Brazil.” Latin American Research Review 52(1), 18–34.
Brito, Débora. 2018. Cotas Foram Revolução Silenciosa no Brasil Afirma Especialista. Agencia
Brasi. May 27. https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/educacao/noticia/2018-05/cotas-foram-revolucao-
silenciosa-no-brasil-afirma-especialista
Caldwell, Kia. 2006. Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Da Redação. 2022. “ACM Neto “pardo”: entre o Afro-oportunismo e a Fraude Eleitoral.” 25 de
setembro de 2022 A Tarde. https://atarde.com.br/politica/bahia/acmneto-entre-o-afro-oportunismo-
e-a-fraude-eletoral-1207255
Figueiredo, Angela. 2009. “Out of Place: The Experience of the Black Middle Class” In Bernd Reiter
and Gladys Mitchell's Brazil's New Racial Politics. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Globo. https://g1.globo.com/google/amp/educacao/noticia/2022/06/12/datafolha-metade-dos-
brasileiros-e-a-favor-das-cotas-raciais-em-universidades-34percent-sao-contra.ghtml
Gragnani, Juliana. 2018. “Mulheres Negras entre 811 Vereadores Eleitos em Capitais Brasileiras.”
BBC Brasil. 15 Março. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-43424088
Jackson, Sarah, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles. 2020. Hashtag Activism: Networks of
Race and Gender Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press University.
Janusz, Andrew. 2021. “Electoral Incentives and Elite Racial Identification: Why Brazilian
Politicians Change their Race.” Electoral Studies 72, 102340.
Lamont, Michèle, Graziella Moraes Silva, Jessica Welburn, Joshua Guetzkow, Nissim Mizrachi,
Hanna Herzog, and Elisa Reis. 2018. Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination
in the United States, Brazil, and Israel. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Maio, Marcos Chor and Ricardo Ventura Santos. 2005. “Política de cotas raciais, os “olhos da
sociedade” e os Usos da Antropologia: o Caso do Vestibular da Universidade de Brasília (UnB).”
Horizontes Antropológicos 11(23). https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-71832005000100011
Mitchell-Walthour, Gladys. 2018. “The Politics of Blackness in Salvador, Brazil”. In Scott Ickes and
Bernd Reiter's The Making of Brazil's Black Mecca. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State
University Press.
Mitchell-Walthour, Gladys. 2020. “Afro-Brazilian Women YouTubers Use of African American
Media Representations to Promote Social Justice in Brazil.” Journal of African American Studies
24(1): 149–163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-020-09458-72020/
Mitchell-Walthour, Gladys and Reighan Gilliam. 2023. “Brazil's New Black Politics: Black Brazilian
YouTubers Fight for Social Justice During the Far-Right Era.” In Oliveira, Cloves, Gladys
Mitchell-Walthour, and Minion Kenneth Chauncey Morrison's Black Lives Matter in Latin
America. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Penha-Lopes, Vania. 2013. Pioneiros: Cotistas na Universidade Brasileira. Anhangabau, Brazil:
Palco Editoria.
Pinto, Fabiana, Marcelle Decothé, and Brisa Lima. 2021. Violência Política de Gênero e Raça no
Brasil 2021. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Marielle Franco Institute.
Rosa, Maristela. 2020. O Que É Ser Mulher Negra no Brasil? O YouTube a Serviço de uma Nova
Representação. Master Degree Thesis. Juiz de Fora, Brazil: Universidade Federal da Juiz da Fora.
Rosario, Fernanda. 2023. “Dos 37 Ministros de Lula, 10 se Autodeclaram Negros.” January 2, 2023.
Terra. https://www.terra.com.br/nos/dos-37-ministros-de-lula-10-se-autodeclaram-
negros,61529cb17aeb421547b22ecedcaab5d6jtw8hs7u.html
Santos, Jaqueline Lima. 2016. “Hip-hop and the reconfiguration of Blackness in Sao Paulo: The
Influence of African American political and Musical Movements in the Twentieth Century.” Social
Identities 22: 160–177.
Santos, Sales and Matheus Freitas. 2020. “Sistema de Cotas e Fraudes em uma Universidade Federal
Brasileira.” Revista Relações Sociais 3: 1–23. 10.18540/revesvl3iss3pp0001-0023
Teofílo, Sarah. 2020. “Maioria de Candidatos a Vereadores é Preta e Parda; a Prefeitos, Branca.”
Correio Braziliense. September 27.
https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/politica/2020/09/4878301-maioria-de-candidatos-a-
vereadores-e-preta-e-parda-a-prefeitos-branca.html.
Trindade, Luiz Valério P. 2020. “Disparagement Humour and Gendered racism on social media in
Brazil.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43(15): 2766.
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. 2021. “Homens Brancos da Parcela 1% Mais Rica têm Renda
Maior que todas as Mulheres Negras do Brasil.” 15 de Dezembro.
https://ufmg.br/comunicacao/noticias/homens-brancos-da-parcela-1-mais-rica-tem-renda-maior-
que-todas-as-mulheres-negras-do-brasil
Utida, Mauro. 2022. Mulheres Negras Eleitas Farão Mandato de Luta na Câmara dos Deputados.
Midia Ninja. 3 de Outubro. https://midianinja.org/news/bancada-feminina-negra-tera-oito-
mulheres-na-camara-dos-deputados/
9
CRIME, VIOLENCE, AND PUBLIC
SECURITY

Anthony Pereira and Renato Sérgio de Lima

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-11

Introduction
One of the limitations of Brazilian democracy is that it has not produced
effective public security policies or assuaged many citizens’ concerns about
crime and violence. Since the democratic transition in the 1980s public
security has remained an unresolved problem for Brazilians, ranking high
alongside employment and health as one of the most important issues of
concern to them in many surveys of public opinion. Despite attempts at
incremental change to modernise police practices, Brazil has not conducted
an ample reform of its police forces. In juridical terms, the police are still
largely governed by the laws created during the military dictatorship of
1964–85. Brazil remains a country without coordinated and consistent
violence prevention mechanisms or credible methods of monitoring and
evaluating public security policies so as to produce accountability, with a
high homicide rate (22.3 per 100,000 in 2022) and police forces that use
disproportionate lethal violence against the population (6,145 police killings
in 2022).
 This chapter argues that in order to understand the challenges of the third
Lula administration (2023–present) in public security, one must survey the
recent past. This chapter reviews policies in the first two terms of the Lula
government in the 2000s, the tumultuous deterioration in the social situation
and public security in the 2010s, the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, and
the policies of the Bolsonaro administration from 2019 to 2022. It ends with
an accounting of what the Lula government faces in this area. The problems
go beyond a violent society and police forces that often escape
administrative control and engage in high levels of corruption and killing.
They include insurrectionary movements that remain popular in the ranks of
highly autonomous and politicised police and military forces despite the
electoral defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.

Public security during Lula's first two terms

Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva was first elected to the presidency in 2002, after
losing elections in 1989, 1994, and 1998. Brazil's homicide rate in that year
was 28.5 per 100,000 after a long upward climb from the rate of 11.7 per
100,000 in 1980. Amidst rising concern about crime and violence, Lula's
inauguration brought with it hopes for a new approach to public security. A
plan was developed by the Instituto Cidadania (Citizenship Institute) during
the election campaign that promised a new model for public security
(Figueiredo, Barros and Lima 2019: 73).
After Lula's inauguration on 1 January 2003 a new team took the helm of
the National Secretariat for Public Security (Secretaria Nacional de
Seguranca Publica, or SENASP), part of the Ministry of Justice. This team
advocated an approach to policing that reconciled efficient data
management and the intelligent use of force with proximity to communities
and respect for human rights. It turned the plan developed during the
campaign into a National Plan for Public Security and created a section
within SENASP devoted exclusively to crime prevention. The new cadre of
SENASP managers also declared the need for a Unified System of Public
Security (Sistema Unico de Seguranca Publica or SUSP) modelled on the
unified public health system created in the 1990s. An important component
of SUSP involved the attempt to collect crime data from the states, along
the lines of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's Unified Crime
Reporting system, and to use this data to assess results and refine policies.
Although President Lula's first appointee as Secretary of SENASP, Luis
Eduardo Soares, lasted only nine months, his successor remained
throughout Lula's first term in office and enjoyed the longest tenure of any
director of SENASP up to that point (the agency had been created in 1998).
The agency embarked on an ambitious series of activities, distributing
resources to state secretariats of public security but also to municipal
governments for activities such as training. The spending was doled out
with the help of a statistical system, created in 2004, that gathered data on
homicides and other crimes, police personnel, population, GDP per capita,
the human development index, and other indicators from 224 municipios
(counties) with populations over one hundred thousand people. SENASP
administrators claimed that the statistics enabled them to distribute funds on
the basis of need rather than political criteria.
SENASP's approach stood in contrast to traditional repressive police
methods that emphasise vehicles, men with guns, and the heavy-handed use
of force. SENASP argued that public security was not just a question for the
police, but also for communities and state agencies in the areas of health,
education, employment, leisure, housing, and the arts. SENASP encouraged
municipal governments to engage in crime-prevention programs for at-risk
youth, such as job training, sports, cultural and educational programs. The
agency also promoted the creation of community councils (conselhos
comunitarios) at both the local and state levels to institutionalise dialogue
between leaders of police forces and civil society organisations, as well as
members of local communities. SENASP also brought law enforcement
officials together at national conferences and promoted integrated
management (gestão integrada), the coordination of the military and civil
police at the state government level. It also offered training to modernise
the civil police, for example in the area of crime scene investigation. These
efforts were characterised by some observers of the Lula administration as
an attempt to create a new model of “citizen public security” in Brazil,
different from the “national security” approach of the military dictatorship
(1964–85) and the “civil public security” paradigm of the civilian
administrations from 1985 to 2002 (Figueiredo, Barros and Lima 2019: 68).
 On 23 October 2005 the Lula government held a gun control referendum
to decide the fate of a proposed prohibition on the sale of guns and
ammunition in Brazil. At the beginning of the campaign, the yes vote (to
ban guns and ammunition) appeared to be in the ascendancy, with many
celebrities endorsing the position. But as the campaign went on, one of the
arguments that resonated strongly in the other direction was that the police
could not be trusted to be the only bearer of arms in society. In the end, the
proposal was overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of 64–36 per cent.
In May 2006 the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando do
Capital, or PCC), an organisation of criminals that began in prisons in the
early 1990s, staged a massive uprising in São Paulo. On 12 May 2006, the
state of São Paulo's prison authorities transferred 765 prisoners believed to
have been PCC members to a penitentiary in Presidente Venceslau, in the
interior of the state. In reaction to this measure, the PCC organised
rebellions in 83 of 105 São Paulo prisons and launched 274 attacks on
police stations, schools, hospitals, the Public Ministry, individual police
officers, and buses in the city of São Paulo. (Some 80 buses were attacked
and many were completely destroyed.) On Monday 15 May, the city of São
Paulo was virtually paralysed, as residents abandoned workplaces and
schools to return home and the streets became clogged with traffic. In the
first four days of the attacks, four civilians were killed, along with eight
prison guards and 31 police officers, and municipal guards (Cavallaro and
Ferreira Dodge 2007: 53). The state's reaction was rapid and harsh.
Suspected PCC members were gunned down in “confrontations” that in
many cases appeared to be summary executions. A subsequent evaluation
of the violence listed a total of 124 dead, including 74 suspected criminals
and nine prisoners.
In August 2007, the Lula government announced a National Programme
of Public Security and Citizenship (Programa Nacional de Seguranca
Publica e Cidadania, Pronasci) that gave new resources and responsibilities
to SENASP and other agencies inside and outside the Ministry of Justice.
Pronasci was a package of programmes designed to coordinate county,
state, and federal efforts and to emphasise crime prevention and community
policing (Figueiredo, Barros and Lima 2019: 74). It targeted 11 cities with
the highest homicide rates in the country. Programmes included a rise in
salaries and housing assistance for the lowest-paid police, the payment of
allowances to mothers in violent neighbourhoods and at-risk youth, and the
construction of special prisons for young offenders. For Figueiredo, Barros
and Lima (2019: 74) Pronasci represented a “new paradigm” that
maintained the traditional model of policing but added to it a greater
emphasis on control and coordination from the centre and the
implementation of new technologies. It also promoted the inclusion of new
actors, such as social protection agencies, into public security policy and
tried to elevate human rights principles within police forces.
However, the attempt to incrementally move away from an authoritarian
model of policing was partial under the first two terms of President Lula.
Because of the fragmentation, autonomy, and isolation of the state civil
(investigative) and military (public order) police forces, and the number of
veto players in the system, the work of SENASP and the creation of
Pronasci were not sufficient to change everyday public security practices in
most parts of Brazil. And after the PCC attacks of 2006, combat against
violent organised crime became increasingly important in the public
security field, to the detriment of prevention, community policing, and a
social approach to crime and violence.

Problems of the 2010s and the Bolsonaro administration

Under Lula's successor President Dilma Rousseff (2011–6), the Federal
government pulled the armed forces and especially the army more heavily
into public security with numerous GLO (Guarantee of Law and Order)
operations and responsibility for security during the 2014 FIFA World Cup
and 2016 Olympic Games. After the impeachment of President Dilma
Rousseff in 2016 President Temer continued the use of the armed forces in
GLOs, most notably in Rio in 2018, when General Walter Souza Braga
Netto was placed in charge of public security in the state from February
until the end of the year.
Jair Bolsonaro's campaign for the presidency in 2018 made public
security policy, along with anti-corruption, social conservatism, and
economic liberalism, a major issue. Bolsonaro framed left-wing social
movements and political parties, and especially Lula's Workers’ Party, as
criminal organisations. Bolsonaro's authoritarian rhetoric of eliminating
“enemies” and using violence to morally and socially cleanse the country
had a wide acceptance in the police and military ranks. Bolsonaro attributed
the high levels of criminal violence and the shortcomings of public security
policy to previous democratic governments and the invocation of the
principle of human rights. In his vision, public security (and politics in
general) involved a war against evil, in which the police and military are
noble warriors who will restore order, morality, and proper behaviour,
bearers of masculine virtues who had previously been wronged, devalued,
and marginalised by previous “left-wing” governments.
Bolsonaro perceived the power of the military and police families in the
electorate. Brazil has around 5.6 million active and inactive police officers
and members of the armed forces these people constitute roughly 3.8 per
cent of the electorate (Lima 2023: 11–12). If we multiply this by the
average number of members of Brazilian families, which was 3.3 in 2008,
we find that there are 18.5 million people linked to the “police and military
family.” If one chooses a more conservative number, counting only the
police or military member and his or her spouse, we still get a total of 7.6
per cent of the electorate that is directly linked to the security forces.
Amongst other groups, this demographic was targeted by Bolsonaro in his
campaign.
The hardline approach that was strong in public opinion and popular
discourse but absent in most public political discourse prior to 2018 became
official policy after the inauguration of Bolsonaro on 1 January 2019
(Pereira and Martins 2019). Bolsonaro issued about 30 decrees facilitating
access to firearms, overseeing a marked increase in gun ownership. He also
attempted to loosen the legal accountability of police personnel who were
killed in the line of duty by arguing for the expansion of the “exclusion of
unlawfulness” (excludente de ilicitude), thereby shielding police officers
from the legal investigation. Although his attempt to change the legislation
in this area failed, Bolsonaro was articulating a widespread perception
amongst the police that legal limits on the use of force and preoccupation
with the rights of criminal suspects were incentives to disorder, and that the
police deserved more, not less autonomy from civilian prosecutors and the
judiciary and less, not more criticism from human rights organisations.
The Bolsonaro administration's hardline approach was accompanied by
an aggregate increase in police killings nationally and a steep rise of this
indicator in some states such as Ro de Janeiro.1 In Bolsonaro's first year in
office, there was a reduction in the homicide rate, and Bolsonaro's
supporters claimed that this was a result of his support for violent policing
and the rise in the number of citizens with guns. In fact, the reduction in
homicides had started in 2018, before he took office, for reasons that were
not clear, and the rate increased again in 2020.
Under the terms of the 1988 Brazilian federal constitution, members of
the armed forces and the military police with more than ten years of service
can run for political office without having to resign their positions (they
only have to resign if they win the election). In many other countries, the
participation of military and police personnel in elections is restricted or
prohibited. In the six elections held in the period 2010–20, 25,452 police
and military personnel ran for political offices in Brazil, 1.6 per cent of the
total number of candidates, with 2,719 of them being elected (Lima 2023:
11).
This surge in police and military candidates had an impact on Brazilian
politics, reinforcing the authoritarian and anti-systemic rhetoric of the
Bolsonaro campaign and administration. Members of police organisations
tend, in the majority, to identify themselves with more conservative
positions in society and view social change and the extension of rights with
suspicion. This is true in Brazil as it is elsewhere. Furthermore, researchers
began to notice a trend of increasing conservatism among police personnel.
In a series of seven surveys conducted from 2010 to 2022, Lima (2023: 15)
found that 82 per cent of security force professionals who ran in elections
during this period did so as members of right-wing and centre-right political
parties. The peak of the association of police and military candidates with
parties on the right of the political spectrum was in 2022 when 95 per cent
of those candidates ran for office while members of right-wing (78 per cent)
and centre-right (12 per cent) parties (see Figure 9.1).
 Long Description for Figure 9.1

FIGURE 9.1 Proportion of public security professionals by political and

ideological spectrum, 2010–2020 – Brazil
Source: Brazilian Public Security Yearbook (2020) and LIMA (2021)

Bolsonarismo, or the ideology of Bolsonaro, has deep historical roots.

Bolsonarismo is an updating of authoritarian narratives that have shaped
organisational cultures within police forces and social representations in
society about how the state should deal with crime, fear, and violence for
decades. During his first two years in office, President Bolsonaro attended
24 military or police graduations. In May 2021, during another such
graduation, the Commander of the Federal District's Military Police closed
the official ceremony with Bolsonaro's campaign slogan (God above
everything, Brazil above everyone or “Deus acima de tudo, Brasil acima de
todos”).
A study by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety published in 2020
revealed that significant portions of the police forces in Brazil expressed
anti-democratic and hardline Bolsonarista discourses. The study found in a
sample of police personnel that 12 per cent of military police personnel, 7
per cent of civil police personnel, and 2 per cent of Federal police officers
expressed such views on their social media accounts (Lima 2023: 19). If we
extend the sample to the total universe of police personnel this represents
approximately 120,000 police officers who have pro-coup and authoritarian
views and who would accept an institutional rupture with the democratic
rule of law without major ethical constraints (Lima and Bueno 2020; see
Figure 9.2).

Long Description for Figure 9.2

FIGURE 9.2 Percentage of policemen posting criticisms against democratic

institutions in relation to the total number of posts made by
members of the profession 2020, Brazil
Source: BFPS (2023)

The Atlas Public Opinion Research Institute (2021) corroborated the

picture painted here by applying a survey amongst police personnel and
finding that 21 per cent of those interviewed (representing about 140,000
police officers) said that they were in favour of establishing a military
dictatorship in Brazil (Lima 2023: 20; see Figure 9.3). And there is
evidence that some police officers act on these beliefs. A study carried out
by the Estado de Sao Paulo, one of Brazil's newspapers with the largest
circulation, identified 14 cases in which military police officers acted to
repress or arrest opponents of Jair Bolsonaro between January 2020 and
May 2021 (Lima 2023: 20).
 Long Description for Figure 9.3

FIGURE 9.3 Police Officer, are you against or in favour of the installation of
a military dictatorship in Brazil?

The Atlas research reinforces the point that military police officers were,
comparatively speaking, much more aligned with the then president's
political project than were the members of other police forces. Figure 9.4
shows that while 59 per cent of military police officers were content with
the Bolsonaro administration's performance in public security in 2021, 68
per cent of civil police personnel disagreed with the administration's
handling of that area (which does not necessarily mean that they disagree
with the values and worldviews of the president). Furthermore, if the
average preference amongst the police for a dictatorship was 21 per cent,
amongst military police officers this percentage rose to 27 per cent.
 Long Description for Figure 9.4

FIGURE 9.4 Are you pleased with the Bolsonaro government's policies in
Public Security?
Source: Atlas Survey.

In summary, two surveys with different methodologies – interviews and

social media tracking – conducted by different institutions estimated that
between 120,000 and 140,000 police personnel endorsed the most radical
Bolsonarista discourse, advocating antidemocratic measures and the
shutting down of institutions. In comparative terms, these figures represent
around 20 per cent of the Brazilian police forces. It seemed that President
Bolsonaro reinforced a trend of authoritarianism amongst Brazilian police
personnel that, coupled with a sense of political and organisational
disjuncture in the country's public security, raised an important warning
about the capacity to contain and/or mitigate the risks of an institutional
collapse of democracy.
As has been explained in other chapters in this volume. President
Bolsonaro failed to secure re-election in 2022, the first incumbent president
to try and fail to obtain re-election since the constitutional amendment
allowing re-election was passed in 1997. On Sunday 30 October 2022,
during the voting in the second round of the election, the Federal Highway
Police set up hundreds of roadblocks to stop and harass suspected voters for
Lula. These roadblocks were especially numerous in the northeast, a
bulwark of support for Lula. This is an example of the police acting on the
beliefs and loyalties examined in this section.

Lula's third term and the public security menace

Lula was sworn in as president for the third time on 1 January 2023. It
capped a remarkable political comeback for the former trade union leader.
Since former President Bolsonaro left Brasília for Orlando two days before,
without acknowledging Lula's electoral victory, the presidential sash was
presented to Lula by a group of eight representing the Brazilian people and
which included a child, a black woman, and an Indigenous person.
The new government's priorities in the area of public security can be
gleaned from the report of the transition team. The report criticised the
dismantling of controls on arms by the Bolsonaro administration and
recommended the revocation of eight decrees and one interministerial order
(portaria) in order to reestablish state control in that area (Gabinete de
Transicão Governmental 2022: 57–58); this was in fact done in the first few
days of the Lula administration. The report also lamented the lack of a
coordinated national policy in public security under Bolsonaro, the failure
of the government to consult civil society, and the expansion of organised
crime in the Amazon region in activities such as illegal logging and mining
(ibid.: 46–47). However, Justice Minister Flavio Dino has resisted the
suggestion from the transition team which proposed police reforms, which
represents a lost opportunity.
Despite the new government's priorities, it soon had to focus on a
dangerous new development. A week after the inauguration, on Sunday 8
January, thousands of protestors invaded the national Congress, the
Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in Brasilia and left a path of
destruction in their wake. The damage to the lower house of Congress alone
was estimated at R$3 million. The invaders called for the annulment of the
“stolen” election and for the armed forces to restore Bolsonaro to the
presidency. Lula, who was in Araraquara in the interior of Sao Paulo at the
time, denounced the attack and called its perpetrators “fascists.” Criticising
the bad faith and incompetence of the military police of the Federal District,
he spoke of the need to root out complicity in the attack within the state
apparatus. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes removed the
Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha for 90 days for omission and
collusion with the attacks. The Lula government decreed an intervention in
public security in the Federal District, appointing the number two in the
Ministry of Justice, Ricardo Cappelli, to serve as secretary until the end of
January. The former Secretary of Public Security for the Federal District,
Anderson Torres, was indicted (again by Judge Moraes). On holiday in
Florida, he returned to Brasilia and went to prison on 14 January. The
former commander of the military police in the Federal District was also
charged and imprisoned. Altogether the Lula administration believed that at
least 15 members of the military and police forces had been linked to the
attack on the Planalto, including a retired Naval officer and a retired Army
general (Anderson 2023: 40).
Videos and photographs of the demonstrators on 8 January showed some
military police personnel helping the crowds enter the buildings in the
Planalto. This confirms an argument made in this chapter and backed up by
survey research, that many members of the police forces in Brazil are
supporters of the most hardline and authoritarian currents within
Bolsonarismo. This tendency extends to the armed forces. It was the Army
that was responsible for guarding the presidential palace, and they were
nowhere to be seen on 8 January 2023.
How to respond to the threat of insurrectionist social movements and
their supporters in the police and armed forces bedevilled the beginning of
the third Lula administration. The government forced some military
officials, including the Commander of the Army, into retirement and
substituted them with other officers deemed to be more respectful of the
constitution. It prosecuted hundreds of demonstrators arrested after the
invasion. It conducted dialogues with military and police officials in order
to gauge the extent of the problem and to invent measures to counteract it.
And on 26 January 2023, Justice Minister Flavio Dino unveiled a proposed
constitutional amendment that he christened a “democracy package.” This
set of measures included the creation of a national guard controlled by the
Federal government to protect public buildings and the sharing of
responsibility for public security in Brasilia between the federal and federal
district governments (whereas previously the latter had exclusive
responsibility). The package also required that speech in favour of toppling
the government be removed from social media sites and increased penalties
for crimes against democracy (Meio 27 January 2023). What the
government fears is a repetition of 8 January events around the country:
roadblocks, the occupation of refineries, and other disruptive actions.
A survey conducted by the Brazilian Forum for Public Safety in January
2023 revealed the danger of the situation. Within the sample surveyed, 40
per cent of the police believed that the motivations for the attacks on the
Planalto on 8 January were legitimate, even though acts of vandalism could
be criticised. For this near-majority of the police, the explicitly anti-
democratic acts of the crowds on that day were not a problem (Brazilian
Forum for Public Safety 2023).
The problematic nature of civil-military relations was illustrated eight
days before the attack on the Planalto when Vice President Hamilton
Mourão, a retired Army General who was acting President after the
departure of Jair Bolsonaro from Brasília, gave a televised address to the
nation. Mourão criticised members of the three branches of government for
failing to pacify and unite the nation around a common project and leaving
the armed forces to pay the bill. The speech underlined the view of some
that the armed forces’ values of hierarchy, discipline, order, and love of
country were purer than those of politicians, and that the armed forces
needed to be mobilised in times of crisis. In some sense, this was a verbal
illustration of the popular belief in the “moderating power” of the armed
forces expressed by the attackers in the Planalto on 8 January, who seemed
to believe that by destroying symbols of legislative and judicial power they
could trigger the intervention of the military on their side. This illustrates
the challenge of the Lula administration in the realm of civil-military
relations.

Conclusion
When it comes to public security, the traumas of the authoritarian past have
shown themselves to be resilient in Brazil. Hardline policing of the type
seen under the military dictatorship (1964–85) and typified by the height of
the repression in the 1969–74 period, policing that includes methods such
as the militarised seizure and occupation of territory, torture, and summary
execution, has not been extirpated from the state military police forces.
Furthermore, popular support for such methods has remained persistent.
 The first two Lula administrations (2003–10) attempted to introduce a
new “citizen” model of public security based on the sophisticated use of
data, crime prevention, work with communities, and the sharing of
responsibility between police forces and social services. These well-
intentioned efforts, largely coordinated by actors at the federal level, had
mixed and weak effects in the states, whose governments retained primary
responsibility for public security. They did not achieve a reform of the
federal architecture and norms that regulate police forces. After the PCC
attacks in São Paulo in 2006, the citizen security reform efforts were also
overshadowed by alarm at the power of organised crime and the perceived
need for state officials to investigate, arrest, and imprison the most
dangerous members of the different organised crime factions. Because the
Lula administration's selective and modest efforts earlier fell short of
fundamental reform, they lost intensity over time and opened space for the
radical discourse of Bolsonarismo.
In the 2010s public distrust of government grew while the recession of
2015–6 reduced the social gains of the previous decade. Under President
Dilma Rousseff, the Federal government pulled the armed forces more
heavily into public security with numerous GLO (Guarantee of Law and
Order) operations and responsibility for security during the 2014 FIFA
World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. After the impeachment of President
Dilma Rousseff in 2016 President Temer continued the use of the armed
forces in GLOs, most notably in Rio in 2018. After the imprisonment of
Lula in 2018 the stage was set for an unusual politician, the “outsider” Jair
Bolsonaro, to ride the wave of anti-PT, anti-corruption, anti-criminal and
anti-incumbent sentiment rife in the country. Part of Bolsonaro's appeal to
many voters was his discourse in favour of police lethality and the
presumed right of citizens to arm themselves. The hardline approach that
had remained strong in public opinion and popular discourse but absent in
most public political discourse became official policy after the inauguration
of Bolsonaro on 1 January 2019 (Pereira and Martins 2019). The Bolsonaro
administration encouraged police violence rhetorically if not legislatively
and, as was mentioned previously, oversaw an increase in police violence in
some states such as Rio de Janeiro. Through decrees, the government
substantially reduced controls on the purchase of handguns and also
oversaw a marked increase in gun ownership (Anderson 2023: 34).2
Lula's anti-Bolsonaro coalition came to power with a broad agenda to
undo some of the changes of the Bolsonaro administration. These included
the re-introduction of controls on gun ownership, attempts to reduce rates of
violence, including violence against women, debates about how to reform
the police, calls to reduce racial inequality in policing, and attempts to curb
illegal logging and mining by organised criminal groups in the Amazon.
While the first goal was achieved through the revocation of decrees issued
by the Bolsonaro administration, much of the rest of the agenda was
sidelined by the 8 January 2023 invasion of the Planalto. Claiming to be
defending nothing less than democracy, the Lula administration changed its
focus and attempted to sever the relationship between the police and armed
forces and insurrectionary Bolsonarista movements, a relationship that had
been hidden by the apparent acceptance of the 2022 election results by
military and police commanders. Civil-military relations, the ties between
the Army and the state military police forces, and the political opinions of
military and police personnel, never at the centre of national politics since
the 1987–8 constituent assembly, became subjects of debate. How these
issues will be resolved is uncertain, but that they remain prominent
throughout the duration of Lula's term in office is probable.
The challenge of the third Lula administration is to enact reforms that
introduce mechanisms of democratic governance and federal coordination
that change police organisational cultures that are still embedded in
acceptance of violence and police brutality. What is needed is to view
public security not simply as the sum total of the work of the 86 different
police forces in Brazil and/or the system of criminal justice. What is needed
is the fulfilment of the ideals of the 1988 federal constitution, in which
public security is a collective social right and a strategy to prevent violence
and thereby guarantee citizenship. The Lula government has given signals
in the early days of its rule that it has not wholeheartedly embraced this
mission, and there is a serious risk that it will miss a great opportunity to
defeat Bolsonarismo in state agencies where it is most potent and
dangerous.
Notes
1. The Brazilian Forum on Public Safety shows the overall increase in police lethality between
2017, 2020, and 2022. In the former year, the police killed 5,159 people in operations. In 2020,
the figure was 6,416, while in 2022 it was 6,145. From Brazilian Forum on Public Safety at
https://forumseguranca.org.br/anuario-brasileiro-seguranca-publica/ accessed on 28 January
2023.
2. Anderson (2023: 34) claims that registered gun ownership grew sixfold under Bolsonaro.

References
Anderson, Jon Lee (2023) “Lula's Restoration”, in The New Yorker, 30 January, pp. 30–41.
Atlas Intelligence (2021) Survey of political preferences among Brazil's police forces, 9 April. At
https://www.atlasintel.org/poll/survey-of-political-preferences-among-brazil-s-police-forces-2021-
04-09. Accessed on 29 May 2021.
Brazilian Forum on Public Safety (2023) Percepcoes dos Profissionais da Seguranca Publica sobre as
ataques as sedes dos Tres Poderes em 08/01, 30 January, at
https://forumseguranca.org.br/publicacoes_posts/percepcoes-dos-profissionais-da-seguranca-
publica-sobre-os-ataques-as-sedes-dos-tres-poderes-em-08-01/ Accessed on 30 January 2023.
Cavallaro, James and Raquel Ferreira Dodge (2007) “Understanding the Sao Paulo Attacks” in
ReVista (Harvard Review of Latin America) 6, Number 3, Spring, pp. 53–55.
Figueiredo, Isabel, Betina Warmling Barros and Renato Sergio de Lima (2019) “Da insuficiencia das
opcoes politico-institucionais dos planos nacionais de seguranca publica pos-1988” in Marco
Aurelio Ruediger e Renato Sergio de Lima, eds. Seguranca Publica Apos 1988: Historia de Uma
Construcao Inacabada (Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV), pp. 65–94.
Gabinete de Transicao Governmental (2022) Relatorio Final (Brasilia: Brasil do Futuro, Governo de
Transicao, December).
Lima, Renato Sergio de and Samira Bueno (2020) A tropa de choque de Bolsonaro. Revista Piaui
online (published Sao Paulo) 8 August 2020.
Lima, Renato Sergio de (2023) “Bolsonaro's Brazil: national populism and the role of the police” in
Anthony W. Pereira, ed. Right-Wing Populism within and beyond Latin America (New York:
Routledge, forthcoming).
Pereira, Anthony W. and Juliana Texeira de S. Martins (2019) “The Politics of Human Rights” in
Barry Ames, ed. Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics (New York: Routledge), pp. 503–518.
10
HUMAN RIGHTS
Public policies and systems before and after
Bolsonaro, and the challenge to rebuild them

Juliana Moura Bueno and Rogerio Sottili

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-12

Introduction
Going back in time, in 2003, when President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva first
took office, he inherited a human rights policy structure from Fernando
Henrique Cardoso's years (1995–2002). Cardoso and his team followed up
on the Vienna Convention of 1995 demands for every country to create its
national “Plan of Action.” He created a plan to implement human rights in
Brazil. But in the late 1990s, human rights policies were still seen as deeply
attached to an agenda that relates to a defensive view of human rights:
human rights policies at that time meant that the government should
somehow act upon violation of rights, harm, and abuse.
In terms of institutional structure, President Cardoso placed the Human
Rights Department in the Ministry of Justice. The department occupied a
small room in the 2nd floor of the Palace of Justice, in Brasília. At that
point, the conversation between government and society about human rights
was restricted to academic elites and specialists, deeply attached to an
abstract liberal idea – that of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. The sector within the Ministry of Justice did not enjoy a large
budget, enough staff, or political capacity to develop its own policies. The
lack of resources also blocked those officials from mainstreaming human
rights across the Brazilian Federal Government.
The Vienna Declaration, the result of the World Conference on Human
Rights held in Vienna by the United Nations in 1993 to discuss the current
state of human rights in the world and to advance the global agenda with a
plan of action, recommended all countries to adopt national plans for
human rights. Brazil was the third country in the world to act,1 following
Australia and the Philippines.
The document, consolidating the guidelines for human rights in the
country established by Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government, was the
First National Plan for Human Rights (PNDH-1).2 It was launched by the
then President in May 1996. The Centre for Studies of Violence at the
University of São Paulo (known as NEV-USP) was responsible for
collecting contributions from NGOs, academics, and specialists that would
later be assembled and turned into the first Human Rights National Plan of
Brazil. José Gregori, chief of staff of the Minister of Justice, and a member
of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (Partido da Social Democrácia
Brasileira, PSDB) from São Paulo, was coordinating these efforts.
Creating this plan mobilised specialised audiences and networks, often
already related to either NEV-USP or the human rights authorities in Brazil
(Mesquita Neto, 1999). Many had long been members of Fernando
Henrique Cardoso's party, the PSDB, and especially those from the state of
São Paulo. Others orbited around NEV-USP's specialists and were
connected to their academic networks. These efforts resulted in 228
suggestions for governmental action, mainly focusing on civil and political
rights.
Cardoso's government managed to launch not one but two National
Human Rights Plans (in 1996 and 2002) – known in Brazil by the acronyms
PNDH13 and PNDH2,4 respectively. Cardoso also hosted at least five
national conferences on human rights. The interactions then, between
government and civil society, contributed to the development of standards
and a milestone for the interaction between civil society and the
government on human rights. This process was later deepened during the
mandates of President Lula (2003–2006 and 2007–2010) and Dilma
Rousseff (2011–2016) that set a strong basis for social participation.
Dialogue with movements and organised civil society was a core
characteristic of Lula's human rights policy.
During President Lula's first government, from 2003 to 2007, there were
several significant developments in the political institutionalisation of
human rights in Brazil. His government prioritised the promotion and
protection of human rights firstly by understanding the importance of
institutions for human rights.
One of its key achievements was the creation of the National Secretariat
of Human Rights, still within the structure of the Ministry of Justice. This
was established in 2003 to coordinate and implement government policies
in this area. The Secretariat was responsible for overseeing the
implementation of the National Human Rights Plan. The plan aimed to
promote and protect the rights of vulnerable groups including Indigenous
peoples, Afro-Brazilians, and people living in poverty.
In Lula's first mandate there was a deepening institutionalisation of
human rights. This included the organisation of several national conferences
with social participation, including the first LGBT National Conference; the
launch [not without much controversy] of the 3rd National Human Rights
Plan, a milestone for human rights in Brazil; an investment in Brazil's
participation in and contribution to both International and Inter-American
Human Rights Systems, especially through the Human Rights Council and
the Organization of American States’ human rights bodies.
Reorganisation of the human rights institutions in the country turned a
small human rights department into a Ministry that oversaw over 20 human
rights policy areas, and five national committees with social participation.
The arrival of Brazil into the Human Rights international scene through the
front door was another accomplishment; alongside the growth in capacity of
its own Secretariat of Human Rights and other entities and measures.
On LGBT rights, there were meaningful and practical advances. They
established May 17th as the National Day to Fight Homophobia.5 The
Ministry of Human Rights hosted the first-ever national LGBT conference,
in 2008, which counted with President Lula's presence. And two more
national conferences were held by 2016. In 2011, President Rousseff
established the National Policy for the Integral Health of LGBTQs+ in the
National Health Service.6 In 2012, the first-ever annual report about
LGBT+ violence in Brazil was published.
With Lula and Dilma Rousseff, Brazil also made consistent progress in
combating sexual exploitation. The isolated and low-impact actions of the
past gave way to an integrated government intervention with broad
mobilisation of society, such as the human rights hotline Disque 100.
Between 2003 and 2010, the then Human Rights Secretariat of the
Presidency of the Republic carried out more than 2.5 million calls and
forwarded more than 142,000 complaints from 4,885 municipalities in all
27 federative units of the country, received by Disque 100. In December
2010, the service was integrated into the Human Rights Dial, which
receives and forwards complaints of violence against other groups in
vulnerable situations, such as elderly people, the LGBTQIA+ population,
people with disabilities and homeless people, migrants, refugees, and the
stateless.
Crowning the country's leading role, in 2008 Brazil hosted the III World
Congress to Combat Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents. The
largest event of its kind ever held worldwide, the Congress brought together
delegations from 160 countries, with 3,500 participants, including almost
300 teenagers from five continents.
In 2016, in an interministerial action, with strong participation by the
National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, CONANDA,
and organised civil society, the Legal Framework for Early Childhood was
instituted. This regulates the use of the term “early childhood” in Brazil and
determines the absolute priority for the formulation and implementation of
public policies for children from 0 to 6 years of age (Law n. 13.257/2016).
At the end of 2002, Brazil had 20.9% of its children born without
registration or documentation. This needed to be changed and it was.
Without their first document, Brazilian children would face difficulties in
accessing rights such as education, work, social assistance, and social
security in the future. In some states such as Piauí, Maranhão and Ceará,
under-registration rates were above 30%. In some cities in the Legal
Amazon, the rate went above 60%.
The Lula government understood that the high number of people without
civil registration was an obstacle to its strategy of expanding social
programmes. The birth certificate is the human right to citizenship.
In the Northeast and in the Legal Amazon alone, the two regions with the
highest rates of under-registration, almost 3,000 joint exercises were carried
out to issue birth certificates and basic documentation, most of them in rural
areas, benefiting Indigenous communities, quilombolas, originally founded
by enslaved Africans who escaped, and ribeirinho communities along the
waterways.
These and other strategies paid off. In 2013, the rate of civil under-
registration of births dropped to just 5.1%, the lowest level in history,
considered by United Nations indexes related to the eradication of under-
registration.
Nevertheless, during Dilma Rousseff's first mandate, while the
interaction between civil society and the government remained active,
human rights policies were less of a priority than they were before. The
political situation, the growth of other forces in the society that pushed for
less space for human rights, and later, the economic and political crisis had
a special impact on the human rights institutions.
In her second period in office (2015–2016), changes in the ministerial
structure downgraded the Ministry of Human Rights, the Ministry of
Policies for Women, and the Ministry of Racial Equality. They were
downgraded to become departments under the auspices of a new minister,
named Minister of Human Rights, Women and Racial Equality. And, for the
first time since 1996, Brazil did not have an autonomous body to oversee
human rights. Additionally, because of the institutional development of all
three departments, it was not easy to combine structures that had had
separate roles, visions, plans, and budgets for at least two decades before.
The Federal Government was much criticised by civil society for that
move. Internally, an administrative order was issued asking ministers to
reduce the size of their departments in terms of areas, announcing that the
Ministry of Planning would lead the process. Requests to reduce expenses
in contracts were also announced. Informally, the Ministry of Finance also
started to reduce budgets available for different purposes across the
government. Rousseff's government thought these measures were necessary
to respond to the political establishment as well as the market's request for
austerity. It believed that implementing them would be enough to bring the
level of criticism down.
What followed was a national crisis of unseen proportions during
democratic times. This culminated both in a controversial impeachment of
President Dilma Rousseff, seen by many as a plot that resulted in a coup
d'etat, and in unforeseen setbacks for human rights in Brazil and especially
for its institutions.

The fall of Dilma Rousseff and the impact on human rights

values and institutions
In May 2016, Dilma Rousseff was stripped of her presidential duties for up
to six months as part of the impeachment process she underwent. Less than
six months later, she was formally impeached. Michel Temer, her Vice-
President, was made President of the Republic in late August 2016. In her
farewell speech,7 she said:

[…] What is at stake are the achievements of the last 13 years: the gains
of the population, the poorest people and the middle class; the protection
of children […] I make a final appeal to all senators: do not accept a coup
that, instead of solving it, will aggravate the Brazilian crisis.8

The day he took office, as acting President, Michel Temer issued a

Provisional Measure restructuring his cabinet and eliminating the Ministry
of Human Rights, Policies for Women and Racial Equality. He maintained
the three separate departments but subjected them to the Minister of Justice,
who would then be responsible for those agendas. With that, in institutional
terms, Brazil went back to the institutional arrangement of 2002, before
Lula's terms in office, when human rights were a department within the
Ministry of Justice.
There was a special reason why President Lula changed the institutional
arrangement and moved the Human Rights Department from the Justice
Ministry, connecting it to the Presidency of the Republic. This was because
there is often a clash between human rights authorities and police
authorities because the two institutions have different mandates and
priorities. Human rights authorities are responsible for promoting and
protecting the rights of all citizens, including by investigating and holding
accountable those who commit human rights abuses. On the other hand,
police authorities are responsible for maintaining public safety and order,
which can involve the use of force and other measures. In Brazil, the police
are known as institutions that often violate people's human rights,
characterised by institutional racism and excessive, unnecessary use of
force.9
This can create tension between the two institutions. There may be
instances where the actions of the police authorities conflict with the
mandate of human rights authorities to protect the rights of citizens. For
example, police officers may use excessive force or discriminate against
certain groups of people, and human rights authorities may request actions
to hold the officers accountable.
When he took office temporarily, Michel Temer outlined his priorities in
an inauguration speech. He quoted the words “human rights” only once:

Gentlemen, you see that I insist a lot on the topic of the Constitution
because, in my view, every time we deviate from legal standards, (…) we
create social instability and political instability. (…) in this Constitution,
national independence, defence of peace and peaceful resolution of
conflicts, respect for the self-determination of peoples, equality between
states, non-interference, the centrality of human rights and rejection of
racism and terrorism, among other principles, are deep values of our
society. And it paints a picture of a peaceful country aware of the rights
and duties established by our Constitution.10

During Temer's time as president, there were a few actions that can be
considered milestones for the destruction of human rights policies and
institutions before Jair Bolsonaro was elected president. The first, described
above, are the changes in institutional structures that further downgraded
human rights at the very start of his mandate. Additionally, there was the
fact that Temer's government raised barriers to block civil society's
participation in and monitoring of the implementation of policies and
actions. This was especially through affecting the structures of social
participation councils or committees which were established previously.
National councils had become a space for confrontation between civil
society and the executive branch. After only two months in power, Temer
removed from office all representatives elected by civil society in the
National Council of Education. The National Council of Cities was emptied
in June 2017 through a decree11 that transferred the council's former powers
to the Ministry and stated that council members should be appointed only
by the government. Among the powers of the council that were annulled,
there was the power to call for and convene conferences with social
participation. Another decree in April 2017 also changed the composition
and functions of the National Youth Council,12 which could no longer elect
its own members. With the weakening of civil society participation in these
councils, several of their representatives resigned or simply abandoned their
mandates.
In May 2017 members of the National Human Rights Council voted in
favour of a resolution that condemned the criminalisation of social
movements in Brazil.13 It said:

The National Human Rights Council comes to the public to manifest its
repudiation for the criminalisation of social movements and of activists,
that has increased in the past years and that has reached threatening
levels to our democracy14

Between May 2016 and December 2018, by the end of Michel Termer's
term, the National Human Rights Council voted and publicised 31
resolutions, of which at least 20 concern situations of human rights
violations in Brazil, where they call for more action from government or,
criticise the lack of executive branch action.15
To respond to social pressure regarding the lack of women and black
representatives in his cabinet, Temer recreated the Ministry of Human
Rights, Women, and Racial Equality, appointing Luislinda Valois, a retired
member of the Judiciary in the state of Bahia, and a black woman, to lead it.
Enlarging his cabinet also served political purposes, as it was important to
accommodate political interests and parties. Congress exerted a lot of
pressure on Temer during that period as his popularity had less than two
digits.16 He promoted changes to the Ministry of Human Rights later on and
sacked Valois in February 2018. A close ally of the former House Speaker,
Eduardo Cunha, responsible for igniting Rousseff's impeachment process in
Congress in 2015, was appointed, Gustavo do Vale Rocha.
Temer had no successor, but he had a smile on his face when he handed
the presidential sash to Bolsonaro.17 Later, in 2019, he was temporarily
arrested, accused of corruption.

Bolsonaro's government
In his years as a Congressman, Jair Bolsonaro often expressed controversial
views and made statements aimed at shocking society, especially in what
concerned human rights. He has always been dismissive of human rights
concerns. For example, he has been criticised for his statements about
Indigenous people and the environment, his praise for Brazil's former
military dictatorship, and his support for the use of lethal force by law
enforcement officers. He had also been openly anti-LGBTQIA+ rights and
women's rights. A widely reported episode, that resulted in a lawsuit and
later a condemnation, was when he told the former Minister for Human
Rights (2011–2014) and Congresswoman Maria do Rosario (Workers’
Party, Rio Grande do Sul) that she was too ugly to merit raping. It came as
no surprise that his administration would be anti-human rights. His handling
of issues related to violence against Indigenous people, deforestation, and
land rights, as well as his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are proof of
that.
In one of his first pronouncements as President, he compared guns with
cars as something every citizen has the right to possess. When he
announced the names of the members of his cabinet, Damares Alves was
announced as the Human Rights Minister. Unknown to most, but very well
known to evangelicals, Alves presented herself as a preacher interested in
resisting feminism18 and certain that she should use that role to exercise
God's will. She often spoke in religious terms. In her first speech to the
United Nations’ Human Rights Council, Alves said:
 We will tenaciously defend the full exercise by all of the right to life from
conception and to the security of the person, in line with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on Civil
and Political Rights, as well as, at the regional level, with the Pact of San
José of Costa Rica.19

Against expectation, Bolsonaro did not extinguish the Ministry of Human

Rights or downgrade it into a Secretariat, as Temer did. He reinforced the
existing structures to be led by Damares Alves with new policy areas. As
Alves started to announce her plans, two important decisions were taken,
especially in regard to the scope of her institution. A new policy area was
created – the “Secretariat for Policies for the Family.”20 That department
would be responsible for mainstreaming the ideas of Family as a social
group, entitled to human rights. She and Bolsonaro argued that previous
governments had decided to ignore this because it wasn't aligned with a
more comprehensive understanding of what human rights were, while their
views of God and traditional values were central to this. This was very
similar to the ideas of the right-wing movement in the US that supported
Donald Trump's presidency.21 Second, policies for Indigenous people,
including the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (in Portuguese,
FUNAI), and for Youth were placed under the auspices of Damares Alves.
The full name of the Ministry encompassed only its most important areas:
Damares Alves’ body was now called “Ministry of Women, Family, and
Human Rights,”22 the MMFDH.
Another area that was particularly affected by the arrival of Bolsonaro
were the policies for Memory, Truth, and Justice, arising from the military
dictatorship. An example lay in delay in the work of the Amnesty
Commission23 since 2016, with delay in the analysis of amnesty processes
requests among other measures. With Bolsonaro, the process of emptying
the Commission was accelerated. Under Minister Damares, the Amnesty
Commission started to promote the review of indemnities previously
granted in political amnesties. It denied, in the first months of the Bolsonaro
government, more than 271 requests, archived 88 processes, and approved
only 8 requests. As of February 2021, two years after her arrival, 635
amnesty processes had been reviewed, 612 of which were annulled.24
 After 1000 days in office, Bolsonaro decided he would sign a series of
administrative orders revoking those of previous presidents. He abolished
the Monitoring Committee of the PNDH-3, responsible for evaluating the
implementation of the plan. Alves also announced in 2020 that she would
form a commission of specialists to revise the PNDH-3, behind closed
doors, and published an internal administrative order that confirmed her
plans.25 Civil society, political leaders, and parties reacted with hostility,
and Damares Alves did not move her plans forward.
Bolsonaro and Damares’ offensive took place mainly on two fronts: the
first was to coordinate attacks by national authorities on NGOs and social
movements, starting with a strong speech by the President-elect that NGOs
were acting to implement an agenda that was anti-country, anti-family and
anti-God. Bolsonaro also blamed NGOs for burning in the Amazon, among
many other examples. The second was a decision that government bodies
should make it difficult for the public to interact with the State, especially
by blocking channels of social participation, making the activities of
collegiate bodies difficult, cutting funds and, in some cases, even closing
councils and committees: 21 social participation bodies were abolished, 37
had their composition altered to enhance the presence of government
representatives and 14 were made inactive. Of these, 13 were linked to
human rights. Not by chance, civil society organisations began to appeal to
bodies such as the OAS and the UN Human Rights Council, seeking to
bring international pressure to change the course of things in Brazil.
There was also an important international dimension that would allow
Bolsonaro's government to move forward with its plans. Contrary to what
was initially expected, Ministers chose not to abandon the spaces for
international articulation of human rights, such as the Inter-American
System and the international system, or even the articulations of human
rights in Mercosur and their periodic meetings. But rather, Ministers
attempted to reorganise and influence the system from within, questioning
agreements and protocols, reviewing Brazil's historical positions, and
aligning human rights diplomacy with a conservative consensus.
There was coordinated action both at the national and international
levels, which sought to reconfigure the term “human rights” as agreed, and
defined in constitutional norms and international treaties. Such strategies
were repeatedly discussed by the senior management of the MMFDH. They
took decisions such as sending a high-level delegation to participate in the
launch of the report by the Commission on Inalienable Rights of the United
States, on 8 December 2019, whose objective was precisely to change the
concept of human rights, transforming it into something aligned with the
speeches of President Bolsonaro and his followers.
In September 2019, when Michelle Bachelet, then the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, criticised the reduction of civic space in
the country and the increase in police violence, Bolsonaro welcomed the
coup in Chile in 1973, saying it was harsh on the left including having
killed Bachelet's father, in his words Bachelet's “communist father.” Alberto
Bachelet died in 1974 while in prison; in 2014 two former soldiers were
convicted of his torture and death.26
The work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil was an important
arm to place Brazil in conservative alliances and convey Bolsonaro's views
in international fora. Ernesto Araújo, Foreign Minister between 2019 and
2021 and a constant opponent of “globalist cultural Marxism,” went so far
as to criticise the United Nations itself in his speech at the meeting of the
UN Security Council, on the 75th anniversary of the end of the 2nd World
War. Araújo then suggested that the role of the UN had been diminished by
“opting for politically correct jargon.”
The far-right position of Bolsonaro's administration was reflected in
speeches and in the language used in resolutions discussed in international
forums. They defended the removal of the term “gender” and replaced it
with “men and women,” asking the most conservative countries in the
world for help to block the use of “gender.” They further worked to replace
the expression “sexual and reproductive rights” with “sexual and
reproductive health,” when there was no space to suppress both
terminologies. Contrary to what had been taking place for almost two
decades, Brazilian foreign policy did not touch on human rights or get
involved in discussions and actions to promote and strengthen the
international system, departing from the country's foreign policy tradition.
No wonder one of the first measures27 taken by President Lula upon his
election early in January 2023 was to withdraw from the “Geneva
Consensus Declaration.”28 This anti-abortion and pro-traditional family
document was put together by the Ministers of Human Rights and Foreign
Affairs of Bolsonaro. Trump's administration was their main partner and
sponsor of the declaration. The declaration is not considered an
international treaty, and countries are not obliged to follow its text. But the
Brazilian Human Rights NGO, Conectas, considered that it reflected
Brazil's foreign policy stance on gender issues and could further Brazil's
role in undermining international consensus on the subject.29

How to rebuild in a new term for Lula

Twenty years after Lula started his first term in office, he faces the
challenges of rebuilding Brazil and its governmental institutions,
reorganising its budget, and dealing with a divided Congress more powerful
than ever.
In 2023, he faces a very different challenge from 2003 with regard to the
process of institutionalisation of human rights. First, in 2003 Lula inherited
structures that – despite differences in approach – worked to promote
human rights in Brazil in its traditional conception, of the United Nations
Declaration of Human Rights of 1947 and the declarations, conventions,
and protocols which followed. His government will have to rebuild
institutions from scratch. There are three main processes required: (a) to
recreate the Ministry of Human Rights, dividing the MMFDH into a new
institution; (b) to work on the mainstreaming of human rights through
government, embedding human rights norms, values, and principles within
the policies and practice of government institutions, its bodies and leaders;
and (c) to add capacity and resources to the Ministry of Human Rights so it
can implement human rights policies while promoting the idea of what
human rights are.
The institutionalisation we are discussing is about turning human rights
into an integral part of the functioning of both the Brazilian State and the
Brazilian Society. The challenge to do so sounds even more overwhelming,
considering that a significant part of the population now accepts
Bolsonaro's and Damares’ views, believing that Lula and his government's
approach to human rights are anti-family and anti-life, to say the least.
Looking to the future: reconstructing institutions of human
rights in Brazil and democracy
It is our belief that adequate institutions and resources are an essential
component in the successful implementation of public policies that can
generate social impact. President Lula's transition team paid proper
attention to efforts to restructure the Ministry of Human Rights, which, as
of January 2023, is called Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship.
The newly created Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship30 should
deploy strategic actions that articulate the dimensions of the promotion of
dignity, access to quality public services for all people, well-being,
inclusive development and respect, and the promotion of peace, guided by
the principles of intersectionality and interdepartmentally, with social
control.
Another important challenge is to update the current policies and views
in line with what society has learned and how it has developed. There are
societal challenges that Brazil is facing nowadays that were little known to
the government when Lula left office in 2010. Amongst those issues, it
includes overcoming institutional racism, facing the militarisation every
day, in politics and public administration, connecting the green
development, sustainability, and environment agenda to the values and
principles of human rights with actions that connect the well-being of
populations, promote their development, and promote their rights.
Moreover, issues such as understanding the role of the internet and new
media in promoting human rights values and how legislation, programmes,
and actions ensure that the digital space is a space for the promotion of
human rights values and a positive tool for socialisation and information is
another frontier to explore. Inclusive language and human rights should be
incorporated into government practice, and in messages to society.
Language plays a key role in claiming and recognising human rights and is
central to promoting human rights as the result of collective desire. It is
important that populations, in their diversity, see themselves represented in
spaces of power and also in the language that public power uses.
The human rights portfolio should be restructured, with a focus on
rebuilding human rights institutions at the federal level; in the coordination
and mainstreaming of the national human rights policy by the Federal
Government; in the articulation of initiatives for the protection and
promotion of human rights in partnership with entities of the direct and
indirect federal administration, state and municipal governments,
Legislature and Judiciary.
In order to bring Brazil back to the centre of the debate on strengthening
the international and Inter-American human rights systems, a renegotiation
of the joint strategy of the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, and
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should take place. Brazil must act
internationally in compliance with agreements, protocols, conventions, and
other international human rights guidelines, resuming the country's leading
role in acting in favour of the values of equality, representativeness, peace,
solidarity, dignity, universal access to rights, and well-being. The 3rd
National Human Rights Plan (PNDH-3) should continue to guide the
development of public human rights policies in Brazil.
President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva will have a challenge to face and an
opportunity in his hands. He can reflect on the advances achieved in his
previous mandates to rebuild the institutions of human rights in Brazil, to
resume the narrative of the Brazilian State as the main agency for the
propagation of the values of human rights, democracy, and development in
the country, recognising its driving force and influence in all dimensions of
the daily life of the Brazilian people. But it is important to do so bearing in
mind the new challenges Brazil faces. Therefore, a commitment must be
made to govern, in all areas, from the economy to justice, from budget
planning to the environment, from social security policy to health and
education, from agriculture and diplomacy to regional development, with
the awareness that rebuilding democracy in Brazil necessarily involves
incorporating human rights values into each of our actions.

Notes
1. Full content of the PNDH-1 is available, in Portuguese, at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/1950-1969/anexo/and1904-96.pdf.
2. The full content of the declaration can be found at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-
mechanisms/instruments/vienna-declaration-and-programme-action.
3. See Note 1.
4. Full content of the PNDH-2 is available, in Portuguese, at:
https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/2002/d4229.htm.
 5. Presidential Decree of June 4, 2010.
6. Fully available, in Portuguese, at:
https://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/saudelegis/gm/2011/prt2836_01_12_2011.html.
7. Fully available, in Portuguese, at: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2016-
08/confira-integra-do-discurso-de-dilma-em-julgamento-do-impeachment-no-senado.
8. Sentences from Dilma Rousseff's farewell speech at the Brazilian Senate during the
impeachment process's final session in the Senate, August 29th 2016. For reference, see note
above.
9. Website: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/07/brazil-un-experts-decry-acts-
racialised-police-brutality.
10. In its original, in Portuguese, Michel Temer said: “Os senhores veem que eu insisto muito no
tema da Constituição porque, ao meu modo de ver, toda vez que nós nos desviamos dos padrões
jurídicos (…) nós criamos a instabilidade social e a instabilidade política. (…) nesta
Constituição, a independência nacional, a defesa da paz e da solução pacífica de conflitos, o
respeito à autodeterminação dos povos, a igualdade entre os estados, a não-intervenção, a
centralidade dos direitos humanos e o repúdio ao racismo e ao terrorismo, dentre outros
princípios, são valores profundos da nossa sociedade. E traça uma imagem de um País pacífico
e ciente dos direitos e deveres estabelecidos pela nossa Constituição.” Full speech available in
Portuguese at: http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/michel-
temer/discursos-do-presidente-da-republica/discurso-do-presidente-da-republica-em-exercicio-
michel-temer-durante-cerimonia-de-posse-de-carlos-eduardo-barbosa-paz-no-cargo-de-
defensor-publico-geral-federal-ministerio-da-justica-brasilia-df.
11. Decree without number, Official Gazette, June 28th, 2016, first page. Full text available at:
https://pesquisa.in.gov.br/imprensa/jsp/visualiza/index.jsp?
jornal=2&pagina=1&data=28/06/2016.
12. Decree N. 9024, 5 April 2017, available in Portuguese at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/decreto/d9024.htm.
13. Available, in Portuguese, in: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwRc-
6ZjwkUTWkt1Mmh4MnA0UDA/view?resourcekey=0-9HZq66TyfZqY8Erls9jA8w.
14. Translated from its original in Portuguese as follows: “O Conselho Nacional dos Direitos
Humanos […] vem a público manifestar seu repúdio com relação à criminalização dos
movimentos sociais e de militantes, que tem crescido nos últimos anos e que hoje atinge níveis
ameaçadores para a nossa recente democracia.”. Authors’ free translation. Please see previous
note for reference.
15. The list with all resolutions from the National Human Rights Council since 2012 are available,
in Portuguese, at: https://www.gov.br/mdh/pt-br/acesso-a-informacao/participacao-
social/conselho-nacional-de-direitos-humanos-cndh/resolucoes.
16. For reference, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/18/brazil-explosive-recordings-
implicate-president-michel-temer-in-bribery and
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/17/accused-of-graft-popularity-near-zero-so-why-
is-brazils-president-still-in-office.
17. AFP Agency has posted a video on their YouTube Chanel that portrays the situation. The video
is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHXzi-2W-Zc.
18. Anderson, 2019, available at: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n03/perry-
anderson/bolsonaro-s-brazil.
19. The full content of the speech is available, in Portuguese, at:
https://antigo.funag.gov.br/images/2020/NovaPoliticaExterna/NPE_en/Damares-ONU.pdf.
20. The Provisional Measure 870/2018 reorganised the Ministry of Human Rights in the new
“Ministry of Human Rights, Families, Policies for Women”. The Racial Equality and
Indigenous Rights policies stayed under Damares Alves’ umbrella, but those policy areas did
not make the new Ministry's name. The full content available at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2019-2022/2019/Mpv/mpv870.htm.
21. In 2021, Melania Trump, then First Lady of the United States was seen in a rally in
Pennsylvania addressing the audience to promote the idea that with Donald Trump as president.
Video: “American family values will be cherished”. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9BRTsKAL-A.
22. In Portuguese, “Ministério das Mulheres, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos”, known by the
acronym MMFDH.
23. The Amnesty Commission was established by law in 2002 with the aim of assessing the
requests related to citizens that were politically persecuted, violated, tortured, exiled and/or
committed political crimes during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964–1985) and had not
been granted compensation and had not had the crimes imputed to them. For official reference,
please see, in Portuguese: https://www.gov.br/mdh/pt-br/navegue-por-temas/comissao-de-
anistia.
24. For reference, see, in Portuguese: https://apublica.org/2019/04/ministerio-dos-direitos-humanos-
nega-33-pedidos-de-anistia-para-cada-solicitacao-aprovada/.
25. Please see its full content, in Portuguese, at: https://www.in.gov.br/web/dou/-/portaria-n-457-de-
10-de-fevereiro-de-2021-303365015.
26. The episode is well described by Dom Phillips’ article published by The Guardian on the 4th of
September 2019. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/jair-bolsonaro-
michelle-bachelet-brazil-police-killings.
27. Website: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/geral/noticia/2023-01/government-announces-
brazils-withdrawal-geneva-consensus.
28. On October 22 2020, Brazil and the US signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration in
Washington, an international alliance aimed at bringing countries together to oppose
LGBTQIA+ rights and women's sexual and reproductive rights, especially abortion rights. The
declaration was co-sponsored by s6countries and received support from 26 others, such as Saudi
Arabia, Belarus, and South Sudan. The agreement purports to defend the family, but only
recognises the heterosexual model of union between men and women. It also emphasises the
protection of life from conception and women's right to health, against access to safe abortions.
29. Conectas take on the subject, issued on the 22 October 2020 is available at:
https://www.conectas.org/en/noticias/led-by-brazil-and-united-states-anti-abortion-agreement-is-
signed-in-washington-with-low-adherence/.
30. Provisional Measure n. 1154 of 2023, fully available content at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2023/Mpv/mpv1154.htm.
11
LULA AND AMAZONIA

Philip M. Fearnside

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-13

The outlook for the environment in Brazilian Amazonia is clearly much

better under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's presidency than what could be
expected under a second term of Jair Bolsonaro. In the months before the
October 2022 election, Lula made multiple statements indicating the intent
to fight deforestation and climate change and to protect indigenous peoples,
and he has appointed people with good credentials to head the federal
government agencies that deal with environmental and indigenous matters.
However, both the history of his past administrations and some of his
current discourse indicate areas of concern. It will be important to see that
damaging policies are avoided in these areas.

Hydroelectric dams
The Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River, the Santo Antônio and Jirau
Dams on the Madeira River, and the Teles Pires and São Manoel Dams in
the Tapajós basin were all initiated during Lula's administrations. All of
these dams have tremendous environmental and social impacts. Lula
recently stated that he would build Belo Monte all over again (Lima, 2022),
and, when asked in an interview if he had any regrets over the disaster at
Belo Monte, he defended the project stating that the millions of reais spent
on social programmes meant that the local people had been benefited (TV5
Monde, 2022). Lula had especially strong personal involvement in
promoting Belo Monte and in denigrating the local people who opposed the
project (Bratman, 2014; Fearnside, 2017a, 2017b). The impacts on
indigenous peoples and traditional riverside dwellers (ribeirinhos) have
been devastating, as have the impacts on natural ecosystems. The “Volta
Grande” (Big Bend), a 130-km river stretch between the two dams that
make up the Belo Monte complex, had 80% of its water flow diverted away
through canals to the main powerhouse. Two indigenous peoples live along
the “Volta Grande” and a third Indigenous land on a tributary that flows into
the Volta Grande also depended on the fish and turtles in this river stretch.
None of the impacted indigenous peoples were consulted, as required by
International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO, 1989) and by the
Brazilian law that enacts it (Law 10,088/2019. formerly 5051/2004). At
least 20 suits against the dam were initiated by Brazil's Federal Public
Ministry and are still pending in Brazilian courts, and one was decided in
favour of the indigenous people. The Federal Public Ministry is a public
prosecutor's office created by Brazil's 1988 Constitution to defend the rights
of the people. However, the Lula administration appealed this decision to
the Federal Supreme Court, and the head of the court, after receiving four
representatives of the administration and none from civil society, decided to
allow the dam to go forward until such time as the full court decided on the
merits of the case. This occurred when the head of the court was racing to
complete the trial of the “mensalão” scandal and was only 15 days before
he would be forced to retire by his reaching the age limit for supreme court
justices. In the meantime, the dam has been completed and the Belo Monte
case has not appeared on the court's radar for a decision.
Belo Monte is on the Xingu River, which has a water flow that is
insufficient to justify the 11,000 MW of turbines that were installed in the
main powerhouse (Fearnside, 2017c). The greatest fear is that this could
provide an excuse for building at least one of the five large dams that were
originally planned upstream of Belo Monte, thus flooding vast areas of
indigenous land (Fearnside, 2006, 2017c). An upstream dam might well be
a consequence if the bill opening indigenous lands to hydroelectric dams
(PL 191/2020) is passed, as is on the agenda for the “ruralist” voting block
in the National Congress (which has a strong interest in the bill's provisions
to allow non-indigenous agribusiness operations in these lands). Many other
dams in Amazonian indigenous land are planned if the bill is passed
(Fearnside, 2020a).
The Madeira River dams have also caused massive impacts, and, like
Belo Monte, the approval of the environmental licenses for these dams was
forced through the licensing agency under intense pressure from the
presidential palace (Fearnside, 2013, 2014a, 2014b). One of the most
dramatic impacts was blocking the annual spawning migration of the “giant
catfish” of the Madeira River. Although Lula famously complained in 2007
that his environment minister Marina Silva had “thrown a catfish in his lap”
by questioning the dams, these catfish were providing the livelihoods for a
large population: just in Brazil there were 2400 members of fisheries
cooperatives (each of whom represented a family), and there were also large
fisher populations in Bolivia and Peru that depended on this resource. The
assassination of fisheries cooperative leader Nilce de Souza Magalhães,
known as “Nicinha,” illustrates the tension: her body was found five
months later at the bottom of the Jirau reservoir, weighted down with rocks
(Toledo, 2016). Her husband told me the police have made no progress on
finding the assassins, let alone identifying the actor that presumably hired
them. The Jirau Dam is controlled by the French multinational Energie (the
former GDF Suez), and the dam has resulted in multiple environmental and
human rights impacts. In a radio interview in June 2022, Lula defended the
Madeira River dam projects and stated that the fishers could produce fish in
aquaculture ponds (Rádio Difusora Manaus, 2022).
The Teles Pires Dam represents the worst shock the Munduruku people
have suffered, which is saying something. The Sete Quedas rapids were
first dynamited and then flooded by the reservoir. This is the place where
the spirits of tribal elders go after they die – the equivalent of heaven for
Christians (Branford & Torres, 2017). The loss of sacred sites is not even
considered to be an impact on the Environmental Impact Assessments done
for licensing purposes (Fearnside, 2015a). A total of 30 dams with at least
30 MW of installed capacity are planned in the Tapajós basin, including the
Chacorão Dam, which would flood 11,700 ha of the Munduruku Indigenous
Land (Fearnside, 2015b).
 The São Manoel Dam was built only 700 m from the Kayabi Indigenous
Land, and no indigenous people were consulted. The Federal Public
Ministry submitted multiple public suits to the courts to halt the project for
its violation of the consultation requirements of ILO Convention 169 and
corresponding Brazilian legislation (Fearnside, 2017d). These were
summarily overruled by invoking “security suspensions,” a vestige of
Brazil's 1964–85 military dictatorship (Law 4348 of 26 June 1964) that has
been confirmed and expanded in current laws (Law 8437 of 30 June 1992;
Law 12,016 of 7 August 2009) and allows any decision to be overruled if a
project would cause “grave damage to the public economy.” The repeated
use of this provision under Lula's administrations to allow the Belo Monte,
Teles Pires, and São Manoel dams to go forward despite clear violations
bodes poorly both for future infrastructure and for the possibility of his
championing the repeal of the security-suspension laws.

Highway BR-319
A major question is whether Lula will go forward with the project to
“reconstruct” Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho). He stated in an
interview in June 2022 that the highway is important for the economies of
Amazonas and Rondônia and that it should be built if the federal, state, and
municipal governments have a “commitment” (compromisso) to defending
the environment (Rádio Difusora Manaus, 2022). Unfortunately, even if
such a commitment could actually prevent the impact, elected governments
change every few years, and there can be no guarantee of the uninterrupted
presence of the political courage and astronomical financial resources that
would be needed.
Highway BR-319 was built in 1972–3, inaugurated in 1976, and
abandoned in 1988; it has been made minimally passable by a so-called
“maintenance” programme since 2015. BR-319 and its planned side roads
would open the largest remaining block of Amazon forest to the entry of
deforesters from the notorious “arc of deforestation” along the southern and
eastern edges of the region (Fearnside, 2022a). The project is backed by all
politicians in Manaus, including those who support Lula, provided, of
course, that the project is paid for by the federal government with funds
from taxpayers throughout Brazil. The project is unusual in not having an
economic rationale, and it is the only major infrastructure project in Brazil
that does not have an economic viability study (EVTEA). Transporting
products to markets in São Paulo from the factories in the Manaus Free
Trade Zone (SUFRAMA) is much cheaper by the present system of barge
and road transport than it would be via BR-319, and it would be even
cheaper if transported in containers in ocean-going ships (Teixeira, 2007).
The preliminary license for the reconstruction project was approved in July
2022 despite the required consultation with impacted indigenous peoples
not having been carried out (see Ferrante et al., 2020).
Alternative arguments for BR-319 are also fallacious. If the objective
were to improve access to schools and health centres for people in the
interior of the state of Amazonas, the funds would be spent on building and
staffing these facilities throughout the state's interior and not on
reconstructing an expensive road for the lucky few who have settled along
the highway route. The road is not a priority for “national security” because
it is far from Brazil's borders and BR-319, as stated in 2012 by the Brazilian
Army's commander for Amazonia, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the
Brazilian military's 2008 National Strategy for Defense. Brazilians are free
to “come and go,” but they do not have any inherent “right” for the
government to build a road to their doorsteps. Lastly, the argument that the
rest of Brazil should pay for the road because it owes a “historical debt” to
Amazonia for having exploited the region for centuries for the benefit of the
country's wealthy southeastern states is unlikely to be convincing in São
Paulo, especially if the population there were to realise that 70% of the
water that supports the city of São Paulo comes via the winds known as
“flying rivers” from precisely the block of forest that is threatened by BR-
319 and its side roads (e.g., Fearnside, 2015c; van der Ent et al., 2010;
Zemp et al., 2014).
Rhetoric surrounding Highway BR-319 invariably claims that
deforestation in the area will be prevented by governance. The first of the
two Environmental Impact Assessments even presented Yellowstone
National Park as the example of the governance expected to prevail,
showing a map of the park with the roads over which millions of tourists
drive without cutting a single tree (see Fearnside & Graça, 2009). In 2010,
Dilma Rousseff, then Lula's head of the presidential “Civil House,”
announced that BR-319 would be a “parkway” (estrada parque) where
tourists would drive to admire the forest (Paraguassu, 2010). Politicians in
Manaus claim the highway will be “an example of sustainability for the
world” (Amazonas em Tempo, 2020). Unfortunately, this scenario is pure
fiction, and the highway route today is basically a lawless area where illegal
logging and land grabbing are in full view (Andrade et al., 2021; Ferrante et
al., 2021a). The rapid multiplication of illegal “endogenous” roads (ramais)
is giving access to the invasion of protected areas and undesignated public
land (Fearnside et al., 2020). As to the frequently heard argument that
paving the road will result in better access for inspectors and less violations
of environmental regulations, this is belied by the history so far: with the
gradual improvement of the road by “maintenance” since 2015,
environmental violations have been constantly increasing, rather than
decreasing.

Gas and oil

Plans for gas and oil exploitation in Amazonia are another area of concern.
The massive “Solimões Sedimentary Area” project would cover 740,000
km2, the area of the UK and Spain together. The project is in a particularly
important area for Brazil's environment: the Trans-Purus region between the
Purus River and the Peruvian border (Fearnside, 2020b; Fearnside et al.,
2020). Drilling rights in the first 16 blocks of the project have already been
sold to Rosneft, the Russian Government oil and gas company. Three of
these blocks are directly on the route of the planned AM-366 highway that
would connect to BR-319 (Brazil, DNIT, 2020). The financial and political
influence of Rosneft could induce the federal and Amazonas state
governments to prioritise building the potentially disastrous AB-366
highway (Fearnside, 2022b), and the oil companies themselves could build,
or convince the government to build, branch roads connecting to AM-366
since access by road is much cheaper than the official scenario of oil fields
being like platforms in the ocean, accessible by helicopter (Fearnside,
2020b).
Greenpeace-Russia accuses Rosneft of causing over 10,000 oil spills
around the world. Oil spills in Amazonia are especially damaging to aquatic
biodiversity. Lula's previous administrations were not exactly careful in
promoting gas and oil exploitation, having launched the Pre-Salt project in
the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil. Virtually all discussion was on
what to do with the money that would be generated, rather than the project's
environmental risks. In 2010, the last year of Lula's second term, the Deep-
Water Horizon well spilled oil into the Gulf of Mexico unchecked for
months, demonstrating that no one in the world had the capacity to contain
a spill at a depth of 1.5 km. The Pre-Salt project off the coast of Northeast
Brazil includes wells at double that depth (Fearnside, 2018). Petrobras plans
to begin extracting oil in a “new Pre-Salt” Amazon estuary off the coast of
Amapá by 2026 at a depth of 2.8 km (ClimaInfo, 2022).

Biofuels
The question of biofuels could be an important factor in future
deforestation. Crops such as sugarcane for alcohol and oil palm and soy for
biodiesel could occupy vast areas in Amazonia (Ferrante & Fearnside,
2020). During Lula's first administration, there was a long battle between
his ministers of agriculture (Reinaldo Stephanes) and environment (Marina
Silva) over whether Amazonia and the Pantanal would be opened for
sugarcane. In the end, Marina Silva was able to prevail. Note, however, that
Lula has been making overtures to “ruralist” (agribusiness) leaders and
supported a ruralist Senate candidate in Mato Grosso (Oliveira et al., 2022).
Political battles over opening the Amazon to sugarcane have continued to
the present. Although efforts to remove the restriction were blocked by a
judicial decision, biofuel companies are investing in projects that
temporarily use maize while waiting for this policy to change (Ferrante et
al., 2021b).
The National Plan for Climate Change, released during Lula's presidency
in 2008, calls for hydroelectric dams, tree planting, and biofuels as major
efforts to mitigate global warming (Brazil, CIMC, 2008). Castor bean
(mamona: Ricinus communis), and jatrophra (pinhão manso: Jatropha
curcas) were emphasised by Lula for promotion in semiarid northeastern
Brazil as sources of biodiesel, with social benefits in providing livelihoods
to small farmers. The plan called for tripling both alcohol and biodiesel
production in a decade. However, meeting the government's targets for
biodiesel production this way proved challenging, and the result was
reliance on biodiesel from soy, which is grown by wealthy landholders in
mechanised plantations in other regions of the country. Jatrophra planting
by small farmers can potentially reduce the production of food crops by
competing for both land and labour, as has been documented in Mexico and
Africa. Small farmers have an essential role in supplying staple food crops
in Brazil, as large landholders usually produce commodities for export.

Tree planting and “net zero deforestation”

Lula's 2022 campaign platform included a goal of “net zero deforestation,”
which means no further decline in the total area of “forest,” including the
original forest, secondary forests, and planted forests (Coligação Brasil da
Esperança, 2022). While this goal can have environmental benefits
compared to the current trend, these benefits depend entirely on how the
goal is achieved. The key issue for the environment is halting the further
loss of the original forest – what is needed is a goal of “zero deforestation,”
not “net zero deforestation.” Aside from reducing “illegal” deforestation by
rebuilding Brazil's environmental agencies, Lula's platform emphasises the
importance of “recuperating degraded land” in achieving the net zero
deforestation goal. This has much less benefit than preventing further loss
of the original forest: a hectare of “recuperated” land has much less carbon
and biodiversity than a hectare of the original forest, and it also costs more
than preventing a hectare of deforestation. In terms of carbon kept out of
the atmosphere, the difference in the cost per ton is obviously even greater
than the difference in cost per hectare. In addition, the benefit of avoiding
deforestation can be immediate, whereas either planted or naturally
regenerated trees take years to grow, and the value of time is very great in
matters of climate change.
Costs of forest restoration in the state of Mato Grosso were calculated by
Hissa (2019). The cheapest scenario per ton of carbon in land that was
originally forest relied on protecting the secondary forest for natural
regeneration rather than active planting (which is substantially more
expensive), and with equal weights for the criteria considered. The total
cost, in 2019 dollars, was US$47.30/tC (US$12.9/t CO2e), of which
US$14.94/tC represented opportunity costs and US$32.36/tC represented
direct costs. This calculation was for both private land (restricted to
landholdings in the Rural Environmental Register, or CAR), where total
cost averaged US$59.77/tC, and public land, where total cost averaged
US$37.77/tC. The estimate covered an 11-year time period with an annual
discount rate of 10%.
The cost of avoided deforestation in Mato Grosso was calculated by
Börner and Wunder (2008), indicating a total (opportunity + direct) cost, in
2006 dollars of US$3 per ton carbon, excluding 50% of the land with the
highest agricultural value and considering only private land, a 10-year
period and a 10% annual discount rate. Nepstad et al. (2007, 2009)
calculated a total (opportunity + direct) cost in 2007 dollars of US$2.75/tC
in the whole of Brazilian Amazonia considering both public and private
land, excluding 6% of the land with the highest opportunity cost, a 30-year
period and a 5% annual discount rate. These values are not directly
comparable, but they both indicate low costs for large areas where
deforestation could be avoided.
It should be remembered that, although not insurmountable, both
restoration and avoided deforestation programmes face significant
challenges in delivering the expected carbon benefits. Regenerating forest
in restoration projects may be cut down before the areas have time to
accumulate the hoped-for carbon stocks: in the Atlantic Forest, the average
age of secondary forests is only 7.9 years, raising doubts about proposed
restoration programmes (Piffer et al., 2022). The continuing destruction of
the original Atlantic Forest is “hidden” by presenting forest data in terms of
changes in total forest area, including secondary forests (Rosa et al., 2021),
and this deception is likely to be increasingly important in Amazonia as the
clearing of original forest progresses. In the case of avoided deforestation
projects, a major challenge is a tendency to exaggerate benefits. In
voluntary market REDD+ projects in Brazil almost all have greatly
exaggerated baselines, meaning that much of the calculated carbon benefit
is not real (West et al., 2020). Various other challenges also need to be
addressed (Fearnside, 2012b, 2012c). Despite these challenges, avoiding
deforestation clearly is more cost-effective as a global-warming mitigation
option than forest regeneration and has large additional environmental and
social benefits.
Because the amount of money available for environmental programmes
is always limited, every dollar of “green” money spent on recuperating
degraded lands means there is one less dollar available for stopping
deforestation. The problem is that political forces all push in the direction of
recuperating degraded lands rather than stopping deforestation. There are
powerful interests that want to be free to deforest more, whereas offers of
money for landholders to plant trees are welcomed by all. Large ranchers in
Mato Grosso are avid to receive subsidies from carbon credit to plant trees
in the illegally cleared Areas of Permanent Preservation (APPs) in their
properties. There is also much more money to be made by companies
providing services for tree planting than there is in avoiding deforestation.
To the extent that the goal of “net zero deforestation” is achieved by
planting trees while the original forest continues to be cleared, the
environment in Amazonia will continue to suffer a net loss.

Land tenure
Land-tenure policy is surely the most delicate of the various areas of
concern for Lula's presidency. His support from organised landless farmers
(sem-terras) and his need for support from the “ruralists” (large landholders
and their representatives) who dominate the National Congress (Pochmann,
2022) represent forces in the direction of further loosening restrictions in
this key area.
Brazil has yet to make a basic transition that has taken place in the rest of
the world hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. This is the government
asserting control over private actors to prevent them from simply entering
areas of government land and claiming the land for themselves. This applies
both to landless family farmers (sem terras) and to large “land grabbers”
(Fearnside, 2008). The term “land grabbers” (grileiros) in Brazil refers to
large operators who claim areas of government land and, often through
corrupt means, obtain legal title to the area; the areas are usually subdivided
and sold to ranchers, either with or without legal documentation (Note that
the use of the English-language term “land grabbers” in the literature on
Amazonia differs from that in Africa and Asia, where the term refers to
foreign interests buying land from local people and converting it to export
crops). For the past 500 years since Europeans arrived in Brazil, occupation
and later legalisation of land claims have been the way that much of the
land has passed from the public to the private domain. In other countries,
including tropical forest countries, the thought would not even cross
someone's mind that they could invade a government area, clear some of the
forest, and later gain legal title to the land. The practice of legalising illegal
land claims is euphemistically termed land-tenure “regularisation” in Brazil,
which implies that the claimants have a legal right to the land and that their
lack of a title is merely a reflection of the government's bureaucratic
inefficiency – conjuring up the image of traditional riverside dwellers
(ribeirinhos) who have been living in the Amazonian interior for
generations without legal title to their land. However, the vast majority of
the area being titled refers to legalising illegal claims to recently invaded
areas (e.g., Fearnside, 2001). A series of “land grabbers’ laws” has
progressively increased the area that each claimant can legalise and has
moved the timeline forward for the cutoff before which the claim had to be
occupied to be eligible for legalisation. This sends a clear message to
would-be invaders that they can invade land now and eventually be granted
“amnesty” by a future policy change. The implications of this for
deforestation on the Amazonian frontier are tremendous.
During Lula's second term in office, the first “land-grabbers law” (Law
11,952/2009) was passed, establishing the “Terra Legal” programme and
increasing the area that could be legalised per claimant in Amazonia from
100 ha to 400 ha. Even 100 ha would not be considered a “small” property
in most of the world, but even in Amazonia, a 400-ha property represents a
medium-sized cattle ranch rather than an area intended to elevate a family
farmer from poverty. This and other legalisation programmes have been
defended as reducing deforestation by removing the motivation to clear
forests in order to justify the claims for titling, but studies of the actual
deforestation in these legalised properties have shown that the titling
increases rather than decreases the rate of deforestation (Probst et al., 2020).
The effect of tenure security allowing larger investments in deforestation
apparently outweighs the effect of clearing to bolster land claims. Titling
also increases the sale value of the land and speeds the land “concentration”
process, where smallholders are bought out by wealthier actors who manage
a group of small holdings as a medium or large ranch. This is rapidly
transforming settlements from their intended function of providing
livelihoods to small farmers to areas with much larger holdings (Carrero &
Fearnside, 2011; Yanai et al., 2020). The result is not only increased
deforestation in the settlement area but also the deforestation by those who
have sold their land once they move to a new frontier elsewhere in
Amazonia.
A second “land-grabbers’ law” (Law 13465/2017) was enacted in 2017
under President Michel Temer, and a third such law (PL 2633/2020 and
PLS 510/2020) is nearing approval in the National Congress (Carrero et al.,
2022; Ferrante et al., 2021a). Despite rhetoric claiming these laws are to
benefit small farmers, ample provisions for small farmers are already
present in existing legislation, and the portions of the laws that are new are
solely for much larger actors, namely landgrabbers and the ranchers who
have bought illegal land claims from them (Fearnside, 2020c). Areas up to
2500 ha per claimant will be legalised. Of course, several members of a
single family can make claims, thus legalising enormous areas. The Rural
Environmental Register (CAR), created by Brazil's current “Forest Code”
(Law 12,651/2012), allows self-declared claims with no onsite inspection.
This greatly facilitates land grabbing in practice, despite the CAR having
been created for environmental purposes and specifically not conferring
land tenure (Azevedo-Ramos et al., 2020; Brito et al., 2019). The history of
land tenure in Brazilian Amazonia has so far been one of continual
government retreat, repeatedly legalising illegal land claims and virtually
never taking effective action to remove illegal occupiers, with the exception
of some invasions of private property and a small percentage of the
invasions in indigenous lands or conservation units – but essentially never
in undesignated public land. The future posture of the Lula presidency in
this area is a major unknown.

References
Amazonas em Tempo. 2020. BR-319 sera exemplo sustentavel para o mundo, dizem deputados.
Amazonas em Tempo, 22 September 2020. https://bit.ly/300aAbo
Andrade, M. B. T., L. Ferrante & P. M. Fearnside. 2021. Brazil's Highway BR-319 demonstrates a
crucial lack of environmental governance in Amazonia. Environmental Conservation 48(3): 161–
164. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892921000084
Azevedo-Ramos, C., P. Moutinho, V. L. S. Arruda, M. C. C. Stabilie, A. Alencar, I. Castro & J. P.
Ribeiro. 2020. Lawless land in no man's land: The undesignated public forests in the Brazilian
Amazon. Land Use Policy 99: art. 104863. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104863
Börner, J. & S. Wunder. 2008. Paying for avoided deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: From cost
assessment to scheme design. International Forestry Review 10(3): 496–511.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43739785
Branford, S. & M. Torres. 2017. The end of a people: Amazon dam destroys sacred Munduruku
‘Heaven’. Mongabay, 5 January. https://bit.ly/3w592Bw
Bratman, E. Z. 2014. Contradictions of green development: Human rights and environmental norms
in light of Belo Monte dam activism. Journal of Latin American Studies 46(2): 261–289.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X14000042
Brazil, CIMC (Comitê Interministerial sobre Mudança do Clima). 2008. Plano Nacional sobre
Mudança do Clima – PNMC –Brasil. CIMC, Brasília, DF. 129 pp. https://bit.ly/3pxbEVb
Brazil, DNIT (Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes). 2020. Estudo do
Componente Indígena CI Preliminar da Etnia 3 – Apurinã – Rev C. DNIT, Brasília, DF.
https://bit.ly/3mMpWAr
Brito, B., P. Barreto. A. Brandão, S. Baima & P. H. Gomes. 2019. Stimulus for land grabbing and
deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters 14: art 064018.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24
Carrero, G. C. & P. M. Fearnside. 2011. Forest clearing dynamics and the expansion of land holdings
in Apuí, a deforestation hotspot on Brazil's Transamazon Highway. Ecology and Society 16(2): art.
26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04105-160226
Carrero, G. C., R. T. Walker, C. S. Simmons & P. M. Fearnside. 2022. Land grabbing in the Brazilian
Amazon: Stealing public land with government approval. Land Use Policy art. 106133.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106133
ClimaInfo. 2022. Petrobras quer explorar “novo pré-sal” na costa do Amapá. ClimaInfo, 22 August.
https://bit.ly/3wnqHVf
Coligação Brasil da Esperança. 2022. Diretrizes para o programa de reconstrução e transformação do
Brasil Lula Alckmin 2023–2026 Coligação Brasil da Esperança. Tribunal Superior Eleitoral,
August. https://bit.ly/3Ck2NOn
Fearnside, P.M. 2001. Land-tenure issues as factors in environmental destruction in Brazilian
Amazonia: The case of southern Pará. World Development 29(8): 1361–1372.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00039-0
Fearnside, P.M. 2006. Dams in the Amazon: Belo Monte and Brazil's hydroelectric development of
the Xingu River Basin. Environmental Management 38(1): 16–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-
005-00113-6
Fearnside, P.M. 2008. The roles and movements of actors in the deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia.
Ecology and Society 13(1): art. 23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26267941
Fearnside, P. M. 2012a. Segurança nacional na Amazônia. pp. 177 & 191. In: A.L. Val & G.M. dos
Santos (eds.) GEEA: Grupo de Estudos Estratégicos Amazônicos. Tomo V, Editora do Instituto
Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, AM. 191 pp. https://bit.ly/3CcNp6x
Fearnside, P. M. 2012b. The theoretical battlefield: Accounting for the climate benefits of
maintaining Brazil's Amazon forest. Carbon Management 3(2): 145–148.
https://doi.org/10.4155/CMT.12.9
Fearnside, P. M. 2012c. Brazil's Amazon Forest in mitigating global warming: Unresolved
controversies. Climate Policy 12(1): 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2011.581571
Fearnside, P. M. 2013. Decision-making on Amazon dams: Politics trumps uncertainty in the
Madeira River sediments controversy. Water Alternatives 6(2): 313–325. http://www.water-
alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol6/v6issue2/218-a6-2-15/file
Fearnside, P.M. 2014a. Brazil's Madeira River dams: A setback for environmental policy in
Amazonian development. Water Alternatives 7(1): 156–169. https://bit.ly/3PoThwq
Fearnside, P. M. 2014b. Impacts of Brazil's Madeira River dams: Unlearned lessons for hydroelectric
development in Amazonia. Environmental Science & Policy 38: 164–172.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2013.11.004.
Fearnside, P.M. 2015a. Brazil's São Luiz do Tapajós Dam: The art of cosmetic environmental impact
assessments. Water Alternatives 8(3): 373–396. https://bit.ly/3CcNNlv
Fearnside, P. M. 2015b. Amazon dams and waterways: Brazil's Tapajós Basin plans. Ambio 44: 426–
439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0642-z
Fearnside, P. M. 2015c. Rios voadores e a água de São Paulo. Amazônia Real. https://bit.ly/3qykIsY
Fearnside, P.M. 2017a. Belo Monte: Actors and arguments in the struggle over Brazil's most
controversial Amazonian dam. Die Erde 148(1): 14–26 https://doi.org/10.12854/erde-148-27
Fearnside, P.M. 2017b. Brazil's Belo Monte Dam: Lessons of an Amazonian resource struggle. Die
Erde 148(2–3): 167–184. https://doi.org/10.12854/erde-148-46.
Fearnside, P. M. 2017c. Planned Disinformation: The Example of the Belo Monte Dam as a Source
of Greenhouse Gases. In: L.-R. Issberner & P. Lena (eds.) Brazil in the Anthropocene: Conflicts
Between Predatory Development and Environmental Policies. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group,
New York, U.S.A. 364 pp. https://bit.ly/3AlrDfq
Fearnside, P. M. 2017d. Amazon dam defeats Brazil's environment agency. Mongabay, 20
September. https://bit.ly/3JYuzl6
Fearnside, P. M. 2018. Brazil's offshore oil risks. Science [Online comment]
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/re-brazil's-offshore-oil-risks
Fearnside, P.M. 2020a. Brazil's Amazon dam plans: Ominous warnings of future destruction
(commentary). Mongabay, 22 October 2020. https://bit.ly/3QuF42c
Fearnside, P. M. 2020b. Oil and gas project threatens Brazil's last great block of Amazon forest
(commentary). Mongabay, 9 March 2020. https://bit.ly/3ELLZxt
Fearnside, P. M. 2020c. Brazil's ‘land-grabbers law’ threatens Amazonia (commentary). Mongabay,
25 May 2020. https://bit.ly/3PoUL9Y
Fearnside, P.M. 2022a. Amazon environmental services: Why Brazil's Highway BR-319 is so
damaging. Ambio 51: 1367–1370. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01718-y
Fearnside, P. M. 2022b. Putin's financial interest in Brazil's Amazon highways (commentary).
Mongabay, 4 May 2022. https://bit.ly/3JY45QJ
Fearnside, P. M., L. Ferrante, A. M. Yanai & M. A. Isaac Júnior. 2020. Trans-Purus: Brazil's last
intact Amazon forest at immediate risk (commentary). Mongabay, 24 November.
https://bit.ly/3IrTJH5
Fearnside, P. M. & P. M. L. A. Graça. 2009. BR-319: A rodovia Manaus-Porto Velho e o impacto
potencial de conectar o arco de desmatamento à Amazônia central. Novos Cadernos NAEA 12(1):
19–50. https://doi.org/10.5801/ncn.v12i1.241
Ferrante, L., M. B. T. Andrade & P. M. Fearnside. 2021a. Land grabbing on Brazil's Highway BR-
319 as a spearhead for Amazonian deforestation. Land Use Policy 108: art. 105559.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105559
Ferrante, L., R. I. Barbosa, L. Duczmal & P. M. Fearnside. 2021b. Brazil's planned exploitation of
Amazonian indigenous lands for commercial agriculture increases risk of new pandemics.
Regional Environmental Change 21, Art. 81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01819-6
Ferrante, L. & P. M. Fearnside. 2020. The Amazon: Biofuel plans will drive deforestation. Nature
577: 170. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00005-8
Ferrante, L., M. Gomes & P. M. Fearnside. 2020. Amazonian indigenous peoples are threatened by
Brazil's Highway BR-319. Land Use Policy 94: art. 104548.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104548
Hissa, L.B.V. 2019. From Deforestation to Forest Recovery: Perspectives for the Amazon under the
Rule of the Brazilian Forest Code. PhD dissertation in geography, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,
Berlin, Germany. 207 pp. https://bit.ly/3QUkOqG
ILO (International Labour Organization). 1989. C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention,
1989 (No 169) ILO, Geneva, Switzerland. https://bit.ly/3piKMbt
Lima, L. 2022. Lula diz que faria Belo Monte de novo e expõe diferenças com Marina. Metropoles,
23 June 2022. https://bit.ly/3dq8rE5
Nepstad, D., B. Soares-Filho, F. Merry, P. Moutinho, A. Rodrigues, S. Schwartzman, O. Almeida &
S. Rivero. 2007. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD): The
Costs and Benefits of Reducing Carbon Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in
the Brazilian Amazon. Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA, U.S.A.
https://bit.ly/3RdwGEr
Nepstad, D., B.S. Soares-Filho, F. Merry, A. Lima, P. Moutinho, J. Carter, M. Bowman, A. Cattaneo,
H. Rodrigues, S. Schwartzman, D.G. McGrath, C.M. Stickler, R. Lubowski, P. Piris-Cabezas, S.
Rivero, A. Alencar, O. Almeida & O. Stella. 2009. The end of deforestation in the Brazilian
Amazon. Science 326: 1350–1351. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1182108
Oliveira, T., J. Gabriel & V. Azevedo. 2022. Equipe de Lula se reúne com agro por aliança em setor
dominado por Bolsonaro. Folha de São Paulo, 22 July 2022. https://bit.ly/3dzx5Cw
Paraguassu, M. 2010. BR-319 sera uma estrada parqu, diz ministra Dilma em Humaita. Tudo
Rondonia, 24 March 2020. https://bit.ly/3KeOxkg
Piffer, P.R., M.R. Rosa, L.R. Tambosi, J.P. Metzger & M. Uriarte 2022. Turnover rates of regenerated
forests challenge restoration efforts in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Environmental Research
Letters 17(4): art. 045009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5ae1
Probst, B., A. BenYishay, A. Kontoleon & T.N.P. dos Reis. 2020. Impacts of a large-scale titling
initiative on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Nature Sustainability 3: 1019–1026.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0537-2
Rádio Difusora Manaus. 2022. Lula fala para o Amazonas na Rádio Difusora. Youtube, 23 June 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc5vXgK7Wjw
Rosa, M.R., P.H.S. Brancalion, R Crouzeilles. L.R. Tambosi, P.R. Piffer, F.E.B. Lenti, M. Hirota, E.
Santiami & J.P. Metzger. 2021. Hidden destruction of older forests threatens Brazil's Atlantic
Forest and challenges restoration programs. Science Advances 7(4): art. eabc4547.
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc4547
Teixeira, K.M. 2007. Investigação de Opções de Transporte de Carga Geral em Contêineres nas
Conexões com a Região Amazônica. PhD dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos, SP.
https://bit.ly/3FNeuMv
Toledo, M. 2016. Após 5 meses, corpo de ativista é achado em lago de usina em RO. Folha de São
Paulo, 23 June. https://bit.ly/3wtDJkr
TV5 Monde. 2022. Brésil: Les vérités du candidat Lula sur la crise climatique, l'Amazonie et les
peuples autochtones. TV5 Monde, 30 May. https://bit.ly/3Qt8j5p
van der Ent, R.J., H.H.G. Savenije, B. Schaefli & S.C. Steele-Dunne. 2010. Origin and fate of
atmospheric moisture over continents. Water Resources Research 46: art. W09525.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2010WR009127
West, T.A.P., J. Börner, E.O. Sills & A. Kontoleon. 2020. Overstated carbon emission reductions
from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences U S A 117(39): 24188–24194. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004334117
Yanai, A.M., P. M. L. A. Graça, M. I. S. Escada, L. G. Ziccardi & P. M. Fearnside. 2020.
Deforestation dynamics in Brazil's Amazonian settlements: Effects of land-tenure concentration.
Journal of Environmental Management 268: art. 110555.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110555
Zemp, D. C., C. F. Schleussner, H. M. J. Barbosa, R. J. van der Ent, J. F. Donges, J. Heinke, G.
Sampaio & A. Rammig. 2014. On the importance of cascading moisture recycling in South
America. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 14: 13337–13359. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-
13337-2014
12
LULA'S COMEBACK
A new era for Indigenous peoples?

Fiona Watson

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-14

Introduction
Brazil is home to 305 Indigenous peoples and over 100 uncontacted tribes.
They number about 1.65 million according to preliminary data from IBGE's
2022 census, forming approximately 0.8% of the overall population, and
live in 726 territories and urban areas. They are a vibrant part of Brazil's
rich cultural diversity, and their ecological knowledge and land
management skills play a fundamental role in conserving biodiversity in
regions as diverse as the Amazon and Atlantic forests and the cerrado
savannas. Scientific data from the Amazon shows they are key in holding
back deforestation and forest fires and play a crucial role in mitigating
climate change in South America and globally.
Brazil's Indigenous peoples have historically been extremely
marginalised politically and socially excluded, due to ingrained racism,
their geographical isolation and invisibility as a numerically small minority.
Powerful blocks in Brazil's congress, representing agribusiness,
evangelicals, and the gun lobby, have always pressurised governments to
compromise on Indigenous rights to favour their interests.
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became president in 2003 Indigenous
peoples had huge expectations that he and his government would forge a
new relationship with them and uphold their constitutional rights. These
hopes were dashed by his economic and development policies based on
large-scale infrastructure projects and pushing exports from agribusiness
and the mining industry at the expense of Indigenous rights. Both Lula and
his successor Dilma Rousseff sought new markets, and economic growth
was fuelled by soaring internal and international demand for Brazilian
commodities notably iron ore, beef, and soya.
Bolsonaro's presidency was the most anti-Indigenous since the military
dictatorship ended in 1985. A galvanised Indigenous movement united to
oppose, and in some cases overturn, his policies which severely undermined
their rights. They were adept at using social media and international fora to
counter his lies and racist rhetoric which greenlighted the illegal invasion of
their territories. They were successful in establishing important social,
environmental, and political alliances nationally and internationally.
There are huge expectations for Lula's comeback and to make good on
his 2022 election commitments to Indigenous peoples. The greatest number
of Indigenous candidates ever stood in the 2022 election and two
Indigenous women were elected as federal deputies.

Legacy of Lula's presidencies (2003–2010)

Some of Lula's policies brought welcome improvements, whilst others had
devastating and long-lasting impacts on Indigenous peoples. Lula himself
publicly acknowledged the shortcomings of his first administration during
the “Free Land Camp” Indigenous protests in Brasília in 2007.
Hopes that his government would genuinely involve Indigenous people
in policy decision-making and implementation were dashed. Long overdue
reform of FUNAI, the Indigenous affairs agency, and the creation of a
special Indigenous Secretariat with ministerial status linked to the
president's office never materialised.
Although the government established the National Commission on
Indigenous Policy (Comissão Nacional de Política Indigenista) in 2006 to
consult with Indigenous peoples it was side-lined by the government which
increasingly regarded Indigenous peoples as obstacles to development.

Land demarcation
Land is central to Indigenous peoples’ cosmology and identity and essential
to their livelihoods. The Brazilian constitution recognises that Indigenous
peoples are the original inhabitants of Brazil and guarantees them exclusive
rights to occupy and use their lands. Legal recognition or “demarcation”
and protection of their territories are FUNAI's responsibility.
Lula's record on demarcation was average. He demarcated 79 territories,
far fewer that his predecessors Fernando Henrique Cardoso who
demarcated 145, and Fernando Collor de Mello who demarcated 121, but
significantly more than his successors Dilma Rousseff who demarcated 21,
Michel Temer one and Jair Bolsonaro none (CIMI 2022).
Lula's Social Agenda for Indigenous People launched in his second term
(2007–2010) aimed to demarcate 127 territories. However, FUNAI invested
little money in land recognition and the government did not stand up to
strong pressure from the rural lobby which opposed Indigenous rights,
regarding them as an obstacle to their economic gain. By 2016,
demarcations had stagnated due to a lack of political will and to legal
challenges lodged by the agribusiness sector in the Supreme Court.
His most significant achievement was to ratify the demarcation of
Raposa-Serra do Sol, a large Indigenous territory in the northern Amazon,
in 2005. Demarcation had been opposed for 30 years by powerful economic
interests supported by local politicians. Cattle ranchers and rice farmers
occupied large parts of the territory and waged a long and violent campaign
against the Indigenous communities to evict them from their land. At least
20 Indigenous people were murdered and many more injured in attacks and
firebombing of property. The military, long opposed to the demarcation of
Indigenous territories along Brazil's borders, opposed the demarcation as a
single area.
Defending the demarcation Lula stated: “When people claim we ratified
Raposa-Serra do Sol … they forget that the intruders are not the Indians
who live there, but we who arrived in 1500 … What we are trying to do is
to just repair the damage that has been done over centuries in this country”
(Agência Brasil 2005). The Roraima state government went to court to
oppose the demarcation which was upheld in 2009 by the Supreme Court,
albeit with a number of conditions attached.
On the other hand, Lula oversaw a significant reduction of the Baú
Indigenous Territory, home to Kayapo people, and intensely invaded by
loggers and miners. Some territories in the south of Brazil which had
undergone the first steps of land recognition saw these overturned.
As with previous administrations, Lula's government failed to resolve the
Guarani land crisis, one of the most acute in Brazil. Evicted from most of
their land in Mato Grosso do Sul by agribusiness in the last century, they
occupy a fraction of their ancestral land and are consigned to overcrowded
reservations or are camped in appalling conditions on the roadsides. Despair
has driven many to suicide; the Guarani suicide rate is 21 times greater than
the national rate. From 2000 to 2015 there were 752 suicides among a
population of about 40,000 (CIMI 2016). Malnutrition among children is
common and with little or no land to cultivate many Guarani rely on the
state's cesta básica or basic food basket. Despite an agreement between
public prosecutors and FUNAI in 2007 to speed up the recognition of
Guarani lands, the process has been paralysed.

Bolsa Familia programme

Lula's social welfare programmes such as the Bolsa Família (family
allowance) benefited some Indigenous peoples, especially those living in or
near urban areas who are better able to access the benefits. Whilst broadly
welcomed there was little consultation with Indigenous people on access
and implementation. Some Indigenous families did not benefit as they
lacked correct documentation. Others had to make long and expensive
journeys to cities to claim benefits which barely covered their travel costs.
Families in remote Amazon territories travelled for weeks by canoe to
collect benefits in towns where they had nowhere to stay. Many had to
camp along riverbanks in grim conditions, where malaria was rife and there
was no drinking water. Unfamiliar with the monetary economy many give
their electronic cards to health workers and shop owners to buy goods,
opening themselves to exploitation and theft of money (Verdum 2013).
Education
Since the adoption of the 1988 constitution, the Indigenous movement has
fought for wider access to secondary and tertiary education. According to
Indigenous scholar Gersem Baniwa, “Indigenous people want to be able to
live off their lands, allying their knowledge with that of western technology
and science. Access to higher education is considered an important
instrument in the fight for Indigenous rights, enabling then to appropriate
knowledge and technology to improve life in the communities, and
facilitate participation in the formulation and implementation of appropriate
public policies” (Baniwa 2009).
Affirmative action policies such as the University for All Programme
(Programa Universidade para Todos) have enabled Indigenous youth to
complete secondary and tertiary education. In 2007 there were 5000
Indigenous students in tertiary education (ensino superior), a big increase
from a decade earlier when there were 500 (Baniwa 2009). Today there are
Indigenous lawyers, anthropologists, dentists, writers, filmmakers, teachers,
and health agents, and Indigenous people participating in the National
Council of Education.
However, Indigenous students face huge challenges: moving to the towns
to study is expensive and often an alienating experience as they are
separated from their families. Entire families have migrated from territories
to cities to accompany their student offspring where they live on the
peripheries in squalid conditions where they are more exposed to diseases
and violence from local populations.
Another positive initiative was the “Indigenous Portfolio” (Carteira
Indigena), a programme implemented in partnership with the Ministry of
Social Development, the Ministry of Environment, and FUNAI to support
food security, income generation, and cultural enhancement projects
proposed and carried out by Indigenous communities themselves. The Light
for All (Luz para Todos) programme brought electricity to over 24,000
Indigenous families in Lula's second term.

The Programme for Accelerated Growth

The Programme for Accelerated Growth (Programa de Açeleração de
Crescimento – PAC), launched in January 2007 and expanded during Lula's
second term and Dilma's presidency, was extremely damaging to
Indigenous people. One core objective was to expand infrastructure and
capacity by building hydro-electric dams, roads, railways, and waterways to
transport soya beans, timber and ore to Atlantic and Pacific ports, and to
bring sanitation and electricity into rural and poor urban areas. The PAC
was also conceived as an important component of the Initiative for the
Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), to
integrate transport, energy, and communications (Verdum 2012).
The social and environmental impacts were disastrous for Indigenous
peoples. The asphalting of the BR 310 highway linking the Amazon cities
of Manaus and Porto Velho put more pressure on Indigenous territories
from loggers, colonists, and miners as well as inflaming existing tensions
and violence. FUNAI was overwhelmed with demands to examine and
approve ethno-environmental licensing requests. The PAC became mired in
the Lava Jato corruption scandals which ultimately led to Dilma's
impeachment and the imprisonment of Lula. It also led to the resignation of
the environment minister, Marina Silva, in 2008. She was progressively
side-lined when she criticised the government's failure to follow proper
environmental licensing procedures and to obtain the Free Prior and
Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected populations.
The controversial Belo Monte mega dam on the Xingu River became the
most high-profile symbol of what Indigenous communities saw as
economics and “development” favouring industry and large landowners at
the expense of their rights and the environment. In August 2010 a large
meeting was held in Altamira to protest at the government's attempts to
bypass social and environmental licensing laws and its lack of transparency
about the purpose of the dam – marketed as providing cheap electricity to
the poor, with little mention of the subsidised energy it would supply to
mining companies in the region. Public prosecutors lodged more than 20
legal actions to suspend the construction of Belo Monte, accusing the
government and Norte Energia of “ethnocide” and of deliberately failing to
carry out mitigation measures to protect Indigenous peoples. The dam
infrastructure, feeder roads, and influx of 90,000 workers and settlers
resulted in loss of land and livelihoods, plummeting fish stocks, polluted
water, deforestation, and invasion of Indigenous territories. Uncontacted
Indigenous groups living near the dams whose lands were not demarcated
were abandoned to their fate.
The UN's Special Rapporteur on Indigenous peoples found that
mitigation measures were not enacted, Indigenous territories were not
demarcated within the agreed time frame, adequate compensation for loss
of livelihood was not provided, field posts for monitoring invasion of
Indigenous were not constructed and, instead of being strengthened, FUNAI
was weakened (ISA 2015).
An expert panel of 40 independent specialists from Brazilian scientific
institutions delivered a damning 230-page report which found that the dam
would generate little electricity during the three to four-month dry season,
was of “doubtful engineering viability” and “would interrupt the flow of
water courses over an enormous area.”
The Lula government's failure to obtain the FPIC of Indigenous peoples
over Belo Monte, the Jirau, and Santo Antonio dams on the Madeira River
and those planned for the Tapajos Basin violated national and international
law and led to anger and mistrust which linger to this day.

Health
Indigenous health care has had a chequered history in the last 50 years. In
1999 it was decentralised, and NGOs and Indigenous organisations ran
health projects in the 34 Indigenous health districts. Some were successful,
others less so. After much protest and lobbying from Indigenous peoples, a
Special Indigenous Health Secretariat was created to better cater for
Indigenous health needs.
Although spending on health care increased in Lula's first term, this did
not result in improved health. It was difficult to find doctors to work in
remote regions, to access territories, and to prevent money being syphoned
off by corrupt local politicians.
To address the crisis, the Dilma government set up the More Doctors
Programme (Programa Mais Medicos) in 2013 where doctors, mainly from
Cuba, were recruited to work in rural areas with an emphasis on delivering
primary health care, something severely lacking in many Indigenous
territories. The permanent presence of doctors in Indigenous territories was
beneficial and lowered Indigenous infant mortality rates.

Deforestation
From 2000 to 2012 deforestation in Indigenous territories in the Amazon in
Brazil was 0.6% compared with 7% outside them (WRI 2014) and Lula's
second term saw an 80% reduction in the rate of Amazon deforestation.
This was due to better surveillance via satellite monitoring in real time,
joint operations by government agencies, and fining and imprisoning
criminals. Some Indigenous communities formed “Forest Guardians”
groups and monitored their land in the absence of the state which also
played a significant role in combating deforestation. Many Indigenous
people trained as firefighters to work with fire brigades run jointly by
Prevfogo/IBAMA and helped contain forest fires which are increasing
because of deforestation and drying of the Amazon.

Violence
Conflict over land and resources has long been a major issue facing
Indigenous peoples and intensified under the military dictatorship's drive to
open up the Amazon. CIMI (Indigenist Missionary Council) catalogued 437
assassinations of Indigenous people during the period 2003–2010, mainly
due to land conflict (CIMI 2010). One of the worst years was under Dilma
in 2014 when 139 were murdered, including many in Mato Grosso do Sul.
As with previous administrations and despite the best efforts of public
prosecutors, criminals were rarely arrested and brought to trial, usually
because of their connections to agribusiness and logging mafias who
routinely employ gunmen.

Dilma Rousseff's presidency, 2011–2016

Relations between the government and Indigenous peoples reached a nadir
under Dilma Rousseff. She declared that her energy policy would continue
to rely on hydro-electric power and therefore more dam building, despite
Indigenous opposition. Two years into her presidency she had still not met
any Indigenous people. Frustrated at the lack of consultation, 700
Indigenous people protested outside the Planalto presidential palace in April
2013, stormed Congress, occupied dam sites, blockaded railway lines, and
kidnapped government officials (Reuters 2013).
Dilma wrote an open letter to Indigenous peoples in 2014 vowing to
uphold their rights, but her presidency was severely criticised by the
Indigenous movement for lack of progress on demarcations and for her
failure to consult with them over infrastructure projects.
In August 2016 she was found guilty of breaking budget laws and
dismissed. In the same month, IBAMA cancelled the environmental licence
for the São Luiz de Tapajós dam – a victory for the Munduruku people
(Ministério Público Federal 2016).

Jair Bolsonaro 2019–2022

Bolsonaro's presidency was summed up by the former president of FUNAI,
Sydney Possuelo who said: “Indigenous people have never faced a worse
moment in Brazilian history” (The Guardian August 2022). The combined
forces of Indigenous peoples, the sole Indigenous federal deputy, Joenia
Wapichana, the Parliamentary Indigenous Front in Congress, the Public
Prosecutor's Office, and NGO allies managed to lessen some of the damage.
Indigenous lawyers and organisations went to court and managed to
overturn some negative government decisions. In the absence of the state,
“Forest Guardians” groups risked their lives on the frontline to protect their
lands from illegal loggers and land grabbers. The Guajajara Guardians
succeeded in closing down most illegal roads in the Araribóia Territory but
the price was high – six Guardians were murdered and not a single killer
has been jailed (Survival International 2022).
For years Bolsonaro made no secret of his opposition to Indigenous
peoples and their rights. When he was a federal deputy, he opposed the
recognition of the Yanomami territory and accused the Minister of Justice
of “high treason” for signing the demarcation in 1992.
He has consistently aired racist and offensive views on Indigenous
peoples. In 1998 he declared that “It's a shame that the Brazilian cavalry
hasn't been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.”
When president in 2020 he said, “The Indians are evolving, more and more
they are human beings like us” (Survival International 2019).
Bolsonaro repeatedly vowed he would not demarcate a centimetre of
Indigenous land. His objective was to assimilate Indigenous peoples into
national society, harking back to the discredited integrationist policies of the
military dictatorship.
His inflammatory and dehumanising remarks about Indigenous peoples
incited racial hatred, legitimised violence (as seen in the rise of attacks and
killings of Indigenous peoples), and encouraged people to invade
Indigenous territories with impunity, in the knowledge they had the support
of the president and his government. The power of the gun lobby led to
legislation enabling people to buy firearms and munition more easily.
He significantly weakened FUNAI and IBAMA; their budgets were
reduced (FUNAI's by 90% in 2019) and experienced staff were dismissed
or side-lined. A government unit was set up to review previously imposed
environmental fines, further undermining these agencies’ ability to curb
deforestation. As a result, Norway and Germany, the principal donors to the
Amazon Fund, froze their contributions (INA and INESC 2022).
Bolsonaro had strong ties to the agribusiness block in Congress, even
telling a meeting of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front in 2019 that “This
government is yours.” On his first day in office, he transferred FUNAI's
responsibility for land demarcation to the Ministry of Agriculture, to a unit
headed by a large landowner and former head of the Rural Democratic
Union (UDR) and declared enemy of Indigenous peoples; a move likened to
putting the fox in charge of the hen house (Folha de São Paulo 2019).
A massive outcry by Indigenous peoples and their allies forced the
president to reverse the decision. Indigenous leader Célia Xakriabá (elected
a federal deputy in the 2022 elections) declared: “We are currently living in
a period of legislative genocide – they are killing us by the pen.” A judge
deemed the president's actions “an undisguised residue of authoritarianism.”
Bolsonaro attempted to take FUNAI out of the Ministry of Justice and
place it under the control of the Ministry of Women, Family, and Human
Rights, headed by Damares Alves, an evangelical preacher under
investigation for inciting racial hatred against Indigenous peoples. After
widespread protests, he backed down.
 Indigenous peoples were also active on the international scene
denouncing the government at the UN and OAS and pushing for Indigenous
peoples’ rights at climate change and biodiversity conferences and briefing
EU and US officials.

Dismantling of FUNAI
Side-lined and chronically underfunded, FUNAI sunk to its lowest ebb.
Experienced staff were dismissed or resigned to be replaced by anti-
Indigenous officials. Former military and police officers with no experience
working on Indigenous issues were appointed to key roles. By the end of
2019, out of a total of 37 regional superintendencies, 19 were under the
command of the military (Sul 21 2020).
Things were so bad that Bolsonaro's first FUNAI president, General
Franklimberg Ribeiro de Freitas, resigned in June 2019 citing the negative
influence of the agribusiness sector and Ministry of Agriculture on
Indigenous policy. In July 2019 Marcelo Augusto Xavier da Silva, a former
police officer replaced him. With strong links to agribusiness and a history
of working against Indigenous people, Xavier da Silva was the perfect
candidate to stifle demarcation from within, and in the first five months of
2020, FUNAI had its smallest budgetary spending of the last 10 years.
Staff were routinely forbidden to travel to territories in the process of
being demarcated and had to request to travel to Indigenous territories 15
days beforehand, rendering them unable to respond to emergencies.
Officials who tried to denounce criminality and incompetence were
censored and forbidden to speak to the media or NGOs.
FUNAI's ability to protect territories was considerably hampered due to
the government's weakening of IBAMA. In February 2019, 21 of IBAMA's
27 superintendents were dismissed creating a vacuum in its ability to
respond to the invasion of Indigenous and other protected areas. In May
2019 its budget was slashed by 22.7%. The government also undermined its
ability to impose environmental fines, thus creating another incentive to
invade Indigenous territories (Reuters 2019). Brazil's renowned National
Space Research Institute (INPE) responsible for tracking deforestation
through satellite imagery and monitoring climate change saw a significant
reduction in its staff. Bolsonaro refused to accept its data on Amazon
deforestation and sacked its director.

Land rights
Not a single Indigenous territory was demarcated during Bolsonaro's
presidency. This led to people like the Munduruku self-demarcating their
territories as they were increasingly exposed to invasions due to the
government's inaction. Meanwhile, the agribusiness sector pushed its legal
case, the Marco Temporal, at the Supreme Court. It states that Indigenous
peoples who were not living on their land on 5 October 1988, when the
current Constitution came into force, do not have the right to live there. If
the case succeeds, it will violate the constitution and be disastrous for
people like the Guarani and Xokleng in the south of Brazil who were
evicted from their lands before the 1988 constitution. Draft Bill 490
(dubbed the “Bill of Death”) put before Congress, proposed an array of
profoundly anti-Indigenous legislation such as transferring powers of
demarcation from the federal government to Congress, promoting
dangerous forced contact with uncontacted tribes, and opening Indigenous
territories to large-scale mining.
Uncontacted tribes’ lands were increasingly targeted by land grabbers,
politicians, and farmers. Most of their territories are subject to Land
Protection Orders (restrição de uso) which enable FUNAI to restrict access
to outsiders. These are usually renewed every three years. However, under
Bolsonaro most were renewed for only six months or not at all, creating
uncertainty and opening the gates to land invasions (Survival International
2021a).
Ituna Itatá territory, inhabited by an uncontacted group, was the most
heavily deforested Indigenous territory in 2019. INPE data revealed that by
2020, 94% of the territory had been divided up into plots by illegal
landgrabbers (OPI 2022). FUNAI officials colluded with a local politician
who was secretly lobbying for the territory to be opened to farmers, and
denied the uncontacted existed, contradicting the evidence amassed by its
own field team.
Many of FUNAI's protection posts in uncontacted territories were closed
due to lack of funds under the Temer presidency resulting in a court order to
re-open them in 2018. However, paralysis and lack of political will under
Bolsonaro meant most remained closed or barely functioned, exposing
uncontacted people to genocidal attacks. The post protecting the
uncontacted Kawahiva was invaded and ransacked and the Ituí base in the
Javari Valley territory (home to the greatest concentration of uncontacted
tribes in the world) was repeatedly attacked by poachers (UNIVAJA 2019).
Ricardo Lopes Dias was appointed in February 2020 to head FUNAI's
Department for Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples. An
evangelical preacher who previously worked for the controversial New
Tribes Mission, he was an advocate for contacting uncontacted tribes
despite FUNAI's policy, in force since 1987, of respecting their evident
wish not to be contacted.
He was dismissed following legal action from public prosecutors and
UNIVAJA (Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley). The judge
ruled that his appointment was unlawful, “a clear conflict of interest” and a
“great risk to the policy of no forced contact with [uncontacted Indigenous]
peoples … and the principle of self-determination” (Survival International
2020).

Land invasions
The Bolsonaro regime saw an explosion of land invasions as land grabbers,
and colonists felt emboldened under his presidency. According to CIMI,
invasions of Indigenous territories grew by 180% in 2021 in relation to
2018. These were widespread – in the first nine months of 2019 it recorded
160 invasions in 153 Indigenous territories in 19 states. Some of the most
intense conflicts were in the south and north-east where Indigenous peoples
have very little land and are hemmed in by cattle ranchers and biofuels
plantations. According to the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) land
invasions more than doubled in 2020. Seventy-two per cent occurred in
Indigenous territories, the highest ever total since CPT began recording
figures (Mongabay 2021).

Environmental crimes
Environmental crimes increased as fines were decreased and overturned.
Environment Minister Ricardo Salles even intervened to support criminals
and was denounced in the media for halting a major seizure of illegally
logged timber and thwarting a federal operation against illegal miners in
Munduruku territory.
There were widespread and intense forest fires in 2019 in the Amazon
mainly in the “arc of deforestation” in the southern region. According to the
prosecutor's office much was “orchestrated action” with farmers even
publicly declaring 10 August the “Day of Fire” (BBC 2019).
The worst fires since 2010 for the month of August were recorded under
the Bolsonaro government: 30,900 fires in 2019, 29,307 in 2020, 28,060 in
2021, and 33,116 in 2022.

Mining
According to Mapbiomas, illegal mining in Indigenous territories increased
by 632% from 2010 to 2021, and intensified under Bolsonaro, due to the
rise in gold prices, the lack of law enforcement on the ground, and the
proliferation of illegal supply chains and gold laundering as well as to
improvements in gold extraction technology (Mapbiomas 2022). Brazil's
National Mining Agency estimated that in 2019, wildcat gold miners
extracted about 30 tons of gold from the Tapajós watershed alone.
The Yanomami, Munduruku, and Kayapo are among the worst affected
Indigenous peoples. A report by Indigenous organisations Hutukara and
Wanasseduume found that between 2016 and 2020, illegal goldmining grew
by 3,350%, and now directly affects 273 Yanomami communities totalling
16,000 people or 56% of the population. In 2021 mining increased by 46%
in comparison to 2020 (Hutukara and Wanasseduume 2022).
Over 20,000 illegal goldminers, including violent criminal gangs, are
operating in the Yanomami territory. They have deforested significant areas
to create mining camps and even small towns and bulldozed a clandestine
road into the territory. Their powerful mechanised dredges are destroying
riverbeds and aquatic life. Miners are operating dangerously near an
uncontacted Yanomami community and Hutukara Yanomami Association
received reports that miners allegedly murdered two uncontacted people in
2018 (Survival International 2021b).
 Yanomami communities in the illegal mining zones are living in a
permanent state of siege as miners constantly intimidate and attack them.
Several Yanomami have been murdered by miners and women and girls are
subject to sexual harassment and rape. Two Yanomami children drowned
when they were sucked under a goldmining dredge in 2021. Stagnant water
in the mining pits has become breeding areas for malarial mosquitoes.
During the decade 2012–2022 cases of malaria rose more than 700%
severely limiting the Yanomami ability to hunt and fish and therefore feed
their families and contributing to rising rates of malnutrition (Reuters
2022).
Wildcat miners throughout the Amazon use mercury to separate the gold
which is poisoning the fish consumed by Indigenous people. Studies by
Brazilian researchers at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) reveal
high rates of mercury poisoning among Yanomami and Munduruku. Fifty-
six per cent of Yanomami communities surveyed in one mining zone had
levels of mercury above the World Health Organization's safety level and
90% of one community had dangerously high levels. In a 2019 study of
three Munduruku villages, mercury was found in the hair samples of all 200
participants (Basta et al. 2021). Many have now stopped eating fish which
accumulate high amounts of mercury.

Health
Before taking office Bolsonaro made offensive remarks about Cuban
doctors working in the successful Mais Medicos programme, questioning
their qualifications. He ordered changes to their contracts and the renewal
of their licences. Cuba responded and withdrew its 8,000 doctors creating a
big gap in health care for Indigenous peoples. In 2019, the health minister
tried to close down SESAI, the Special Indigenous Health Secretariat, and
make municipalities responsible for health care but backed down following
Indigenous protests.
An already precarious Indigenous health system was battered by the
COVID-19 pandemic. The continued invasion of Indigenous territories
fuelled the spread of COVID-19 in many territories. Bolsonaro's criminal
handling of the pandemic (he called it “a little flu,” delayed vaccine roll-
out, and promoted unproven cures) had a severe impact on Indigenous
peoples who had little or no access to specialist health care centres. A report
published by the Instituto Socioambiental in November 2020 (ISA 2020)
estimated that 10,000 Yanomami and Ye'kwana – more than one-third of
their population – were infected by the virus. APIB (Articulation of
Indigenous Peoples of Brazil) launched a case at the Supreme Court which
ruled the government had to create health cordons and devise a plan to
tackle the pandemic among the Indigenous population (Associated Press
2020). According to figures from IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research
Institute) and COIAB, (Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the
Brazilian Amazon), the mortality rate among Indigenous people in the
Amazon region was 150% higher than that of the general population in
Brazil, and the infection rate was 84% higher (IPAM and COIAB 2020).

Violence
Attacks on Indigenous people surged under Bolsonaro. In 2019 CIMI
recorded 113 assassinations of Indigenous people of which 40 were in Mato
Grosso Sul state, where the pressure from ranchers is intense (CIMI 2020).
In March 2021, miners ransacked the office of the Wakoborũn
Association of Munduruku Women and set fire to three houses in the
village, including the home of Wakoborũn's coordinator. In June 2021
miners attacked the bus transporting Munduruku leaders travelling to
Brasília to denounce the increasing violence against them.
Miners carried out waves of concerted attacks on Yanomami
communities in 2021 and 2022. In scenes reassembling a war zone, they
threw tear gas cannisters into Palimiu village and opened fire on the
Yanomami and even on the Federal Police when it tried to remove them
(Survival International 2022).
In an unprecedented move, eight UN special rapporteurs wrote to
Bolsonaro in May 2021 expressing serious concern about the situation of
the Yanomami and Munduruku over “prima facie violations of international
human rights norms and standards” and calling on him to halt the violence
(UN 2021).

Lula's comeback
During his first week in office Lula made history by appointing Indigenous
leader Sonia Guajajara Brazil's first Minister of Indigenous Peoples and
former congresswoman Joenia Wapichana as FUNAI's first Indigenous
President. Ricardo Weibe Tapeba was appointed the first Indigenous
Secretary of SESAI. Whilst signalling a welcome end to the old
paternalistic status quo, if this is to be more than gesture politics, he will
need to stand up to powerful blocks in congress and repeal an array of anti-
Indigenous bills and ensure there are positive changes on the ground.
Sufficient funding and resources must be allocated to rebuild and strengthen
FUNAI and other public institutions responsible for Indigenous issues such
as SESAI and IBAMA.
A top priority is to expel illegal invaders from Indigenous territories,
notably the Yanomami territory where a major humanitarian crisis is under
way, and to resolve the bitter land conflict in Mato Grosso do Sul where
many Guarani Kaiowá communities are virtually landless. Both peoples
will need significant support to recuperate their lands and health and rebuild
their livelihoods. Impunity for killings and other crimes against Indigenous
peoples has to end with those responsible brought to justice.
Demarcation of some 200 Indigenous territories, including those
inhabited by uncontacted Indigenous peoples, is long overdue and urgent.
FUNAI needs more experienced field workers and technical teams to do
this (Reporter Brasil 2022).
Land protection must be vastly improved for all territories. This relies on
equipping FUNAI, IBAMA, and the Federal Police to carry out operations
and to work closely with Indigenous peoples, notably the Forest Guardians.
Corruption in gold and timber supply chains and fraudulent land claims
must be investigated and the powerful elites and criminal networks behind
invasions and theft of resources rooted out and punished (Instituto Escolhas
2022).
As Lula seeks to return Brazil to the international stage and negotiates
trade deals there is likely to be pressure on Indigenous peoples’ natural
resources and upholding FPIC could become a flashpoint. FPIC is
enshrined in International human rights norms ratified by Brazil and many
Indigenous peoples have drawn up detailed land management plans and
protocols on how to consult them.
 Lula has signalled his intent to work globally to combat climate change
and will count on international funding for this. He may promote “nature
based solutions,” for example carbon offsetting projects, which many
Indigenous peoples oppose. The Munduruku stated in 2022 that: “these
‘solutions’ coming from outside do not respect our ways of life and our
autonomy …. We don't need any company to control the use of our territory
and tell us how to preserve the forest. We know that when companies make
these ‘concessions’ it is because they want to continue destroying other
places, and they want to make money from what we have always done in
our land, for thousands of years.”
Brazil's Indigenous movement stood up admirably to the Bolsonaro
government and managed to reverse some of its harmful decisions. Now it
has the chance to forge a new path with a progressive and inclusive
government. Much will depend on Lula's political will to uphold
Indigenous rights in the face of a predominantly anti-Indigenous congress,
economic pressures, and a population polarised by Bolsonaro's far-right
views and hate speech. It is high time that Brazil's original inhabitants are
regarded as equal citizens and their autonomy respected. Their ecological
knowledge and conservation skills are vital for Lula's ambitious plans to cut
deforestation and promote sustainable development.

References
Agência Brasil “Presidente defende homologação de Raposa-Serra do Sol em Roraima”, 2005
Associated Press, “Top court rules Brazil must protect Indigenous in pandemic”, 2020
Baniwa, Gersem, “Indígenas no Ensino Superior: Novo desafio para as organizações indígenas e
indigenistas no Brasil” in Faces da Indianidade / Maria Inês Smiljanic, José Pimenta, Stephen
Grant Baines, Curitiba 2009
Basta, Paulo Cesar et al. “Mercury Exposure in Munduruku Indigenous Communities from Brazilian
Amazon: Methodological Background and an Overview of the Principal Results.” International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18(17): 9222, 2021
BBC, “O que se sabe sobre o ‘Dia do Fogo’, momento-chave das queimadas na Amazônia’, 2019
CIMI, “Conjuntura da Política Indigenista: O Presidente Lula e os “entraves” de seus dois
mandatos!”, 2010
CIMI, “Violência contra os Povos Indígenas nos Brasil”, 2016
CIMI, “Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil”, 2020
CIMI, “Demarcações de terras indígenas por presidente, 2022
Folha de São Paulo, “Bolsonaro retira da Funai a demarcação de terras indígenas”, 2019
Hutukara Associação Yanomami and Associação Wanasseduume Ye'kwana, “Yanomami Under
Attack – Illegal Mining on Yanomami Indigenous Land and Proposals to Combat it.” April 2022
INA and INESC, “Fundação Anti-Indígena – um retrato da FUNAI sob o governo Bolsonaro”,
Brasilía, 2022
Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM) and Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas
da Amazônia Brasileira (COIAB), “Não são números, são vidas! A ameaça da covid-19 aos povos
indígenas da Amazônia brasileira”, 2020
Instituto Escolhas, “What they don't tell you about gold”, São Paulo, 2022
Instituto Socioambiental, “Dossiê Belo Monte -Não há condições para a Licença de Operações”, São
Paulo, 2015
Instituto Socioambiental, “Xawara: tracing the deadly Path of Covid-19 and government negligence
in the Yanomami Territory”, São Paulo, 2020
Mapbiomas, “Destaques do mapeamento anual de mineração e garimpo no Brasil desde 1985 a
2021”, 2022
Ministério Público Federal, “Ibama arquiva licenciamento da hidrelétrica São Luiz do Tapajós”, 2016
Mongabay, “Land conflicts in Brazil break record under Bolsonaro”, 2021
Observatório dos Direitos Humanos dos Povos Indígenas Isolados e de Recente Contato (OPI),
“Deforestation and Invasions in the Indigenous Territory of Ituna-Itatá, Pará State, Brazil”, 2022
Reporter Brasil: “Agenda 2023: For indigenous leaders, Lula must focus on demarcating lands,
strengthening FUNAI, and evicting encroachers”, December 2022
Reuters, “Brazil tries to defuse conflicts with Indians over land, dams”, 2013
Reuters, “As fires race through Amazon, Brazil's Bolsonaro weakens environment agency”, 2019
Reuters, “Malaria surges in the Amazon as wildcat mining devours Indigenous land”, 2022
Stevens, C., R. Winterbottom, J. Springer, and K. Reytar. “Securing Rights, Combating Climate
Change: How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change.” Washington,
DC: World Resources Institute, 2014
Sul 21, “Mais da metade das coordenadorias regionais da Funai já estão sob comando de militares”,
2020
Survival International, “What Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has said about Brazil's Indigenous
Peoples”, 2019
Survival International, “Removal of top missionary official in Brazil is major blow for Bolsonaro”,
2020
Survival International, “Crisis in Yanomami territory as goldminers launch series of attacks”, 2021a
Survival International, “Revealed: Bolsonaro's plan to wipe out “the world's most vulnerable
uncontacted tribes”, 2021b
Survival International, “Indigenous Amazon Guardian killed in Brazil – the sixth in recent years”,
September 2022
The Guardian, “‘Bolsonaro's to blame’: Indigenous rights champion on crisis in Brazil”, August 2022
UN, “Brazil: UN experts deplore attacks by illegal miners on indigenous peoples; alarmed by
mercury levels”, UN Media Center, 2021
UNIVAJA, “Informe no. 2”, 2019
Verdum, Ricardo, “As obras de infraestrutura do PAC e os Povos Indígenas na Amazônia
Brasileira”, INESC, 2012
Verdum, Ricardo (org), “Estudos entográficos sobre o programa Bolsa Familia entre os povos
indígenas,” Secretaria de Avaliação e Gestão da Informação Ministério do Desenvolvimento
Social e Agrário, 2013
PART III

Foreign policy
13
PINK TIDE REVISITED
Bolsonarismo, social movements, and the future
of South American integration

Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-16

Introduction
Lula's third term as President of Brazil began on 1 January 2023. In his
inaugural address, Lula acknowledged Brazil's division by emphasising his
government was one of “love” and “unity.” Reworking the anti-dictatorship
slogan from the 1980s, “dictatorship never again,” Lula stated that his
government represented the call, “democracy forever.” In terms of foreign
policy, Lula's address was somewhat of a throwback to his previous
government, arguing the need for autonomy through cooperation, and an
emphasis on re-energising South American integration.
In this chapter, I explore Brazil's foreign policy for and from South
America. I begin the chapter by analysing Lula's foreign policy doctrine to
discuss the premises behind his efforts for South American integration. I
thus briefly explore how the search for autonomy through South-South
cooperation relates to Brazil's global strategic vision, the work of social
movements, and Latin American thought. Next, the chapter investigates
what the global rise of the conservative right meant for South America and
Brazil. Specifically, the second part of the chapter considers the critiques of
Lula's “progressive ideology” and “neo-developmentalism” in relation to
the aspects of Bolsonarismo that have been embedded into the Brazilian
state, considering the link between the diplomatic elite's “peripheral
idealism” and colonial modes of thinking. The chapter ends by looking at
South American social movements that resisted the rise of far right, and
which posed a significant challenge to both Bolsonaro and Lula's previous
vision. Investigating possible new agendas and avenues for support, the
chapter ends by looking at the rise of the feminist “green tide,” and of the
Indigenous-led calls for plurinationalism.

Lula's foreign policy (2002–2010): key ideas and players

After decades of structural adjustment programmes, Latin America began
the 2000s with the synchronous election of left-leaning presidents across
the region. The so-called “pink tide” began with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela
(1998), and continued with Ricardo Lagos in Chile (2000), Luís Inácio
“Lula” da Silva in Brazil (2002), Néstor Kirchner in Argentina (2003),
Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay (2005), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2005), Daniel
Ortega in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2006), Fernando Lugo
in Paraguay (2008), and Mauricio Funes in El Salvador (2009). This
substantial move to the left affected countries where presidential candidates
did not succeed, influencing domestic policies and strengthening leftist
opposition (Levitsky and Roberts 2011). The most notable example of this
was Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, who was elected on a centre-right ticket in
2006 but turned to the left once in power.
During the pink tide, Lula's Brazil (2002–2010) became a regional leader
and an international player. Lula implemented a new diplomatic doctrine
based on South-South cooperation, international multilateralism, search for
autonomy, and pragmatism. In practice, this meant that Brazil's outlook was
at once regional and global. This new diplomatic doctrine was part of Lula's
long-standing vision which he shared with the diplomats he put in place to
lead Brazil's Foreign Service, known as Itamaraty. Though they were all
clearly inspired by Marxist Latin American thought, their pragmatism is
clear. As far back as his first presidential campaign in 1989, Lula can be
seen defending Latin American integration and denouncing Brazil's limited
autonomy in relation to the United States and the international financial
system. However, as President of Brazil, Lula did not embrace the
traditional anti-imperialist tone more vibrantly voiced by Chávez and
Morales. Furthermore, under Lula, the Itamaraty focused on South
America. Though the region is associated with Simón Bolívar's dream of an
anti-imperialist union, South America is Brazil's most immediate strategic
region and one with relatively more autonomy in relation to the United
States than Central America. At the time of Lula's government, the
understanding within academic circles was that Latin American integration
was harder to achieve than Southern, so Brazil should and did focus on the
South.
Lula's diplomacy pushed Brazil out of its isolation and closer to its
Spanish-speaking neighbours at an opportune moment for regional
integration. The pink tide leaders are as heterogenous as the socio-political
makeup of their countries. However, when Lula came to power, most South
American leaders seemed to share the search for autonomy through regional
integration and international multilateralism. One important alliance that
preceded all initiatives was the one between Brazil and Argentina. Lula
took advantage of his good relationship with the Kirchners (Néstor, and
later, Christina who succeeded him in 2007) to overcome the rivalry
between the two countries over regional leadership. Additionally, most of
the pink tide leaders were either re-elected or chose their successors
showing how, despite their heterogeneity, all seemed to capture a common
and popular desire for change across South America. In short, the timing
was perfect: the countries’ visions for the region were somewhat aligned
and there was popular support for implementation. Consequently, the
environment was far less favourable for foreign interference, and bilateral
agreements with the United States than in previous years.
The pink tide leaders took advantage of this propitious scenario.
Together, they created important regional initiatives seeking greater
autonomy in a region historically marked by foreign interference and
interventions. The once dormant Southern Common Market
(Mercosur/Mercosul), officially created in 1991 to integrate the Southern
Cone,1 was revigorated. Protracted discussions about commercial tariffs
were solved or advanced, and a common Parliament was created in 2002.
Countries outside of the Southern Cone applied for membership, notably
Venezuela, or sought association with the bloc. In 2002, the Union of South
American Nations (Unasur/Unasul) was created pushing forward a broad
range of initiatives, ranging from large infrastructure projects to movements
of people, and education. The latter was epitomised by the launch of the
Autonomous University of the South (“Universidad Autónoma del Sur,”
2008) in the tripartite border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.
In addition to institutionalising South American integration, the leaders
and intellectuals behind Unasul redefined “integration” as such. In a time
when the European Union was seen as the ideal model, South America
rejected the concept of an all-encompassing union cautioning against the
dangers of a single currency, and of centralised monetary and economic
policies for unequal members. Additionally, Unasul and Mercosul
prioritised development projects and simplification of trade instead of a free
market zone. This also represented a definitive blow to the Free Trade Area
for the Americas (FTAA, known as ALCA in Latin America), proposed by
the United States in 1994 and set to come into effect in 2005. This
expansion of NAFTA was officially rejected in 2002, just prior to Lula's
election, when over 11 million Brazilians voted to cease the negotiations, in
a non-binding national referendum organised by social movements.
Regionally, the FTAA was completely supplanted by the creation of Unasul
which had a clear ideological content, guided by a rejection the United
States’ overbearing influence in the region.

Beyond South America

Any analysis of Brazilian foreign policy to South or Latin America
inevitably involves a balancing act between regional counterparts, popular
support, and the United States. And whilst Lula is mostly remembered as a
celebrated leader – someone whom Barack Obama called “my man” –
Lula's foreign policy was seen with scepticism by many in the foreign
policy establishment. Despite Lula's long-standing support for regional
integration, the main diplomats heading Itamaraty came under scrutiny,
particularly by the United States. In a leaked dispatch, the US Ambassador
to Brazil, Clifford M. Sobel (2006–2009) dismissed Lula's intentions saying
that Brazil was being led by “Three Foreign Ministers,” in allusion to Celso
Amorim, Minister of Foreign Affairs (2002–2010), Samuel Pinheiro
Guimarães, General-Secretary of Itamaraty (2002–2009) and Minister of
Strategic Affairs (2009–2010), and Marco Aurélio Garcia, special foreign
policy advisor to both Lula and Dilma and former lecturer of Latin
American studies. Sobel called these senior diplomats respectively, the
“Nationalist Leftist,” “The Anti-American,” and “The Leftist.” (Guedes de
Oliveira and Gomes dos Santos 2018) To be fair to Sobel, Pinheiro
Guimarães’ book, “Five Hundred Years of Periphery” (2001, 35) does
critique the United States’ rise to prominence within the world's
“hegemonic structure of power,” though the author looks at all “central
states” behind the formation of this historical process. Pinheiro Guimaraes’
books are an essential read for those interested in Brazilian diplomatic
thought and history, and in all of them, he defends an assertive Brazilian
foreign policy that can remove the country from its “peripheral condition”
through alliances.
All said, Lula is a seasoned politician who is known for his conciliatory
tone. In the international arena, Lula discussed the need for reform, not
radical transformation. For example, Lula made sure to appease the so-
called international community by maintaining Brazil's support for
international organisations, such as the United Nations, and by fulfilling
financial agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the
World Bank. In fact, Brazil notoriously sought to become a permanent
member of the UN Security Council and became a donor to the IMF in
2006.
However, supporting global governance often clashes with the interests
of the United States. In the case of Brazil, this friction happened more
clearly in 2010 when the country mediated the talks that led to the signature
of the Declaration of Tehran. Whilst then US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton declared Iran to be unwilling to talk, Brazil's successful initiative
made explicit the United States’ refusal to de-escalate its response to the
Iranian nuclear programme. The US moved ahead with sanctions but soon
had to settle for a diplomatic exit, seeking its own agreement with Iran. As
Sarah Diehl and Eduardo Fujii (2010) summarise, Lula's personal intentions
were questioned, and the international foreign policy establishment adopted
a patronising tone, probing Brazil's capacity to contribute to the discussions
despite the support from the Iranian government.
The Middle East is not central to Brazil's foreign policy agenda. Under
Lula, Brazil nurtured a second strategic region, Africa. Empowered by its
renewed regional leadership, Brazil reached out to this other neglected
family member (so to speak). By doing so, Brazil recovered a long-lost link
between the two sides of the Atlantic that started with the enslavement of
around 5 million Africans who were taken to Brazil between 1,500 and
1,888.2 Building on this, Brazil focused on the Community of Portuguese
Language Countries (CPLP), and on the South Atlantic nations whose
partnerships were notably coordinated between both Brazil's Foreign
Affairs, and Defence ministries. The South African inclusion into BRICS in
2010 was a direct result of this inter-ministerial cooperation. With Lula,
diplomatic and technical assistance projects, notably in the agricultural
sector, flourished. Brazil opened 19 new embassies in the continent,
totalling 37 diplomatic missions. African countries, too, expanded to Brazil,
and 17 new missions were opened in the country, totalling 36.
Reverberating with his government's call for multilateralism, Lula
supported regional integration initiatives in Africa, which multiplied in the
beginning of the 2000s.
Notably, Lula's African foreign policy was a consequence of a diplomatic
refocusing as well as of Brazil's social movements that became more
actively involved in the Brazilian government under Lula. The umbrella
organisation, “Movimento Negro” (formerly, “Movimento Negro
Unificado”), and the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial
Equality (SEPPIR, created in 2003) fought for the expansion of Brazil's
foreign policy agenda to themes that transcended the boundaries between
domestic and foreign affairs (Amorim and Reis da Silva 2021). Education
provides the clearest example of the influence of social movements in
Lula's government. In 2010, Brazil inaugurated the University for
International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Unilab), which
reserves 50 per cent of its seats to students from CPLP countries.
Additionally, in 2013, Brazil reformed its national curriculum, and African
history became mandatory in classrooms across the country for the first
time. To paraphrase Alberto da Costa e Silva (2011), the “river called
Atlantic”seemed to be fulfilling its inevitable destiny of uniting a people,
whose multiple and historical connections had been purposely erased.

What came next (and is likely to stay): Bolsonarismo after

Bolsonaro
Lula's first two governments were exciting for progressives and leftists.
Finally, Brazil seemed to be moving away from Europe and accepting itself
as a Latin American nation, one with an African and Indigenous heritage
and future. But was that truly the case? With Dilma Rousseff's presidency
(2011–2016), the excitement turned sour. Social movements took a back
seat, whilst “pleasing the market” re-emerged in the governmental
discourse. Lula's presidency was also re-assessed. Like many of the pink
tide leaders, Lula adopted an “ideology of progress” (Gudynas 2010) that
was neither transformative nor disruptive enough of Brazil's political
establishment. In fact, some have argued that Lula's “neo-developmentalist”
project supported a neoliberal agenda that favoured Brazilian businesses to
the detriment of labour relations, social movements, and the environment
(see Barbosa dos Santos 2021; Saad-Filho and Boito 2016; Sader 2011).
The impeachment of Dilma in 2016 made these critiques more pressing.
The compromises made by both Lula and Dilma had created weak
alliances, and the popular vote had turned against the PT (“Partido dos
Trabalhadores,” Workers Party, in English) following a series of economic
downturns and austerity measures. PT's mistakes notwithstanding, the truth
is that the conservative far-right emerged globally, creating an increasingly
powerful and transnational web of connections, interests, and fake news.
In South America, several pink tide leaders were unseated or saw the
emergence of a powerful opposition. To mention a few events, in 2015,
Argentina elected the pro-business, Mauricio Macri. Though he was
unseated by the Alberto Fernández-Cristina Kirschner platform in 2019, the
Argentinian opposition remains strong, and the Kirschner legacy is
contentious, as the attempted assassination of Cristina in 2021 testifies. In
2019, in Venezuela, Fernando Guaidó attempted a coup against Nicolás
Maduro. Though Guaidó was more effective in becoming an internet
“meme” than the leader of the opposition, the coup brought back the fear of
foreign intervention in South America. In neighbouring Bolivia, Morales
was forced to leave the country in a crisis that has not entirely ceased,
despite the election of Morales’ former minister, Luis Arce, in 2020. In
2019, in Brazil, a politically motivated investigation resulted in the arrest of
Lula, weeks prior to the election which he was set to win.
These pushes and pulls were difficult to follow and violent. Between
2020 and 2021, the Colombian state responded aggressively to popular
protests and strikes. The widely circulated images of state violence and of
the arrival of the Indigenous minga (Quéchua for “collective work for
common good,” used in this context as collective guard) showed both the
strength of Colombia's social and Indigenous movements as well as of its
security apparatus, largely funded by the war on drugs. Ecuador, too, was
the stage for the violent repression of protesters who took to the streets
against austerity measures, first in 2019, against the government of Lenín
Moreno, who moved to the right once elected, and again in 2022, now
under the presidency of the right-wing banker, Guilherme Lasso.
The global shift to the right was epitomised by the rise of Jair Messias
Bolsonaro. What began with the destruction of public policies, ministries,
and institutional agreements and procedures, took on a terrifying level with
the coronavirus pandemic. Brazil is a huge and unequal country, but one
with a successful vaccination programme. Bolsonaro's mishandling of the
pandemic, including the delayed purchase of vaccine, and shrinking of the
state make him at least partially responsible for the over 694.000 Covid-
related deaths. In a moment in which countries in the Global South needed
cooperation to bypass vaccine protectionism, Bolsonaro opted for isolation.
Under his guidance, Brazil moved away from South-South cooperation and
a search for autonomy, favouring bilateral agreements and total alignment
with the United States.
This shift in Brazil's foreign policy deserves attention. As Felipe Antunes
de Oliveira (2022) argued, there are aspects of Bolsonaro's diplomacy that
are here to stay. Bolsonaro's Itamaraty was led by two ministers, Ernesto
Araújo (2019–2021) and Carlos Alberto França (2021–2022). Araújo was
an enthusiast for the United States and of alt-right discourse. In his
incoherent and conspiracy-theory-inspired speeches, Araújo often spoke
against globalism, and communism. In a show of patriotic disengagement
from South America, the government ended the “Mercosul Passport” and
replaced it with one bearing the Brazilian coat of arms. Crucially, Araújo's
antagonism towards China – one of Brazil's agribusiness’ more important
partners – was a dangerous move. In March 2021, the Senate decided he
was to blame for Brazil's delayed access to vaccine, and Araújo lost his
position (Christian 2022). The new minister, França, spoke less and less
loudly yet maintained the vision of a country subordinated to the United
States. The justification for this is key to understanding bolsonarismo
beyond Bolsonaro.
Working with the concept of “peripheral idealism,” Antunes de Oliveira
(2022) highlights how both Foreign Ministers illustrated the Brazilian elite's
deep-seated lack of knowledge about, and profound disregard towards
Brazil. Whilst the two ministers argued that alignment with the US
represented a defence of liberalism, underlying their speeches was a belief
that Brazil is a huge and Western country, albeit a lower-class one. The
racial undertone to their essentially economic justification is obvious.
Whilst Lula tried to create a platform out of the periphery, Araújo and
França tried to deny it. Reworking Brazil's “whitening policy” of the 20th
century that argued that the country's backwardness had a racial root, the
ministers echoed the idea that Brazil should distance itself from the
communist-ridden and mixed-race South America, and the impoverished
and black Africa. Under Bolsonaro, Brazil “Westernised” itself, embracing
all colonial tropes: the fundamentalist Christianity, the belief in the morality
of the free market, and the violent treatment of minorities. If there was any
doubt about the longevity of this logic, Lula's inauguration made it clear. In
his speech as the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco concluded his
remarks by thanking the presence of international delegations, especially
the president of Portugal, “our mother nation.”
Despite this show of conservative thinking, Lula's inauguration also
revealed that there is an appetite for cooperation in South America. From
the leftist Gustavo Petro (Colombia) to the conservative Luis Lacalle Pou
(Uruguay), leaders from all sides of the political spectrum attended the
event. Lula's first day as President of Brazil was filled with meetings with
South American leaders. And even Gabriel Boric from Chile, who raised
eyebrows recently for criticising Venezuela in his UN General Assembly
address, discussed the need of integrating Venezuela into Unasul to
facilitate democratisation. In the same vein, the Itamaraty, now headed by
Mauro Viera, will again have a special secretariat for Latin America. And
Lula's new Minister for the Environment, Marina Silva, has historically
favoured regional cooperation to deal with Brazil's multifaceted
environmental issues. Marina is respected by Indigenous leaders and social
movements too, which works well with the current political scenario in the
Andes.
Though the feeling of jubilation with the return of Lula is needed after
such painful years, we must ponder upon the critiques of his government
and the parts of bolsonarismo that are here to stay. We should consider the
re-elected parliamentarians, permanent Supreme Justices appointed by
Bolsonaro as well as the incalculable number of lower cadres and
technocrats who will remain within the state. Those who thought Lula was
too radical, and that Bolsonaro had a (few) points are likely to seek and find
alliances to oppose domestic and international policies that they judge
unnecessary or dangerous. Furthermore, we must consider the similarities
between Lula's neoliberal progressivism, and Bolsonaro's extreme
neoliberalism to better understand (and hopefully bypass) Brazil's political
and economic establishment. Whilst some may argue that Brazil's
polarisation begs for caution and conciliation, I want to finish the chapter
by reminding the reader about the increasing activism of social movements
in South America to think about new ways of moving forward.

Abya Yala rises

The revival of the right led to a large demonstration of resistance globally.
In South America, one of the most visible signs of this resistance came
from feminist groups. In 2018, what started in a meeting of grassroots
movements in Argentina led to the eruption of protests over abortion rights
across Latin America. The green bandanas (“panuelos verdes”) marched the
streets of capital cities across the region, showing the strength of feminist
solidarity. Beyond the region, the anthem, “a rapist in your path” (“un
violador en tu camino”) created by the Chilean group, Las Tesis, has been
sung in at least 50 countries worldwide, and the bandanas are worn in
protests across the world.
The Latin American feminist “green tide” has won some important
victories, such as the decriminalisation of abortion in Chile (2021), Mexico
(2021), and Colombia (2022), and legalisation in Argentina (2021).
Meanwhile, in Bolsonaro's Brazil, the already limited right to abortion was
attacked. Bolsonaro created the minister of women, family, and human
rights, and placed the evangelical pastor and ardent pro-life proselytiser,
Damares Alves, to lead it. One of the most shocking cases related to
women's rights came from someone outside the government: a judge tried
to prevent an 11-year-old who had been raped from exercising her rights.
Though the video of the hearing guaranteed the girl's right to abortion, the
judge was moved to a different district allegedly due to a promotion,
demonstrating the hidden bolsonarismo within the Brazilian state. The
attacks on rights in Brazil took a horrifying turn in March 2018, when the
black feminist MP, Marielle Franco, and her driver, Anderson Gomes were
assassinated. This politically motivated crime has come very close to
implicating Bolsonaro, and with his departure, Brazilians hope to finally
answer the question, “who killed Marielle?” (Ramalho 2019).
Despite these attacks, Brazilian feminists are re-energising the
conversation about police violence and widen the debate about gender by
emphasising the interplay of race and class, as part of a collective effort to
Blacken Feminism (“enegrecer o feminismo”) as Sueli Carneiro (2003) put
it. The works of Carolina Maria de Jesus and Leila Gonzalez were reedited;
and the words “femicide” and “gender-based violence” are now more
commonly used. Despite setbacks, feminist movements are demonstrably
well-organised, and ready to mobilise across themes and borders.
Another important group outside of the state that has the capacity to
reshape Lula's foreign and domestic policies and provide a strong support
base is the Indigenous peoples. By far, the most successful and politically
impactful change in the region has been led by South America's originary
peoples (commonly referred to as, “povos originários” in Portuguese).
Indigenous movements have changed national constitutions, thus posing
one of the most significant recent challenges to this Eurocentric political
model. Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have begun the process of fully
implementing plurinational, pluriethnic, and pluricultural constitutions, thus
rejecting the notion of a unified and homogenised people, bound together
under an ethno-national myth. Even the most traditionally conservative
Chile is set to adopt plurinationalism in the coming years. As I write this
piece, Peru has erupted in protests that have a clear prominence of
Peruvians who identify as at least partially Indigenous. The expectation of
pundits is that, soon, plurinationalism will also arrive in Peru. Furthermore,
in Ecuador, Pachamama (roughly translated to “nature”) now has
constitutional rights, thus opening the way for making the exploitation and
privatisation of natural resources illegal. It is these states that will renew
Unasul. We should therefore expect an expansion of regional integration
initiatives that go beyond the old model based on development projects with
dubious social results.
Plurinationalism in Brazil seems far from reality now. Though similar
conversations have taken place in Brazil, Indigenous rights in the country
are often discussed in tandem with the protection of the Amazon. This is
understandable. Brazil is responsible for the largest portion of the forest and
has gathered a lot of international attention in recent years as pictures of a
burning Amazon circulated, first in 2019 and again in 2022. The return of
Lula, who halted the destruction of the forest in his previous mandate was
therefore desired and celebrated across the world. Still, it is important to
highlight that the international attention to the Amazon has overshadowed
Indigenous groups outside Amazonia. Brazil has continuously excluded its
originary peoples from its negotiation tables. This has had dramatic
consequences.
Whilst the largest number of Indigenous people live in the state of
Amazonas (183,514), at the heart of the river Amazon, the second state to
host the largest Indigenous population is further south. The state of Mato
Grosso do Sul (MT) borders the Indigenous-led Bolivia, and is a national
hub of agribusiness and conservative politics. The state is often in the news
due to the recurrent assassination of Indigenous leaders and people, notably
children. In 2021, Brazil rather complacently watched the suffering of the
family of the 11-year-old, Raíssa Cabreira, from the Guaraní-Kaiowá in
Mato Grosso do Sul; and of the 14-year-old, Daiana Griá, from the
Kaingang in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. Both were
raped and killed. In addition to these gruesome crimes, in 2021, there were
305 cases of “land invasion, illegal exploitation of resources and damage to
patrimony” in 226 territories legally classified as “Indigenous lands,”
covering 22 Brazilian states. Outside of the Amazon, there has been little
incentive to support and protect these communities. Data on violence
against Indigenous peoples and patrimony are compiled by the Cartography
of Attacks Against Indigenous Peoples (CACI), drawing from data sent by
communities via internet satellite. CACI's name was chosen deliberately.
Whilst Brazil's Tupí name evokes paradise (“the land of palm trees,” i.e. “a
land without evil”) it is “caci” (pain, in Guaraní) that seems to best
represent the reality of being Indigenous in Brazil.
Given this violent scenario it is unsurprising that Lula's biggest challenge
comes from within; and the country's internal and external scenario is ripe
for change. Brazil elected four Indigenous MPs, Célia Xacriabá, Sônia
Guajajara, Juliana Cardoso, and the bolsonarista, Silvia Waiãpi. In 2023,
Lula inaugurated the unprecedented Ministry of Original Peoples. The new
Ministry is led by Guajajara who was the coordinator of one of Brazil's
most influential Indigenous forums, the Articulation of the Indigenous
Peoples of Brazil (APIB). APIB's history is noteworthy. The Articulation
came out of a three-day protest, in which thousands of representatives from
communities across Brazil camped in Brasilia to reject and denounce Lula's
Indigenous policies as a continuation of colonial tutelage. Since it first took
place, in 2004, the Free Land Camp takes place annually. In 2022, the
theme was, “Retaking Brazil: Demarcating Territories and Indigenising
Politics.”
In his inauguration, Lula emphasised land demarcation as a priority of his
new government, but this is far from enough. Suffice to say that land
demarcation entails a long process of documenting the right to land based
on ancestry. It is effectively impossible to claim rights over privatised land,
and some groups are historically nomadic. Furthermore, Brazil is yet to
move away from its policy of “whitening.” The Brazilian census makes
Indigenous self-identification hard, especially for Indigenous people who
do not live within recognised communities, or do not speak an Indigenous
language. At the core of the issue of erasure of Indigenous identity is the
formation of Brazil. Beatriz Perrone-Moisés (1998) detailed how the
making of Brazil first entailed the exclusion and incarceration of its “povos
originários” in poorly protected reserves, and Brazil's current policy does
not stray too far away from this initial practice. Ultimately, as the
philosopher and activists, Ailton Krenak (2020, 14) has written, nation-
states are failed projects that limit Indigenous capacity “for invention,
creation, existence, and liberty.”
In sum, social movements have become increasingly well-articulated and
transnational. Black, feminists, and Indigenous movements have articulated
themselves outside of, and despite states, and the inclusion of these
movements within Lula's government is a recognition of their strength.
Though social movements supported Lula's candidacy, many have already
signalled that this support cannot be taken for granted again. It is these
groups, which have resisted the alt-right that might provide the popular
mobilisation needed to prevent a new conservative backlash and change
Lula's agenda domestically and internationally.

Conclusion
All eyes are in Brazil, and hopes are high. Though the present scenario is
more complex in relation to the early-2000s, South America seems ripe for
regional integration. Lula is respected across South America, and leaders
from all sides of the political spectrum have publicly signalled support for
renewing Unasul and Mercosul. To reflect about the future of Brazil's
foreign policy from and for the region, the chapter began by looking at
Lula's previous foreign policy. From South America to Brazil's expansion to
Africa, the chapter showed how Lula's vision for the region and the world
are linked through the ideas of international multilateralism and search for
autonomy, of which South-South cooperation is key. The chapter also
highlighted two key political undercurrents, right-wing conservatism, and
progressive grassroots movements, both of which have been notably active
in recent years. To explore these two forces, the chapter looked at the
critiques of Lula's ‘neo-developmentalism’ and bolsonarismo within the
Brazilian state, before moving to transnational social movements to explore
transnational solidarity as a platform outside of the state, and the effect of
South American plurinationalism for Brazil.

Notes
1. Namely, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
2. Figures from O'Malley and Borucki (2017). For updated data see website, “Slave Voyages”.

References
Amorim, Camille, and André Luiz Reis da Silva. ‘O Itamaraty e o Movimento Negro: Interesses,
Ideias e Práticas Nas Relações Brasil-África’. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, no. 35
 (2021): 1–36.
Antunes de Oliveira, Felipe. ‘Como desbolsonarizar o Itamaraty’. Jacobin Brasil (Blog), 4 December
2022. https://jacobin.com.br/2022/12/como-desbolsonarizar-o-itamaraty/.
Barbosa dos Santos, Fabio Luis. ‘Neo-Development of Underdevelopment: Brazil and the Political
Economy of South American Integration under the Workers’ Party’. In Rising Powers, People
Rising: Neoliberalization and Its Discontents in the BRICS Countries, edited by Alf Gunvald
Nilsen and Karl Von Holdt. Rethinking Globalizations. London: Routledge, 2021.
Carneiro, Sueli. ‘Mulheres em Movimento’. Estudos Avançados 17 (December 2003): 117–133.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-40142003000300008.
Christian, Hérica. ‘Após pressão do Senado, Ernesto Araújo deixa o Ministério das Relações
Exteriores’, 29 March 2022. https://www12.senado.leg.br/radio/1/noticia/2021/03/29/apos-
pressao-do-senado-ernesto-araujo-deixa-o-ministerio-das-relacoes-exteriores.
Costa e Silva, Alberto da. Um Rio Chamado Atlântico: A África No Brasil e o Brasil Na África. 5th
edition. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2011.
Diehl, Sarah, and Eduardo Fujii. ‘Brazil Challenges International Order by Backing Iran Fuel Swap’.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (Blog), 4 July 2010. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/brazil-
backing-iran/.
Gudynas, Eduardo. ‘La Ecología Política del Progresismo Sudamericano: los límites del progreso y
la renovación verde de la izquierda’. December 2010.
http://repositorios.cihac.fcs.ucr.ac.cr/cmelendez/xmlui/handle/123456789/245.
Guedes de Oliveira, Marcos Aurelio, and Deijenane Gomes dos Santos. ‘Brazil, the United States and
the Tehran Declaration’. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 61, no. 1 (23 November
2018). https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7329201800109.
Krenak, Ailton. Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. Translated by Anthony Doyle. Toronto:
Anansi International, 2020.
Levitsky, Steven, and Kenneth M. Roberts. ‘Latin America's “Left Turn”: A Framework for
Analysis’. In The Resurgence of the Latin American Left, edited by Steven Levitsky and Kenneth
M. Roberts, 1–28. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
O'Malley, Gregory E, and Alex Borucki. ‘Patterns in the Intercolonial Slave Trade across the
Americas before the Nineteenth Century’. Tempo 23, no. 2 (May 2017): 314–338.
https://doi.org/10.1590/tem-1980-542x2017v230207.
Perrone-Moisés, Beatriz. ‘Índios Livres e Índios Escravos: Os Princípios Da Legislação Indigenista
Do Período Colonial (Séculos XVI a XVIII)’. In História Dos Índios No Brasil, edited by Manuela
Carneiro da Cunha and Francisco M. Salzano. São Paulo, SPCompanhia das Letras, 1992.
Pinheiro Guimarães, Samuel. Quinhentos Anos de Periferia: uma contribuição ao estudo da política
internacional. 3 edição. Porto Alegre/Rio de Janeiro: Editora Universidade Federal Rio Grande do
Sul/Contraponto, 2001.
Ramalho, Sérgio. ‘Who Killed Marielle Franco? An Ex-Rio de Janeiro Cop With Ties to Organized
Crime, Say Six Witnesses in Police Report’. The Intercept, 18 January 2019.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/17/marielle-franco-brazil-assassination-suspect/.
Saad-Filho, Alfredo, and Armando Boito. ‘Brazil: The Failure of the PT and the Rise of the “New
Right”’. Socialist Register 52, The Politics of the Right (2016): 213–230.
Sader, Emir. The New Mole: Paths of the Latin American Left. London; New York: Verso, 2011.
‘Slave Voyages’. Online Archive. Accessed 3 January 2023. https://www.slavevoyages.org/.
14
BRAZIL IN THE WORLD

Nelson Franco Jobim

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-17

From his first inauguration in 2003, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
showed a level of ambition in world affairs quite different from his
predecessor, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. While Cardoso focused
more on economic diplomacy, Lula and his foreign minister in his first two
terms, Ambassador Celso Amorim, believed that Brazil should be a global
actor and not limit its foreign policy to investment and trade.
Cardoso's main goal in foreign policy, from 1995 to 2002, was to present
Brazil as a reliable partner, particularly for the rich countries, in order to
attract foreign investment and trade. In this sense, it was a complement to
the economic stabilisation plan, the Real Plan, which created a new
currency to fight a decade-long high inflation in one of Latin America's lost
decades. It was a search for autonomy through participation in world
affairs, and integration at regional and global levels, an attempt of
reinsertion in the international economy after the debt crisis, writes
Ambassador Rubens Ricupero.1
Lula's main goals in foreign policy from 2003 to 2010 were to enhance
South-South relations, integration, and development, starting in the region.
This was more in South America than in Latin America. In his first year,
Lula received all the South American presidents and, in a little more than
two years, had visited all their countries. But he was also looking for a
global reach, with new approaches to Africa and the Arab countries in a
kind of autonomy through diversification. In his first two terms, Lula made
157 trips abroad to 79 countries for bilateral meetings, nearly twice as much
as Cardoso and seven times more than President Jair Bolsonaro.
This “active and assertive foreign policy,” in the words of Minister
Amorim, was the result of democracy and economic stability, of the internal
evolution of a more confident Brazil. From the Workers Party (PT) point of
view, there had been a deficit in assertiveness earlier. According to former
Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, “Brazil was punching below its
weight.”2
From 1992 to 2008, the golden age of globalisation, international trade
grew more than twice as much as the gross world product. The creation in
1994 of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which China joined in 1994,
seemed to have institutionalised the rules of world trade. But there were a
series of financial crises in emerging markets: Mexico (1994–95), Asia
(1997), Russia (1998), Brazil (1999), and Argentina (2001).
Latin America benefited much less than Asia from the peak of
globalisation because of the memory of the 1980s debt crisis, late
macroeconomic stability, a narrow productive basis, and lack of capacity to
make competitive manufactured products. Mexico was the exception. With
the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican exports of
manufactured goods tripled.3
Ambassador Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Cardoso's foreign minister, 1995–
2001, argued that Brazil had no “surpluses of power” to play a major role in
world affairs – a different vision from that of Lula and Amorim. Ricupero
observes that “the search for autonomy through participation wasn't new.”4
It was behind the Pan-American Operation of President Juscelino
Kubitschek, 1955–61, a partnership for social and economic development
which helped to create the Inter-American Development Bank(IADB), and
later the organisation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development, UNCTAD, and the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in
1992.
 If the country wanted to influence international norms and regimes,
instead of criticising the unfairness and injustice of the international system,
it must be an active member of multilateral organisations. The change under
Cardoso was to emphasise this participation. The most emblematic result of
this policy change was the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) in 1997 followed by the acceptance of the Missile Technology
Control Regime (MTCR) and the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT).5
That decision would be criticised in the Lula administration by
Ambassador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães Neto, Secretary-General to
Itamaraty6 (2003–9), who said in the 6th National Meeting of Strategic
Studies held at the Navy War College in Rio on 9 November 2006, that “if
North Korea can denounce the NPT, Brazil can do it, too.”7 Brazil didn't
sign the additional protocol to the NPT. Pinheiro Guimarães was seen as
part of a hardline group inside the government formed by the nationalist
military, the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party of Brazil
(PCdoB).
The foreign policy of “South-Americanisation,” which started in the
1980s, after Brazil's redemocratisation, faced a hurdle: the US initiative to
negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This was launched
by President Clinton at the 1st Summit of the Americas, held in Miami in
December 1994.
After the framework agreement in 1995 between the European Union and
Mercosul, the trade pact among states in the south of South America, Brazil
tried to renew the nationalist strategy of the 1930s, when President Getulio
Vargas wanted to extract concessions by negotiating at the same time with
the US and Nazi Germany. In this case, Brazil was playing off the US
against Europe.
Presidential diplomacy had never been so intense as under President
Cardoso. This was a feature that would continue under Lula.
Lula and his foreign minister, Ambassador Amorim, rejected the idea that
Brazil was a middle-size country with no “surpluses of power.” They see
Brazil as a country built by diplomatic power. The map of Brazil was
defined mainly by Portuguese diplomacy in the Treaty of Madrid of 1750,
except for the states of Acre and Rio Grande do Sul, added later. When the
US became independent, it was a narrow strip of states along the Atlantic
coast, before the march to the West and the conquest of more than 40 per
cent of Mexican territory in the Mexican American War (1846–8).
Former Minister Antonio Patriota8 argued that of the ten most important
foreign ministries, Brazil is the only one that is not an economic or military
power. This group of ten includes the five UN Security Council permanent
members (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), the economic powers
Japan and Germany, India, a nuclear power and emerging economic power,
and Turkey, which has the second largest NATO army.
Lula pursued the old aspiration to be a permanent member of a reformed
UN Security Council with greater energy. Brazil was a member of the G-20
formed in 2003, of the 19 largest world economies plus the European Union
(EU), which became the main economic forum during the Great Recession
of 2007–9. It helped set up the IBSA forum, of India, Brazil, and South
Africa, and in 2009 the BRICS group, with China, India, Russia, and later
South Africa. Under PT governments, Brazil had or installed embassies in
all UN member nations, the last one in Tonga in 2011.
Amorim, who had been ambassador to the GATT (General Agreement on
Trade and Tariffs), predecessor of the WTO, put great emphasis on the
Doha Round with the goal of consolidating Brazil's comparative advantages
in agriculture and enhancing South-South cooperation. This new approach
led to the Africa-South America Summit and the Arab-South America
Summit, which Brazil's new administration wants to revive since they
haven't been held in recent years.
Africa was a very important part of it, an attempt to reconcile the country
which got more slaves onto its shores with the continent where they came
from. Brazil has the second largest population of African origin after
Nigeria.
“The Africa policy is important because of the racial question. Brazil has
more embassies in Africa than Germany,” notes Amorim. But there were
limitations to Lula's African and Arab policies. Brazil is neither a major
investor nor a trading partner. And the relations with dictators generated
embarrassing situations such as a joint declaration with Teodoro Obiang of
Equatorial Guinea, in power since 1979, praising democracy and human
rights.
 Ricupero claims that there wasn't a real rupture from Brazil's diplomatic
tradition stemming from the independent foreign policy started in the short
Janio Quadros Administration (1961) by Minister Afonso Arinos de Melo
Franco and by ministers San Tiago Dantas and João Augusto de Araújo
Castro under President João Goulart (1961–64), deposed by a US-backed
military coup – and later revived by Minister Antônio Francisco Azeredo da
Silveira in the General Ernesto Geisel Administration (1974–79).
Amorim, considered by foreign policy magazine in 2009 the world's best
foreign minister, and Patriota reject the main criticism of PT's foreign
policy, that there was a left-wing bias against the rich countries of Europe
and North America. But as Lula's first administration kept the main features
of FHC's macroeconomic policy and made an unpopular social security
reform, foreign policy was a way to affirm the government's leftist
credentials.
However, Ricupero sees an end of the multiparty consensus on foreign
policy of the first years after democratisation, despite the coincidence in the
main themes: UN, WTO, agricultural trade liberalisation, priority to
Mercosul and South America and relations with Africa. The main
differences were in the Latin American and Middle East policies. In the
Middle East, in 2010, Brazil recognised the State of Palestine and tried to
mediate with Turkey a solution to Iran's nuclear programme crisis.
This claim to absolute originality was crystallised in one of Lula's
favourite catchphrases: “Never before in the history of this country…”
Since the Barão do Rio Branco (1902–12), the founder of Brazilian
foreign policy, the diplomatic tradition was that career diplomats should not
join political parties. In the Lula administration, both Amorim and its first
Secretary-General, Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, joined the PT and turned
the foreign policy into a tool of the political project of the party.9
There was a kind of duplicity. In world affairs, there was more continuity
in themes such as support for the UN, the WTO, and diplomacy related to
Iran's nuclear programme, areas seen as under the control of Amorim, while
the Latin American policy was the realm of the international adviser on
foreign affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, a long-time PT activist.
The results were mixed. On 23 March 2007, Patriota, then ambassador in
Washington, sent a dispatch to Itamaraty to register that in a meeting at the
Chilean Embassy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that “Brazil is
a country with great influence in the region, on the way to become a global
power.”
This upgrade would be reinforced by President Barack Obama at the G-
20 Summit in Pittsburgh-PA in 2009. Impressed by Brazil's social and
economic development, he praised Lula: “This is my man (…) the most
popular politician on Earth.” Later, in the book A Promised Land, Obama
acknowledged that there was corruption under Lula.
Nevertheless, in a press conference during a visit by President Dilma
Rousseff to Washington on June 30, 2015, Obama said: “We don't consider
Brazil a regional power, but a global power. If we talk about the main forum
for the coordination of the largest economies – the G-20 – Brazil has a
major voice. The negotiations to be developed in Paris on climate change
could only be successful with Brazil leadership. (…) If we want to have
success in matters such as climate change and combat terrorism, or in the
reduction of poverty around the world, the major actors need to participate.
And we consider Brazil as an absolutely indispensable partner in these
efforts.”
However, prestige and voluntarism were not enough. The reform of the
UN Security Council, announced in 2005 by Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, never progressed, nor did the reform of the Bretton Woods
institutions, and the Doha Round never came to an end.
The composition of the UN Security Council reflects the world that came
out of the Second World War in 1945. It is obsolete, but very difficult to
change, first and foremost because the Big Five may veto it. Brazil, India,
Germany, and Japan are the main candidates for permanent seats. If the
system is paralysed with five members with veto power, would it be
possible to reach a consensus with nine countries? Would the new
permanent members have veto power? What's the point of being a
permanent member without veto power? These questions have not been
answered.
In trade negotiations, the commercial G-20 of developing nations, an
initiative of Brazil's ambassador to the WTO Luiz Felipe Seixas Correa,
former Secretary-General of Minister Celso Lafer, was used by Amorim to
reach an agreement on agricultural subsidies with the EU. But in July 2008
India withdrew from the negotiations, arguing that the subsidies were not a
matter of market access but of survival for its poor peasants and accused
Brazil of jumping out of the ship of developing nations to side with rich
countries.
The FTAA negotiations were buried at the 4th Summit of the Americas,
held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on 4–5 November 2005, after the arrival
of the pink wave of leftist governments in South America. This proposal,
launched at the First Summit of the Americas in 1994, in Miami by
President Bill Clinton, was killed by presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela,
Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, and Lula during the George W. Bush
Administration (2001–9). While demanding concessions on manufacturing
goods, intellectual property rights, and government procurement, the US
trade representative, Robert Zoellick, could not guarantee US market access
for Mercosul agribusiness: “There was no basis for a mutually beneficial
agreement,” recalls Ambassador Patriota.
China became Brazil's main trading partner in 2009. The bilateral trade
grew from US$9 billion in 2005 to US$135 billion in 2021. Chinese state
banks made 13 loans to Brazil, totalling US$30.5 billion, and Chinese
commercial banks at least nine.10 Brazil has a trade surplus, but relations
are asymmetric or neocolonial. More than 80 per cent of Brazilian exports
to China are soya, iron ore, oil, and meats. Brazil needs to diversify and add
value to catch up with the digital revolution and artificial intelligence, to
become competitive in manufacturing, and to reindustrialise, one of Lula's
goals.
In 2009 Brazil, Russia, India, and China formed the group BRIC. The
idea came from a 2001 note by economist Jim O'Neill, then at investment
bank Goldman Sachs, arguing that the four largest emerging economies
would be the main engines of world economic growth in the first decades of
the 21st century. Since then, Brazil and Russia grew much less than China
and India. South Africa joined in 2010 as an African representative. China
has more than 70 per cent of the combined GDP, the same overwhelming
superiority as the US in the Americas. The main arm of the BRICS is the
New Development Bank, an institution based in Shanghai which mirrors the
World Bank based in Washington.
BRICS leaders talk about combating poverty, shared prosperity,
democratisation of international relations, sovereignty, South-South
cooperation, and the need for alternatives to global governance. But the
group is paralysed by the conflict between China and India, and Russia's
war on Ukraine.
The emergence of China and the commodities boom reduced the pressure
on Brazil to improve trade relations with the US. Washington's proposals
for the FTAA negotiations were unacceptable and no alternative
arrangement was tried.
The most ambitious initiative of Lula's foreign policy was to negotiate an
agreement with Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from developing
nuclear weapons. Former Minister Amorim claimed that they had the
support of President Obama but, at the last minute, lacked the backing of
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We did what the President of the US
wanted. Hillary didn't read Obama's letter. We didn't do anything mad.”11
Encouraged by Obama's letter, Lula and the then Turkish Prime Minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a deal by which Iranian uranium would be
enriched abroad. On May 17, 2010, Brazil, Turkey, and Iran presented the
Declaration of Teheran as a groundbreaking initiative in accordance with
the demands of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council
plus Germany, the great powers negotiating group.
One day after, Secretary Clinton announced that the Big Five plus
Germany were preparing a new round of sanctions against Iran's nuclear
programme. It was a signal that the UN Security Council's permanent
members wanted to keep their nuclear monopoly. Brazil explained its
position to China during a visit of President Hu Jintao to Brasília, but he
showed little interest in discussing the matter. The sanctions were approved
soon after, with a unanimous vote by the Big Five. In 2015, during the
second Obama administration, the Big Five plus Germany reached a
detailed agreement with Iran full of safeguards. On 8 May 2018, President
Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action.
President Joe Biden resumed talks with Iran, which now has a much
more hardline government. The negotiations are stalled. Iran has now a
stockpile of at least 3,800 kg of enriched uranium.12 Under the deal,
Teheran could enrich uranium to 3.67 per cent purity, while maintaining a
stockpile of uranium of no more than 300 kg under the constant scrutiny of
surveillance cameras and international inspectors. Biden said that the
negotiations are dead. Under pressure from international sanctions, Iran
stated that they aren't.
The case reveals the limits of soft power and the Brazilian aspiration to
build an international order based on diplomacy and international law.
Former Minister Lafer commented that when great powers cannot reach a
consensus to impose their order, the ensuing power vacuum opens some
space for initiatives of middle-size powers. It was frustrating, but it left a
positive impression on international public opinion.
That was the peak of Brazil's international prestige due to the
consolidation of democracy, economic growth, the discovery of the pre-salt
oil reserves, and social progress under Lula. Brazil hoarded US$360 billion
in hard-currency reserves, got investment grades from the main credit-
rating agencies in 2008 and 2009, and earned the right to organise the 2014
football World Cup and the 2016 Olympiad. Lula got the glory and his
successor, President Dilma Rousseff, paid the price for the mistakes.
The downside was over-ambition, self-sufficiency, excess of personalism,
the end of the bipartisan consensus, and leniency to countries with human
rights violations. Another criticism of the overambitious foreign policy of
Lula was the opening of embassies in many countries with no significant
relations with Brazil and the recruitment of too many diplomats, 100 per
year.
The first woman president of Brazil was Lula's nominated candidate, but
she didn't have the experience, political skills, and appetite for the foreign
policy of her predecessors. President Rousseff's foreign policy was modest,
timid, unambitious, and low profile.13 “With his remarkable intelligence
allied to intuitive sensitivity to great themes, Lula always valued and
explored to the maximum the immense potential of foreign policy,” notes
Ricupero. A union leader forged in negotiations with rich businessmen,
Lula was “never intimidated in contact with powerful people.”
“Dilma, on the contrary, hid under self-sufficiency and the harsh
treatment of diplomats, an ill-disguised insecurity born out of the lack of
mastery of foreign languages and great deficiencies of international culture,
or sensitivity and skills for interpersonal relationships,” criticises Ricupero.
Rousseff abandoned Lula's African policy and left dozens of ambassadors
waiting for months to present their credentials, essential to enable them to
perform their duties.
When the economic crisis came, due to the excess of public expenditure
and resulting fiscal imbalance, inflation, and recession, budgets were cut,
embassies were closed and there were 400 third secretaries with few
opportunities to progress in their diplomatic career. The Itamaraty didn't
have enough money for basic expenses such as water, electricity, telephone,
rent of missions, housing aid for diplomats and other functionaries, and
contributions to international organisations. Corruption scandals came to
the courts and undermined popular support for the government. By the end
of 2015 and in the first months of 2016, Brazil lost its investment grade
with rating agencies.
When President Rousseff opened the 66th UN General Assembly in
2011, she criticised the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, approved
by the UN Security Council under the principle of the “responsibility to
protect.” She introduced the concept of “responsibility while protecting.” It
was a repudiation of the intervention, but it is difficult to believe that the
rebels of the so-called Arab Spring could be protected otherwise from
dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who called them “rats and cockroaches.” The
idea didn't prosper.
In 2012, 20 years after the Earth Summit (UNCED), Brazil hosted the
UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), with the
participation of 188 countries, more than 100 heads of state and
government, 12,000 delegates, and nearly 10,000 members of non-
governmental organisations and civil society representatives. Its goals were
to evaluate the progress on the implementation of Agenda 21 toward a
green economy, the eradication of poverty, and the institutional framework
for sustainable development.14
The main result was the agreement to set global sustainable development
goals. The 50-page final document The Future We Want was dubbed by
Greenpeace as “the longest suicide note in history.” The Brazilian director
of Greenpeace, Paulo Adário, called it an “enormous disappointment” for
lack of leadership and because there was no agreement to protect forests
and no creation of financial mechanisms to fund sustainable development.
 Nonetheless, there was a consensus that sustainable development has
three pillars – social, economic, and environmental – and governments,
businesses, civil society groups, and universities registered 692 voluntary
commitments and mobilised over US$513 billion to meet them.
Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, Brazil's chief organiser
and negotiator at Rio+20, became foreign minister in August 2013, after an
incident in which Bolivian senator Roger Pinto Molina, a refugee at the
Brazilian Embassy in La Paz, was driven to Brazil by diplomat Eduardo
Saboia in an official car without safe conduct from the Bolivian authorities.
Soon after, on 1 September, computer intelligence consultant Edward
Snowden leaked highly classified information from the US National
Security Agency disclosing widescale espionage of leaders of friendly
nations, including President Rousseff. The scandal estranged relations with
Washington, which had been improved by a visit of President Obama to
Brazil in March 2011. A state visit of President Rousseff planned for
October 2013 was postponed.
After reelection in 2014, Rousseff nominated a new foreign minister,
Mauro Vieira, former ambassador to the US and Argentina and now again
foreign minister, in the third Lula administration. He prepared Rousseff's
state visit to Washington in the middle of 2015. But the deterioration of
economic and political conditions led to the impeachment of President
Rousseff. After losing the vote in the Chamber of Deputies on 17 April
2016 she was removed from power by the Senate on 31 August.
Her vice president, Michel Temer, the main architect of the impeachment
trial, nominated Senator José Serra to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Former minister of health, Serra had negotiated a break of patents of drugs
to combat Aids at the beginning of the Doha Round in 2001. He is a
member of the PSDB (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy), the party of
President Cardoso, and brought back the emphasis on economic diplomacy.
He set trade relations with China as his main priority and adopted a hard
line in relations with Venezuela and other leftist governments. In alliance
with President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, he suspended Venezuela from
Mercosul and accused President Nicolás Maduro of violating the
democratic principles of the bloc. On 22 February 2017, Serra left the
government, alleging that his health conditions didn't allow him to travel as
much as necessary for a foreign minister.
 His successor and PSDB colleague, Senator Aloysio Nunes Ferreira,
maintained the emphasis on economic diplomacy, trade negotiations, and
regional integration, a challenge in a more protectionist world after the
election of President Donald Trump in the US. He mentioned peace, justice,
human rights, and environmental protection as core principles of Brazilian
diplomacy inscribed in the Constitution.
A positive development under Temer was the opening in 2018 of the
process to join the Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), an old aspiration of the Cardoso Administration,
seen as a way of internalising values and norms of rich countries. But there
is no consensus. The left sees it as a consolidation of economic liberalism
and may not be interested in moving it forward.15
The main change in Brazil's foreign policy came with the election in
2018 of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who broke with Itamaraty
traditions such as neutralism, pragmatism, realism, self-determination, non-
intervention in other countries’ affairs, professionalism and universalism in
trade and investments. It was an ideological foreign policy based on
autonomy through distancing.16
Bolsonaro's foreign policy goal was to maximise his appeal to an
extremist base inside Brazil. Before coming to power, his international
affairs adviser Filipe Martins said that “Brazilian foreign policy seems to be
made at the UN.”
In his inauguration speech, with quotes in Greek, Tupi, and Latin,
Minister Ernesto Araújo promised to “free Brazilian foreign policy,” to
“recover the role of Itamaraty as guardian of the continuity of Brazilian
memory” in a “new independence” from the “liberal international order,”
the “global order.”
Globalism, mentioned 16 times, was regarded as a product of cultural
Marxism: “We are not here to work for the global order. This is Brazil.” He
said he was not afraid if Brazil became an international pariah. In an
ultranationalist discourse, he stated that “from now on, Itamaraty comes
back to the bosom of the beloved motherland. Itamaraty is back because
Brazil is back. (…) It was a country that talked to please the administrators
of the global order,” he added, mentioning Olavo de Carvalho, who was the
guru of Bolsonarism until he died of Covid after denying that the new
coronavirus had killed anyone.
Araújo professed admiration for the US, Israel, the “new Italy,” Hungary,
and Poland and argued that “to destroy humankind, it's necessary to finish
the nations and to keep man away from God.” Later he defended an alliance
of Christian nations in a “crusade” to redeem the West. During his tenure at
Itamaraty, Araújo organised conferences and seminars to discuss Carvalho's
thoughts. At the UN, Brazil rejected ideas such as “gender violence” and
“reproductive rights,” seen as support for abortion.
The main goal, to improve relations with the US, was actually to get
closer to President Donald Trump. For Hussein Kalout, secretary for
strategic affairs of President Temer, now a research fellow at Harvard
University, “the South American policy was the worst in history,” with no
strategy for neighbouring countries and no geopolitical vision. South
America wasn't seen as an economic, political, environmental, and security
geostrategic area. A binary vision of left and right led to hostility toward
leftist governments. After the defeat of President Mauricio Macri of
Argentina in 2019, Bolsonaro had no friends in Latin America. “This power
vacuum opened the way for the US, China, and Russia.”17
Bolsonaro supported the US economic embargo on Cuba, and promised
to move the Brazilian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but did
not, to improve relations with Taiwan and to curtail Chinese investment. On
this issue, he faced opposition from agribusiness, because China is the main
market for Brazil's farm products. Nevertheless, he said that the coronavirus
could have been “created at a laboratory” as a weapon in a “chemical and
bacteriological war.”18 China's hostile wolf warrior diplomacy was not
strident, an indication that China saw his presidency as temporary.
Under pressure from Congress for his friction with China, Araújo fell on
29 March 2021. He was substituted by Carlos França, who adopted a more
professional and low-profile attitude, but the foreign policy came from the
President and his hardline advisers. For Ricupero, after “eccentricity and
weirdness” under Araújo, foreign policy was “almost invisible” under
França.
On environmental policy, Bolsonaro declined to host the 25th UN
Conference on Climate Change (CoP-25) in 2019 and the Brazilian
delegation tried to block an agreement at that meeting, held in Madrid.19
Bolsonaro neglected the preservation of Amazonia, seen as
“unproductive land” with no value for the standing forest. This was the
mindset of the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, and he gave
incentives to mining, gold digging, logging, and farming in protected areas.
Germany and Norway ceased financing the Amazon Fund. When 137
countries committed to collectively end forest loss and land degradation by
2030 at the COP-26 in Glasgow, Bolsonaro, who didn't go, declared that
Brazil would stop “illegal logging.”
Under Bolsonaro, Amazon deforestation increased by nearly 60 per
cent.20. He became the world's main environmental villain, a source of
conflict with the EU. When the EU-Mercosul trade liberalisation agreement
was announced, France made it clear that it wouldn't be ratified if Brazil
doesn't protect the rainforest. Investment funds warned that they would no
longer invest in Brazil for the same reason.
Brazil had never been so isolated. After Trump's defeat, Bolsonaro
cultivated relations with Hungary, Poland, and Narendra Modi's India.
During a reception at the G-20 Summit in Rome in 2021, Bolsonaro talked
briefly with President Erdogan of Turkey and, with no one else to speak to,
mocked the waiters remembering that Brazil defeated Italy in the 1970
soccer World Cup final by 4-1. In an unprecedented act, in July 2022
Bolsonaro called a meeting with more than 40 foreign ambassadors to
attack the nation's electronic system of voting, used in Brazil since 1996
with no proven cases of fraud.
One of the priorities of the third Lula administration is the de-
ideologisation of Brazil's foreign policy. In his first interview after
nomination, Minister Mauro Vieira said that the country will have good
relations with both left and right governments: “We are not worried about
ideology. Our ideology is integration.”21
TV commentator and sociologist Demétrio Magnoli remembered, as
Ricupero did, that there was ideology in the previous PT governments’
foreign policy, with uncritical support for the authoritarian regimes of Cuba,
Venezuela, and Nicaragua, in contrast to criticism of them by the leftist
President Gabriel Boric of Chile.22
 Despite having been posted as ambassador to Croatia, considered a
second-class diplomatic post, Vieira promised that there won't be a witch
hunt at Itamaraty, but columnists Elio Gaspari, one of the most influential
Brazilian journalists, and Lauro Jardim have already seen signs of that.23
The reconstruction of foreign relations began before the election. During
the campaign, Lula travelled to Europe and met with German Chancellor
Scholz, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain, presidents Marcelo Rebelo
de Souza of Portugal and Emmanuel Macron of France and spoke at the
European Parliament. He also went to the CoP-27, held in Sharm al-Sheik
in November 2022, not as part of the official Brazilian delegation but
invited by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt. Lula said that “Brazil
and the planet need a live Amazon.”
In Egypt, Lula had several bilateral meetings: with the US special envoy
for climate, John Kerry; China's chief negotiator for climate, Xie Zhenhua;
the Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans;
German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock; the Prime Minister of
Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre; the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, Teresa
Ribera; the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres; and the UN Executive
Secretary for Climate Change, Simon Stiell.
“Lula is very well-known internationally. He already has a very good
network of contacts, doesn't need to warm-up,” said former Minister
Patriota, then Brazilian ambassador to Egypt.
Brazil will chair the G-20 in 2024 and is a candidate to organise the
COP-30. It restarted the Amazon Fund, to which Germany and Norway
announced new contributions, and has invited the US to join in to avoid
bureaucratic hurdles. The new government will call a summit of the
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization and reinvigorate regional bodies
such as the Union of South American Nations (Unasul) and the Community
of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Since Bolsonaro left
them by decree, not by a vote in Congress, it was easy to repeal those
decisions. On January 5, 2023, Itamaraty announced that Brazil had
returned to CELAC and the UN Global Compact for Migration.
Presidential diplomacy is back. Lula's first trips abroad indicated his
priorities. He went to Argentina for a bilateral meeting and a CELAC
summit to rebuild regional integration, and then to China and the US,
Brazil's main trading partners, and to Portugal. He wants to travel even
more than in his two first terms. Prime Minister Modi of India announced
he would call a summit of IBSA, so he will fly to India.
Another initiative is the creation of a Global Alliance to Combat Hunger
and Poverty, the two first UN sustainable development goals, using Brazil's
experience with Zero Hunger and of José Graziano da Silva, the Brazilian
Director-General of FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) from
2012 to 2019.
Lula and Amorim want to renegotiate the EU-Mercosul trade agreement,
which they deem bad for the Brazilian manufacturing sector. To open the
EU agricultural markets, in their opinion, Brazil made too many
concessions on industrial goods. Reindustrialisation is one of Lula's goals.
Regarding the Middle East, Brazil supports a negotiated solution for the
Israel-Palestine conflict, which is highly unlikely with the far-right
Benjamin Netanyahu Administration. The leader of the government
parliamentary bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, José Guimarães, met the
ambassador of Iran to improve relations, but Lula's wife, Rosangela da
Silva, refrained from having contact with the Iranian delegation at Lula's
inauguration, apparently in protest against the treatment of women in the
Islamic Republic in their rebellion against the veil.
All these challenges will have to be tackled in a world very different
from that of 2003 when Lula first came to power. “Who could imagine five
years ago that democracy would be threatened in the US, there would be a
coup attempt in Germany, a pandemic, a war in Europe and India taking off
but with an ultranationalist government?,” asks Ambassador Patriota.
Today, there is a new scramble for Africa, with China, the US, and
Russia, which have aggressively sent mercenaries in exchange for the
exploitation of mineral resources. This great-power politics may be a hurdle
for Brazil's soft power but also an opportunity to offer a relationship which
is not neocolonial.
The same old policy from Lula won't be enough, warned journalist
Patricia Campos Mello. In the BRICS, Russia is at war, threatening to use
nuclear weapons, China under Xi Jinping is more aggressive and militarist,
and India is governed by a Hindu fundamentalist who uses religion to assert
his power. In Latin America, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and El Salvador have
become dictatorships.24
Russia's war on Ukraine is the main change in international relations.
“Brazil criticised and condemned the invasion, the territorial conquest. This
is evidently against the UN Charter,” declared Minister Vieira. Brazil voted
against the war at the UN General Assembly but didn't adopt sanctions
against Russia. Vieira alleges that they are illegal because were not
approved by the UN Security Council. Lula, visiting Buenos Aires and
meeting Olof Scholz in January, condemned Russia's infringement of
territorial integrity, but still blamed both sides.
Magnoli observes that Brazil was slow to mention “national
sovereignty,” “territorial integrity,” and “withdrawal of forces” and that
talking about peace in this context means freezing the conflict with areas of
Ukraine occupied by Russia. The sanctions against Russia and military aid
to Ukraine aren't illegal, he argues, because they “derive from the legal
concept of collective self-defence, inscribed in the UN Charter”, but
Russian annexations are.
Both Lula and Bolsonaro have talked with Putin but not with Zelensky,
an indication that they are more concerned about relations with a BRICS
member. Bolsonaro went to Moscow just before the war to guarantee the
supply of fertilisers for his agribusiness base. Lula, congratulated on his
election by Putin, has said that Zelensky shares the blame for the war.25
With the risk of a new cold war, nonalignment is back.26 The Global
South doesn't want to get involved in a superpower confrontation, wants a
multipolar not a bipolar international order, in which they have strategic
autonomy. Brazil can be one leader in a possible new nonalignment
movement.

Notes
1. Former finance minister, former minister for the environment and former secretary general of
UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) and author of the most
comprehensive history of Brazilian foreign policy, A diplomacia na construção do Brasil (Rio
de Janeiro: Versal, 2017).
2. CASTAÑEDA in https://www.newamerica.org/fellows/events/que-pasa-america-latina/
3. RICUPERO, R. – A diplomacia na construção do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Versal, 2017, pp. 622–
623.
 4. RICUPERO, op. cit., p. 625.
5. RICUPERO, op. cit., pp. 626–627.
6. Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
7. Jobim, N. F. https://nelsonfrancojobim.blogspot.com/2006/11/samuel-nega-antiamericanismo-
do-governo.html, consulted on Jan. 2, 2023.
8. Former ambassador to the US and the UN, secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(Itamaraty) in the end of the second Lula Administration and foreign minister in the beginning
of Dilma Rousseff Administration (2011–13, interview with the author, Dec. 18, 2022.
9. RICUPERO, op. cit., p. 649.
10. Sources: China-LAC Finance Database and China-Latin America Commercial Loans Tracker.
11. Amorim, C. – Acting Globally: Memoirs of Brazil's Assertive Foreign Policy. Lanham-MD:
Hamilton Books, 2017.
12. Website: https://www.france24.com/en/diplomacy/20220824-us-and-iran-edge-closer-to-a-
nuclear-deal-as-tehran-drops-some-demands
13. RICUPERO, op. cit., pp. 681–683.
14. Website:
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/7929rio20%20in%20numbers_final2.
pdf
15. Neves, L. P. A adesão do Brasil à OCDE numa realidade multipolar.
https://www.kas.de/documents/265553/265602/Cad+3-2-22+-
+cap%C3%ADtulo+2.pdf/dfe71ce5-7405-9575-326a-4c486da27986?t=1669662083900
16. Scherer, L. M. A política externa do governo Bolsonaro.
https://relacoesexteriores.com.br/politica-externa-governo-bolsonaro/
17. KALOUT in course on the History of Brazilian Diplomacy. https://cebri.org/br/curso/9/historia-
da-diplomacia-brasileira-do-imperio-ao-seculo-xxi-curso-completo
18. Website: https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2021/05/05/bolsonaro-sugere-virus-feito-em-
laboratorio-e-desinteresse-em-suposto-remedio-para-covid-19.ghtml
19. Website: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-50800984)
20. Website: https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2022/11/30/deforestation-up-60-percent-bolsonaro/
21. Website: https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2022/12/teremos-relacao-com-direita-e-
esquerda-diz-ao-globo-chanceler-de-lula-nao-nos-preocupamos-com-ideologia.ghtml
22. Website: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/demetriomagnoli/2022/12/silencios-que-
falam.shtml?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newscolunista)
23. Website: https://oglobo.globo.com/blogs/lauro-jardim/post/2022/12/futuro-chanceler-planeja-
limpa-em-embaixadas-ocupadas-por-bolsonaristas.ghtml
24. Website: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2023/01/mauro-vieira-tera-que-ir-alem-da-
tarefa-de-reconstruir-o-itamaraty.shtml
25. Website: https://time.com/6173232/lula-da-silva-transcript/
26. Website: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/01/nonalignment-international-system-alliance-bloc/
PART IV

The perspective of another

president
15
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
A colleague's perspective on Lula

Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera

DOI: 10.4324/9781003407546-19

I never met Lula while he was President of Brazil. By the time I was sworn
into office on 8 May 2014, he had been out of his for almost two years,
succeeded by one of his most shrewd political disciples, Dilma Rousseff.
Even though Lula was no longer working at the Planalto, his policies still
pervaded the hallways and corridors of his country's power structures. Just
as aftershocks follow the impact of an earthquake, so did the effect of Lula
and Lulismo at the heart of Brazilian and Latin American politics.
My first encounter with Lula was indirect, yet impactful, nevertheless.
Costa Rica hosted the Third Summit of the Latin American and Caribbean
Community of States (CELAC), on 28–29 January 2015 in San José, which
I chaired. Founded at the initiative of Mexico and Venezuela, with the
strong support and leadership of Brazil under Lula, CELAC at that time was
one of the region's most formidable multilateral agencies. It excluded the
participation of the United States, Canada, and the European colonies in the
West Indies.
 Furthermore, CELAC admitted everyone without ideological
preconditions: from Cuba, Venezuela, and other ALBA nations on the
“left,” to those countries generally referred to as “liberal democracies,” then
Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, and Haiti on the “right,” and the moderate
“centre left” countries of Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay. The island nations
in the Commonwealth Caribbean generally supported Venezuela and Cuba,
despite the disdain of former colonial players and, most notably, the United
States, at the time under the Obama administration.
Naturally, Lula was absent from the event, yet his fingerprints were all
over the meeting's agenda. The progressive tone of the gathering, the
overall nationalistic demeanour of most participants, and clearly the
rhetoric of the ALBA countries which vociferously affirmed their
independence towards the United States, all reflected Brazil's perspective,
which was still powered by Lula's vision. It is true that, in the decades prior
to Lula's rule, and even under the aegis of the military, Brazil's foreign
policy was already fiercely nationalistic even at times of right-wing,
despotic rule. But with him, and after him, the blend of national affirmation,
political autonomy, international solidarity, and the construction of a plural,
hemispheric community free of the tutelage of extra-continental actors,
reached new heights.
As host and Chair of the event, with pro-tempore presidency of CELAC,
my government and I were mindful of the need to ensure a balanced
perspective in the debates, and in the overall outcome of the Summit. By
and large, we shared the progressive opinions of most participants but were
equally critical of “right” and “left” when it came to the preservation of
human rights and other democratic freedoms. These were traditional stands
of my country, which on this occasion were further threatened by
Nicaragua. Its government under Daniel Ortega had invaded and illegally
occupied Costa Rican territory in 2010 and at the time was undergoing trial
for that reason at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
Nicaragua's defiant position at the Summit included several procedural
violations of the rules and proceedings of the event. It was strongly rejected
at a plenary of the Summit by states including Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba,
Ecuador, and Mexico, although they were “partners” and allies in the
context of the “Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America” (or
ALBA, in its Spanish acronym). Presidents Rousseff and Peña Nieto even
threatened an early departure from San José if Ortega's position on one
issue prevailed. Ortega had demanded that his guest, Ruben Berrios, a
leader of Puerto Rico's independence movement, should participate in the
presidents-only session as head of the Nicaraguan delegation. I absolutely
rejected Ortega's pretension and the session did not take place to
everybody's dismay.
I recall mentioning this incident to Lula in our encounter at his
foundation (Instituto Lula) in São Paulo after he had left office. He vaguely
recalled it and regretted it. Just as in the case of the Maduro government in
Venezuela, a regime that Lula acknowledged with a certain degree of
critical sympathy, he didn't seem to be a man who would sacrifice the
bigger picture to satisfy ideologically motivated objectives that could
potentially damage respect for human rights or the rule of international law,
as Brazil understood it.
Indeed, Brazil has always displayed a consistently powerful international
vision. This vision has been forged through two centuries of experience
carried out by one of the world's most distinguished, professional, and
savvy diplomatic corps headquartered at Itamaraty, the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, trained and selected under the rigorous academic oversight of the
Marquis of Rio Branco Diplomatic Academy. Lula's international policy
was as much influenced as others by the Itamaraty's perspective.
Furthermore, it was taken forward by the leadership of Celso Amorim, a top
diplomat. His distinguished career and forceful foreign policy agenda made
him one of Lula's most important cabinet assets from 2003 to 2010, and he
was then Dilma's Minister for Defence from 2011 to 2014.
Under Lula, Amorim was declared the “world's best Foreign Minister” by
David Rothkopf, blogger for Foreign Policy magazine. Amorim thrived as
one of the most notable architects of the progressive Latin American
weltanschauung. This is a current that advocates an autonomous, anti-
imperialist strategy, strongly opposed to US policies throughout the world.
It respects the premises of the Estrada Doctrine, named for Gennaro
Estrada, who was Mexico's Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the early 1930s.
This doctrine acknowledges the legitimate existence of states, regardless of
the governments that may rule them, in accordance with the principle of
self-determination which has been a central principle of Mexican foreign
policy since Estrada's time.
 These positions were adopted by the Group of Puebla, created by well-
known Latin American progressive politicians in the Mexican city of
Puebla in June of 2019, that unfortunately became one of the region's most
important groupings in support of the dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua, and
Venezuela.
The impact of the Lula/Amorim tandem in international affairs was
remarkable, particularly as Brazil became one of the most active and visible
members of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa). In fact, no other Latin American or Caribbean country was as
diligent in pursuing a foreign policy agenda in Africa as was Brazil under
Lula. So much was Africa at the centre of Lula's concerns for the world in
the 21st century that the weakening of this priority under Dilma was one of
the few things he explicitly criticised during our conversation in São Paulo.
“It has been a mistake that we will regret,” he told me then.
I never thought Lula and Dilma, together and separately, would be put
through the test of fire as they were in the following years. As time
progressed, Dilma's impeachment and demotion and Lula's persecution and
imprisonment would become some of the most scandalous examples of
“lawfare” in the contemporary history of Latin America. From Costa Rica I
followed the events with increasing indignation, trying to separate fact from
fiction, and wondering if the reputation of the man that had so much
inspired a whole generation of world leaders would ever be restored. It
partially was, we now know, but the effect of the lies and half-truths have
had a lamentable yet enduring effect on his political persona even after and
despite his extraordinary electoral success in 2022.
The conspiracy against the PT and its highest leaders was concocted
gradually, and progressively, by a wide array of dark forces, deeply
entrenched in the Brazilian Congress, the media, parts of the Judicial
Branch, and business organisations, which represented some of the most
reactionary interests in the country. Taking advantage of a long-standing
tradition of graft and corruption, which had pervaded the country's political
culture for many decades, these forces accused President Rousseff, the PT
governing party, and some of the most powerful public enterprises of using
their immense financial resources to buy political favours. Turned credible,
thanks to the malicious dealings of the traditional media, political parties,
and social media that thrived on “fake news” and half-truths, the groundless
accusations against the president and her administration soon became an
unstoppable wave that forced her resignation, and the beginning of years of
instability.
Dozens of characters rose in Brazilian politics to take advantage of the
PT's presumed disgrace. From the most visible like Judge Sergio Moro
(later Minister of Justice) and Jair Bolsonaro to the lesser-known like
Eduardo Cunha (President of the Chamber of Deputies, 2015–6), the then
Vice-President Michel Temer and a long list of prosecutors that joined the
anti-Lula, anti-Dilma, anti-PT frenzy, the chorus of accusations seemed
impossible to beat. The first stages of this process resulted in the public's
“conviction” of the presumed delinquents before court investigations had
even begun. It was the classic example of a process designed to destroy
political careers by ensuring that the cornerstone principle of the rule of law
– presumption of innocence – was not applied. This stratagem would
eventually fail, but the result was one of the most disgraceful episodes of
Brazilian contemporary politics.
Undoubtedly, the role of social networks and the media was critical. Just
as has been the case in many other countries, including the United States,
their nefarious role has been fundamental in undermining the credibility of
national leaders and public institutions. It is true that corruption has reached
new heights throughout the Americas in the last two decades, resulting in
increasing and justified levels of citizen rage. Nonetheless, the use of false
or misleading information to distort the truth must be signalled as one of the
most damaging factors in the weakening of democracy, and democratic
values, in our hemisphere. Furthermore, the use of these tactics, coupled
with the manipulation of the justice system to serve illegitimate goals, has
produced a generalised sense of uncertainty which has deepened the
perception that all politicians are corrupt and abusive, unworthy of bearing
the public's trust and the office which they hold.
Hence, following Dilma's impeachment, for almost two years – from
August 2016 to May 2018 – her successor as president, Michel Temer, was
my colleague-president. This was a situation I was not particularly happy
about, yet it was an inevitable result of the Brazilian conundrum. In fact,
dealing with Temer at the very beginning of his term became a matter of
internal Costa Rican politics as well.
 At the UN General Assembly in 2017, I decided to leave the room when
Temer came to the podium, to show my country's dismay at the process that
had brought him to power. Replicated and publicised by the Ecuadorean
Foreign Minister, Guillaume Long, who also left the room, my symbolic
protest resulted in a small tsunami when my adversaries in San José said it
was “an insult” and an act of “despicable disrespect” to the Brazilian
people. There were some minor diplomatic repercussions because of my
action, but clearly Brazil didn't want to make a big fuss over a small
country's decision to voice its disagreement with a situation they were not
interested in discussing any further. Some support for my decision was
voiced by academics and political leaders in Costa Rica and abroad,
including private messages sent by Brazilian friends close to the PT. I never
knew if Lula was ever aware of my modest gesture of solidarity. Years later,
after Temer fell in disgrace due to his own shadowy operations and I had
been out of office for a long time, nobody in Costa Rica recalled the UN
incident.
Times have changed. Lula da Silva has been reelected President of Brazil
for the third time. Now he is facing two formidable tasks, among many. The
first one, of course, is to take his country out of the dark cloud of
Bolsonarista politics and into a “new moment,” with a renewed
commitment to social policies which aim to deal with poverty and
inequality, without populism. He will have to do this while keeping the
economy strong and balanced, and dealing with a hostile legislature which
will do everything within its reach to bring down his administration, at
whatever cost. Reframing the power dynamics in Brazil has never been
more challenging and daunting. Today, to keep and use the traditional tools
of clientelism, and the outright corrupt practices of the past would be a
tremendous mistake but also an inconvenient temptation. With a huge block
of evangelical and conservative lawmakers dominating both houses of
Congress, Lula's days will never be easy.
The second challenge, intimately related to the first, will be to regain his
political and personal credibility as a national leader. This is a most difficult
task, which his successful electoral campaign has only begun. Somehow he
has to reverse almost a decade of unfounded accusations that have,
nonetheless, caused tremendous damage to his image. Now Lula has
demonstrated that he is a wise and resilient politician, not easily defeated by
adversity and negative circumstances. After all he has been through,
regaining the status he deserves and doing his utmost to defeat the
corruption accusations he continues to face, after one of the dirtiest
campaigns in Brazilian history, should not be an unreachable goal.
Yet this will not be possible without proving to his new and traditional
allies, many of whom supported the Lava Jato lies and Bolsonaro in the
past, that he has what it takes to satisfy their many needs. These needs
range across matters as sensitive as public security, employment, and health
– the latter being an area where Bolsonaro failed miserably during the
Covid-19 pandemic, which remains one of Brazil's most shameful
vulnerabilities. All this, in a context of extreme polarisation and national
division, including petitions from extremists to the Armed Forces (whose
fidelity to the Constitution fortunately has not faltered) to prevent Lula's
inauguration.
In this regard, the electoral results that took Lula back to the presidency
are illustrative. He struggled to win, for Bolsonaro showed an unexpected
comeback capacity, helped by undecided voters who were persuaded mainly
by the improvement of the economy, last-minute clientelist measures, false
accusations of fraud, and strident anti-corruption rhetoric as the incumbent
president continued to attack Lula's heavily battered reputation. The hatred
with which the Bolsonaro crowds reacted against Lula's victory, in truck
blockades and rancorous prayer meetings in streets and plazas, were a clear
indication of how far the opposition forces are willing to take the social
confrontation. Yet the unquestionable legitimacy of the election results was
repeatedly confirmed, and officially certified by the Federal electoral
authorities and the armed forces.
In my opinion, Bolsonaro's defeat is a welcome outcome for the world,
for inter-American relations, and for Costa Rica. During Bolsonaro's term,
Brazil virtually disappeared as a relevant international actor except as a
bearer of bad news in the fields of environment and public health. It also
became an inward-looking giant, whose economy and local agendas
became dominated by the narrowest economic approaches, including those
of countries that used to be its partners.
In some respects, such as the fight against climate change and the
protection of the Amazon basin and its vast environmental and human
resources, Bolsonaro's record is dismal. During his time, the Brazilian
Amazon witnessed the largest destruction of the past half century, mostly
resulting from Bolsonaro's support for cattle and soya bean expansion. He
expected in this way to benefit his landowning allies in the interior, and the
exporters of commodities. Bolsonaro's alliance with the Trump
administration also made Brazil a captive of its falsehoods, and its anti-
scientific propaganda, and explains the former US President's annoying
personal involvement in the Brazilian election campaign.
For a Costa Rican, the leadership of Brazil on environmental issues is of
the utmost importance. Our positioning is very different, mostly because
Brazil's approach, at least in what pertains to Amazonia, is far more
nationalistic than what Costa Rica would advocate. Yet, during Bolsonaro's
rule, the possibility of finding common ground, at least in what refers to the
understanding of climate change, was virtually non-existent. Brazil and
Costa Rica are, by no means, “environmental partners.” On the one hand,
the difference in size is enormous, and Brazil is huge. Costa Rica has a
population of 5 million, and a territory of only 51,000 km2.
On the other hand, Costa Rica's traditional positioning on most
environmental issues has embraced the concept of global responsibility,
sustained by multilateral management. This is an idea much to the dislike of
Brazilian decision-makers, who are fiercely defensive of the rights of
nations to handle their own natural patrimony. Despite these differences,
one would hope that, in the new Lula term, Brazil will be more willing to
join the rest of the world in dealing with the most imminent threat to
humanity's survival.
Bolsonaro's record is also troubling in terms of social and cultural rights.
Brazil continues to endure high levels of poverty and inequality. In his
victory speech, Lula identified the reduction of these levels as the most
urgent and highest priority for his incoming government. He reiterated this
vision during his inauguration as well. The country is currently riddled by
territorial pockets where domestic and transnational crime gangs reign
supreme, including in the big cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. These
trends are fed by economic exclusion, a seemingly endless access to guns,
and an increasing disrespect for human rights by the security forces,
particularly those operating in the most vulnerable communities, the
favelas.
 Violence, a Latin American malady throughout the hemisphere, has
reached new heights in Brazil under Bolsonaro. This results from those
structural disparities and also from a political environment poisoned by
religious fanaticism, hate, renewed misogyny, and xenophobia. While many
of the current social challenges are neither new, nor the result only of
Bolsonaro's policies, his government's approach to the administration of
justice and his disrespect for institutions and the rule of law have
exacerbated social divisions and greatly enhanced political polarisation.
Hence there is a concept of “two Brazils” – that Lula unconvincingly said
he hoped he could eradicate, on the night of his reelection.
As a Costa Rican though, probably one of the most shocking results of
Bolsonaro's rule has been his favouritism towards the military. I have long
stopped advocating the elimination of the armed forces in Latin America. I
continue wholeheartedly to support the concept, of course, because I have
seen its almost miraculous benefits in our own history since the date of their
abolition by constitutional mandate in 1949. Unfortunately, it seems almost
impossible to convince most countries of this fact, and we continue to see
the escalation of military expenditures, far and wide in our hemisphere and
beyond.
In this regard the story in Brazil, under Bolsonaro, is regrettable in both
political and financial terms. He has brought the armed forces back into the
civilian decision-making process. He has stepped up their expenditures at a
time when those additional resources are greatly needed for other purposes,
such as public health and anti-hunger policies. I don't know if Lula will dare
to change this course of events, and rationalise the armed forces’ hunger for
fresh resources, but it would be a great thing to celebrate if he does even at
a time when he has been supported by them in accordance with the
Constitution, not their own good will. The largest challenges Brazil and
other countries of our hemisphere now face, difficult as it may be to believe
sometimes, are better faced with justice than with bullets.
Bolsonaro's defeat is truly symbolic. Following Trump's defeat, it
represents a small but nevertheless significant ray of hope in the universe of
autocracy and political darkness that dominates the world today. My
perspective in this respect is not that Lula's victory is important because it
adds to the “pink wave” in Latin America. It does, of course, but it goes
well beyond that. It proves that the tools of electoral, liberal democracy are
still capable of reversing the perpetuation of populist “caudillos” of all
ideological persuasions. The rupture of this axis may not be sufficient to
prevent the election of other Bolsonaro-type characters in Brazil and
elsewhere. But it sends a powerful and timely message to the political
organisations that are meant to be the first trench of defence.
This message is that, to prevail, democracy requires strong institutions,
effective and transparent public policies, an autonomous, fair, and efficient
system for the administration of justice, political dialogue based on
inclusion and respect for human rights, and a strong commitment to citizen
education and civil society. Failing to establish such conditions of
governance has led us to the dire place where we are at present.
The international context favours Lula. There is a new opportunity open
for a post-Bolsonaro Brazil to re-occupy, exercise, and refresh its leadership
in a hemisphere where the major countries are currently undergoing a
transition towards more autonomous, modern, and perhaps self-reliant state
models. Extra-continental relations with global players such as China and
Russia will have to be handled with utmost care, so as not to generate an
irreparable breach with the US, still the preponderant power in the area. It is
extremely likely that Lula, a pragmatist, could do well if he is able to keep
his internal/external equation balanced, even in the eventuality of a
Republican comeback in 2024. This of course will depend a lot on the
capacity of the US, under any administration, to understand the many
dilemmas their new National Security Strategy's definition of China as the
adversary to beat in the 21st century will bring about, in its relations with
Latin America and the Caribbean nations.
Whatever happens in US-Russian relations, as Putin's war in Ukraine
hopefully unwinds soon, will be transcendental too. Any improvement will
also depend on the willingness of Lula and his progressive colleagues to
speak clearly and critically of the dictatorial regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela, and their despising of full respect for human rights.
President Gabriel Boric of Chile and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia
have already spoken out. These will not be easy tasks for Lula, for sure, but
he could play a central role in a process of gradual aperture in favour of
democratic freedoms.
I have not seen Lula personally since a meeting at the Instituto Lula, in
São Paulo, many years ago. It was at a time when there was a window of
opportunity for Costa Rica to interact for two years with Brazil, under
President Rousseff. There was still a powerful tide of Lulismo, and the
influence of Lula himself, though many thought its demise was inevitable.
It was in that context that I finally met him. He was as joyful and relaxed
as ever. He was witty, agile, and talkative. He was also concerned about US
policy towards Latin America, which he continued to consider short-
sighted, shallow, and inconsistent. At the time he didn't seem inclined to
seek another term in office, but was still clearly a political animal of
extraordinary proportions, even as he was beginning to be encircled by his
political enemies.
I am now retired, and away from active electoral politics, and I don't
know whether I will ever meet Lula again. I would certainly hope so. He is
the kind of person one would like to encounter many times, just for the
pleasure of hearing passionate, well-thought-out, and experienced
arguments about world affairs, and life in general. But most importantly, I
would like to see him again and give him a warm Brazilian abraço (hug),
the kind he likes to bestow amongst his acquaintances and followers.
Sentimentality aside, in doing so I would feel that I have somehow
completed a cycle of human respect that began the day of our gathering at
his foundation. In that spirit, I would like to share this anecdote, because it
shows the soul of the man who has been reelected as President of Brazil.
My press secretary, Stephanie Gonzalez, was at the time 26 years old.
Brought up under dire economic and social conditions, Stephanie and her
siblings were raised by their divorced parents under strenuous financial
conditions, yet they were always seeking for their children the highest
educational upbringing they could provide. The kids were not only
conquerors of the context in which they grew up, a true saga on its own.
They also excelled and thrived through their talent and hard work,
becoming notable professionals and sporting figures in Costa Rica.
Stephanie longed to meet Lula because she felt personally identified with
his own struggles and greatly admired him. When she finally greeted him,
she was overwhelmed with emotion and, breaching standard protocol and to
everybody's surprise, embraced Lula with the long, tearful but nevertheless
relieved affection reserved for long-awaited friends. She told the former
president, “Please excuse me, Mr President, but you and I are very much
alike, we always survive.” Lula held her back, looked her in the eye and,
not even knowing what she was talking about, understood immediately. He
replied, “Come here my child (menina), we certainly do.” He was crying.
We all were.
INDEX

Note: Page references in italics denote figures, in bold tables and with “n” endnotes.

3rd National Human Rights Plan (PNDH-3) 124, 128

Abya Yala 170–173

Adário, Paulo 183
AFP Agency 129n17
Africa-South America Summit 178
Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Unilab) 167
Afro-Brazilians 92, 118; and Blackness 93–95; Salvador's population of 96; women (see Black
women)
Alckmin, Geraldo 6, 12, 18; in political coalition with Lula 16
Aleixo, Pedro 85
Almeida, Silvio 98
Alves, Damares 123–125, 129n20, 151, 170
Alves, Jaime A. 98
Amann, E. 64
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization 187
Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) 156
Amazon Fund 151, 186–187
Amazonia 131–140
Amnesty Commission 130n23
Amorim, Celso 166, 176–177, 178, 179, 181, 195
Anderson, Jon Lee 115n2
Annan, Kofi 180
anti-Blackness 98
Antunes de Oliveira, Felipe 169
Arab-South America Summit 178
Araújo, Ernesto 126, 169, 185
Araújo Castro, João Augusto de 179
Arce, Luis 168
Articulação 5
Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) 155, 172
Atlas Public Opinion Research Institute 109
Auxílio Brasil (PAB) 43; cash transfer programme 76
Azeredo da Silveira, Antônio Francisco 179

Bachelet, Alberto 125

Bachelet, Michelle 125
Baerbock, Annalena 187
Baniwa, Gersem 147
Barros, Celso Rocha de 5
Barroso, Luis Roberto 49
Belo Monte mega dam 148
Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC) 72
Betina Warmling Barros 106
Biden, Joe 22, 182
biofuels 136
The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy (Sides,
Tausanovitch and Vareck) 22
Black see Afro-Brazilians
Blacken Feminism 171
black identity 92; contemporary challenges to 95–96
black mobilisation: under Bolsonaro 96–98; Brazil 96–98
Blackness: and affirmative action 93–95; and Afro-Brazilians 93–95; as political identity 95; and
social media 98
Black women: Marielle Franco Agenda 99; and politics 99–100
Bolívar, Simón 164
“Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America” (ALBA) 193–194
Bolsa Familía Programme 55, 61, 69, 72–73, 75, 146–147
Bolsonarismo 108, 112, 114–115, 185; after Bolsonaro 167–170
bolsonaristas 24; Brazil Congress 14–15; social media ecosystem 22
Bolsonaro, Eduardo 49
Bolsonaro, Jair 11, 14, 26–36; administration 27–30; anti-Lula rhetoric 15; appointment of military
officers as ministers 21; black mobilisation under 96–98; Bolsonarismo after 167–170;
campaign agendas 12; defeat in 2022 presidential elections 13, 27; education budget
reduction 29; election (2019-22) 68; government 123–126; human rights 123–126;
Indigenous peoples 150–151; Lula's allegations on 41; and mass education 80–91; Ministry of
Education, changes in 87–91; mismanagement of Covid pandemic 15, 26, 27–28, 43–44;
presidential re-election 30–33, 31; and problems of the 2010s 106–111; public policy
management 30; rise to presidency 42–43; voters 22
Boric, Gabriel 169, 186, 200
Börner, J. 137
Brazil: black mobilisation 96–98; choice between Lula and Bolsonaro 21–22; Congress and
bolsonaristas 14–15; Constitution (1824) 80; Constitution (1934) 84; Constitutional
Amendment 11192; and Covid pandemic 27–28, 57–58; division of labour 64; economic
crossroads 62–65; economic development in long-term perspective 55–62; economic
 ideologies tested in 53; eradication of poverty 7; GDP growth and inflation 56, 57; hunger
67–77; hyperinflation 59; income distribution 59; international environment and economic
growth 7; Itamaraty 164; and mass education 80–91; National Space Research Institute
(INPE) 152; nutritional security programmes 73–75; Portugal's colonisation of 81; poverty
59, 67–77; presidential elections (2022) 30–35, 34; presidential system 46–51; Real Plan 176;
reconstructing institutions of human rights in 127–128; slowdowns or recessions (1999–20)
58; social assistance services 73–75; social indicators (1992–2020) 60; social policies 67–77;
state-business relations 65–66; “whitening policy” 169
Brazilian Amazonia see Amazonia
Brazilian Black Front 96
Brazilian Central Bank 59
Brazilian Electoral Study (Eseb) 33
Brazilian Forum on Public Safety 109, 113, 115n1
Brazilian Institute of the Environment (IBAMA) 29, 150–152, 156–157
Brazilian Social Democratic Party (Partido da Social Democrácia Brasileira, PSDB) 118
Bretton Woods institutions 180
BRICS 167, 178, 181
Briolly, Benny 99
Brizola, Leonel 4
Browns see Afro-Brazilians
Bush, George W. 180

Cabreira, Raíssa 172

Campos, Francisco de 84
Campos Mello, Patricia 188
Cappelli, Ricardo 112
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 5, 20, 47, 53–54, 61, 117, 118, 145, 176, 178, 184; and educational
changes 86; implementation of BPC 72
Cardoso, Juliana 172
Carneiro, Sueli 171
Cartography of Attacks Against Indigenous Peoples (CACI) 172
Carvalho, José 93
Carvalho, Olavo de 87, 185
cash transfer programmes: contributory 72–73; hunger 72–73; non-contributory 72–73; poverty 72–
73
Castañeda, Jorge 177
Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) 17
Centrão 43–45, 48, 90
Chávez, Hugo 164, 180
Chico Mendes Institute for Conservation of Biodiversity (ICMBio) 29–30
Chile 5, 58–59, 125; decriminalisation of abortion in 170; plurinationalism 171
China 56, 181, 187–188; as Brazil's main trading partner 181, 184–185; as UNSC permanent member
178; WTO, joining 177
Churchill, Winston 24
CIMI (Indigenist Missionary Council) 149–150, 153, 156
Cisternas 77
class-based quotas 93–94
Clinton, Bill 178, 180
Clinton, Hillary 166, 181
Coalition of Black Rights 97
Coelho, Paulo 17
Collor de Mello, Fernando 4, 145
communist indoctrination 85
Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) 177
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) 187
Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) 167
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 177
conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme 61
Conectas 126
Constant, Benjamin 84
Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 84
contributory cash transfer programmes 72–73
Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) 156
Correa, Rafael 164
Costa e Silva, Alberto da 167
coup-impeachment 75, 77n4
Covid-19 pandemic 70, 76, 123, 155; Bolsonaro's mismanagement of 15, 26, 27–28, 43–44; and
Brazil 27–28, 57–58
Cozinhas Comunitárias 77
CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) 154
cultural Marxism 185
Cunha, Eduardo 51, 123, 196

Dallagnol, Deltan 12
da Silva, Benedita 4
da Silva, Rosângela 18–19, 187
Declaration of Tehran 166, 181
Decotelli, Carlos 89–90
Deep-Water Horizon 135
deforestation 29–30, 59, 62–63, 131, 134, 136, 149; see also “net zero deforestation”
de Gaulle, Charles 24
de Jesus, Carolina Maria 171
de Melo Franco, Afonso Arinos 179
democracy, and human rights 127–128
de Moraes, Alexandre 49
Diehl, Sarah 166
Dino, Flavio 98, 111, 112
Dirceu, José 6
Draft Bill 490 153
Dutra, Eurico Gaspar 84
Dutra, Tarso 85

Earth Summit (UNCED) 177, 183

education: Indigenous peoples 147; mass (see mass education)
Embrapa 64
Emergency Aid Programme (PAE) 70, 76
Energie 133
environmental crimes 154
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip 181, 186
Estrada, Gennaro 195
Estrada Doctrine 195
European Union (EU) 165, 178

Federal Constitution of 1988 (CF88) 72

Federal Supreme Court (STF) 12, 19, 30, 33, 46, 49–51, 111–112, 132, 146, 152, 155; and Bolsonaro
49; justices 48; mensalão and petrolão scandals 47–48; on secret budget 50
“femicide” 171
Ferreira, Aloysio Nunes 184
Figueiredo, Isabel 106
Figueiredo, P. 64
Figueiredo Machado, Luiz Alberto 183
Filho, Juscelino 98
First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando do Capital, or PCC) 105
First National Plan for Human Rights (PNDH-1) 118
“Five Hundred Years of Periphery” (Guimarães) 166
Fome Zero Plan 69, 72–73
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 70
food insecurity: social assistance services 73–75; social exclusion 68–71, 71; social inclusion 68–71,
71
foreign policy: Abya Yala 170–173; beyond South America 165–167; Bolsonarismo after Bolsonaro
167–170; key ideas and players 164–170
Foreign Policy magazine 195
França, Carlos Alberto 169, 185–186
Franco, Anielle 95, 97–98, 100
Franco, Marielle 99, 171
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) 165, 178, 180
Freire, Paulo 28, 85
Freitas, Franklimberg Ribeiro de 152
Freitas, Matheus 96
French, John D. 16
Frente Brasil Popular 4
Fujii, Eduardo 166
Fundação Osvaldo Cruz 64
fundamentalist Christianity 169
Funes, Mauricio 164
The Future We Want 183

Gaddafi, Muammar 183

Gama Filho, Luís da 85
Garcia, Marco Aurélio 166, 179
gas/oil exploitation, Amazonia 135
Gaspari, Elio 186
Geisel, Ernesto 179
gender-based violence 171
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) 178
Geneva Consensus Declaration 130n28
Global Alliance to Combat Hunger and Poverty 187
globalisation 177
globalism 169, 185
“globalist cultural Marxism” 126
Góes, Waldez 98
Góis, Damião de 82
Gomes, Anderson 171
Gomes, Ciro 11
Gonzalez, Leila 95, 171
Gonzalez, Stephanie 200
Goulart, João 85, 179
Gouveia, André de 82
Graziano da Silva, José 187
Great Recession of 2007–9 178
Greenpeace 183
Greenpeace-Russia 135
“green tide” 163, 170
Gregori, José 118
Griá, Daiana 172
Guaidó, Fernando 168
Guajajara, Sônia 156, 172
Guimarães, José 187
Gustavo do Vale Rocha 123
Guterres, António 187

Haddad, Fernando 10–11, 33–34

health, Indigenous peoples 149, 155–156
Highway BR-319 133–135
Hilton, Erika 99
Hissa, L.B.V. 137
História da Inteligência no Brasil (Martins) 82
Homer 25
Hugo, Victor 80
Hu Jintao 182
human rights: Bolsonaro's government 123–126; and democracy 127–128; fall of Dilma Rousseff
121–123; institutions 127–128; and Lula 126–127; overview 117–121
Human Rights Council 119
Human Rights Dial 119
Human Rights National Plan of Brazil 118
human rights values and institutions 121–123
hunger: Brazil 67–77; cash transfer programmes 72–73; Lula and Rousseff governments 67
Hutukara Yanomami Association 155
hydroelectric dams 131–133

Ibaneis Rocha 112

III World Congress to Combat Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents 119
Indigenous peoples: Bolsa Família Programme 146–147; deforestation 149; Dilma Rousseff's
presidency 150; education 147; environmental crimes 154; FUNAI, dismantling of 152;
health 149, 155–156; Jair Bolsonaro 150–151; land demarcation 145–146; land invasions
153–154; land rights 152–153; Lula's comeback 156–157; Lula's presidencies 145; mining
154–155; overview 144–145; Programme for Accelerated Growth 147–149; violence 149–
150, 156
“Indigenous Portfolio” (Carteira Indigena) 147
Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) 148
Instituto Cidadania (Citizenship Institute) 104
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) 177
International and Inter-American Human Rights Systems 119
International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO) 132–133
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 166

Janja see da Silva, Rosângela

Janusz, Andrew 96

Kalout, Hussein 185

Kerry, John 187
King, Martin Luther 23
Kirchner, Néstor 164, 180
Kirschner, Cristina 168
Krenak, Ailton 173
Kubitschek, Juscelino 85, 177

Lacalle Pou, Luis 169

Lafer, Celso 180, 182
Lagos, Ricardo 164
Lampreia, Luiz Felipe 177
land demarcation, Indigenous peoples 145–146
“land-grabbers law” 139
land invasions 153–154
land rights, Indigenous peoples 152–153
land tenure 138–140
Latin American and Caribbean Community of States (CELAC) 187, 193–194
Lava Jato corruption scandals 148; see also Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash); petrolão
scandal
LGBT National Conference 118
LGBTQIA+ population 119
Light for All (Luz para Todos) programme 147
Lima, Iolena Maria de 88
Lima, Renato Sérgio de 106
Lima, RoBeyoncé 99
Linz, Juan 51
Lira, Arthur 50
Long, Guillaume 197
Lopes Dias, Ricardo 153
lost decade 61
Lugo, Fernando 164
Lula and his Politics of Cunning (French) 16
Lula da Silva, Luiz Inácio 193–201; 2006 presidential election victory 6–7; 2022 presidential election
victory 13, 14; administration 18; allegations on Bolsonaro 41; and Amazonia 131–140;
background 3; biofuels 136; challenges for third term 62–65; elected as President (2002) 5;
executive orders 48; foreign policy (2002–2010) 164–170; gas and oil 135; governability
challenge 45–46; Highway BR-319 133–135; hydroelectric dams 131–133; Indigenous
peoples 156–157; and Janja 18–19; land tenure 138–140; Mensalão corruption scandal 6, 23,
54; “net zero deforestation” 136–138; Operação Lava Jato 8–10, 15, 17, 23; political
coalition 16; popularity in 2009 8; presidencialismo de coalisão 6; presidencies, legacy of
145; prosecution and imprisonment 10; PT (see Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) (Workers’
Party)); and public education 86; public security 104–106, 111–113; release from prison 12;
Social Agenda for Indigenous People 145–146; tree planting 136–138
Lulismo em Crise (Rousseff) 20
Lupi, Carlos 98
Lutheranism 82

Macri, Mauricio 168, 184–185

Macron, Emmanuel 187
Madeira River dams 132
Maduro, Nicolás 168, 184
Magalhães, Antônio Carlos 96
Magnoli, Demétrio 186
Maia, Rodrigo 48
Mais Médicos doctors’ programme see More Doctors Programme (Programa Mais Medicos)
Marielle Franco Institute 100
Martins, Wilson 82
mass education: and Bolsonaro 80–91; and Brazil 80–91; and Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez 87–88
Mendes, Gilmar 50
Menezes, Margareth 98
Mensalão corruption scandal 6, 23, 54
Mercosul 165, 173, 178–180, 184
Metamorfose Ambulante 17
mining, Indigenous peoples 154–155
Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger (MDS) 74
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) 177
Mitchell-Walthour 95
MOBRAL (Brazilian Literacy Movement) 85
Moraes, Alexandre de 112
Morales, Evo 164, 168
More Doctors Programme (Programa Mais Medicos) 28, 149, 155
Moreno, Lenín 168
Moura, Arilton 90
Mourão, Hamilton 113
Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB) 3
“Movimento Negro” 167
Mulholland, Timothy 93
National Commission on Indigenous Policy (Comissão Nacional de Política Indigenista) 145
National Council for the Environment (CONAMA) 29
National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CONANDA) 119
National Council of Cities 122
National Council of Education 122, 147
National Council of Social Assistance 74
National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI) 124; and Bolsonaro 150–151; dismantling of
152; and ethno-environmental licensing requests 148; and land recognition 145–146;
protection posts of 153; reform of 145
National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE) 90
National Health Service 119
National Human Rights Council 122, 123
National Institute for Social Security (INSS) 73
National Institute for Space Research (INPE) 29
National Plan for Climate Change 136
National Programme for Strengthening Family Farming 75
National Secretariat for Public Security (Secretaria Nacional de Seguranca Publica, or SENASP)
104–106
National Secretariat of Human Rights 118
National Youth Council 122
natural resource-based (NRB) products 58, 63
Negro (Black) racial identity see black identity
Netanyahu, Benjamin 187
“net zero deforestation” 136–138
New Development Bank 181
Nóbrega, Manoel da 81–82
non-contributory cash transfer programmes 72–73
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 165, 177
Nova Matriz Econômica 8
Nubank 64
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 177
nutritional security programmes 73–75

Obama, Barack 8, 15, 165, 180, 181, 184, 193

Obama, Michelle 19
“Odyssey” (Homer) 25
O'Neill, Jim 181
Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) 8–10, 15, 17, 23, 30, 148
Organization of American States 119
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 184
Ortega, Daniel 164
Os Sentidos do Lulismo (Singer) 20
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) 155

Pacheco, Rodrigo 50, 169

Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL) 5
Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) 5
Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) 4
Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) (Workers’ Party) 3–6, 20, 106, 177; 2006 victory 6–7; decline of 10;
eradication of poverty 7; founding of 17; mensalão corruption scandal 6
Partido Liberal (PL) 5, 12
Partido Popular Socialista (PPS) 6
Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB) 3, 6
Partido Social Liberal (PSL) 11, 42
Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) 4
Partido Verde (PV) 6
Passarino, Jarbas 85
Patriota, Antonio 178–179, 181, 188
Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil 80
Penha-Lopes, Vania 94
“peripheral idealism” 163, 169
Perón, Evita 19
Perrone-Moisés, Beatriz 173
Petro, Gustavo 169, 200
petrolão scandal 10
Pinheiro Guimarães, Samuel 166, 177, 179
“pink tide” 164–165, 167–171, 173
Pinto Molina, Roger 183
“Plano Brasil Sem Miséria” (BSM) 73
plurinationalism 163
Possuelo, Sydney 150
poverty: Brazil 59, 67–77, 69; cash transfer programmes 72–73; Lula and Rousseff governments 67;
social exclusion 68–71, 69; social inclusion 68–71, 69
Praça dos Tres Poderes 52
pretoguês 95
Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos 77
Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar 77
Programme for Accelerated Growth (Programa de Açeleração de Crescimento – PAC) 147–149
A Promised Land (Obama) 180
Protection of Defenders of Human Rights, Social Communicators and Environmentalists (PPDDH)
100
public security: during Lula's first two terms 104–106; during Lula's third term 111–113
Putin, Vladimir 188, 200

Quadros, Janio 85
quilombolas 120

racial discrimination 92; and socioeconomic status 92

racism: and Afro-Brazilians 93; in Brazil 92
Reaja ou Será Morta 96–97
Reis, Vilma 96
Restaurantes Populares 77
ribeirinho communities 120
Ribeiro, Darcy 85
Ribeiro, Matilde 93
Ribeiro, Milton 90–91
Ribera, Teresa 187
Rice, Condoleezza 179
Ricupero, Rubens 176–177, 179, 182–183, 186
Rio Branco, Barão do 179
Rodrigues, Lafayette 85
Roosevelt, Theodore 24
Rosneft 135
Rothkopf, David 195
Rousseff, Dilma 15, 20, 33, 41; class-based quotas 93–94; and educational changes 86; educational
policies 81; elected as President (2011) 8, 54; fall of 121–123; and human rights values and
institutions 121–123; impeachment of 9, 68, 75; Indigenous peoples 150; presidency, 2011-
2016 150; re-elected as President (2014) 9; tenure and Brazil's economy 9
Rural Environmental Register (CAR) 140

Saboia, Eduardo 183

Salles, Ricardo 29, 154
Sánchez, Pedro 186
San Tiago Dantas 179
Santos, Gilmar Silva dos 90–91
Santos, Sales 96
São Manoel Dam 133
Saraiva Law 83, 85
Sátyro, Natália 74
Scholz, Olof 188
Second World War 180
Seixas Correa, Luiz Felipe 180
Sérgio Moro, Paraná 10, 11–12, 30, 43
Serra, José 5, 8, 184
Sides, John 22
Silva, Marina 16, 18, 98, 136, 148, 170
Singer, André 6, 19–20
Sistema Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (SISAN) 74
Sistema Único de Assistência Social (SUAS) 73, 75
Snowden, Edward 184
Sobel, Clifford M. 166
social assistance programmes/services 67, 73–75
Social Assistance Specialised Reference Centres 75
social exclusion: food insecurity 68–71, 69, 71; poverty 68–71, 69, 71
social inclusion: food insecurity 68–71, 69, 71; poverty 68–71, 69, 71
Socialist Party (PS) 177
social media: and Blackness 98; YouTubers 98
social movements 122; Brazil 167–168, 170; criminalisation of 122–123; insurrectionist 112; left-
wing 106; South American 163; transnational 173
social policies: Brazil 67–77; Lula and Rousseff governments 67
Southern Cone 165
Souza, Marcelo Rebelo de 186
Souza, Tomé de 81
Special Indigenous Health Secretariat 149
Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR) 167
Spending Cap Amendment 68
Stiell, Simon 187
Støre, Jonas Gahr 187

Tausanovitch, Chris 22
Tebet, Simone 16, 18, 94–95
Teles Pires Dam 133
Temer, Michel 8, 68, 75, 121–122, 123, 124, 139, 184, 196
“Terra Legal” programme 139
Timmermans, Frans 187
Torres, Anderson 112
Treaty of Madrid 178
tree planting 136–138
Trotskyist Movimento Convergência Socialista 3
Trump, Donald 22, 124, 184, 185, 200

UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) 183

União Brasil 43
Unified Registry for Social Programmes 74
Unified System of Public Security (SUSP) 104
Union of South American Nations (Unasul) 165, 170–173, 187
United Black Movement 96
United Nations (UN) 117, 120, 166, 179; Declaration of Human Rights of 1947 126; General
Assembly 183, 188, 196; Global Compact for Migration 187; Human Rights Council 125;
Security Council 126, 178, 180, 181, 188; Special Rapporteur on Indigenous peoples 148
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 177, 189n1
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 117
University of Brasilia (UNB) 93

Vareck, Lynn 22
Vargas, Getúlio 24, 56, 84, 85, 178
Vargas, Joao Costa 98
Vázquez, Tabaré 164
Vélez Rodríguez, Ricardo 28, 87–89
A Verdade Vencerá 24
Vieira, Mauro 170, 184, 186
Vienna Convention 117
Vienna Declaration 117
violence: gender-based 171; Indigenous peoples 149–150, 156

Waiãpi, Silvia 172

Wakoborũn Association of Munduruku Women 156
Wapichana, Joenia 156
Weibe Tapeba, Ricardo 156
Weintraub, Abraham 28, 89
white coup 84
Wilson, Woodrow 24
World Bank 166, 181
World Conference on Human Rights 117
World Health Organization 155
World Trade Organisation (WTO) 177, 178, 179
Wunder, S. 137

Xakriabá, Célia 151, 172

Xavier da Silva, Marcelo Augusto 152
Xie Zhenhua 187

Zelaya, Manuel 164

Zoellick, Robert 180