Sao Paulo Forum 2023: Lula urges to embrace democracy, message to Nicaragua?

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, made this Thursday a firm defense of democracy and alternation in powerby participating in Brasilia at the opening of the XXVI Meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum.

“We have to exercise democracy as much as possible”, because “it is important, to the extent that it establishes alternation in power”, and it is a “constant” exercise of “victories and defeats”, which forces “to make concessions every holy days,” Lula declared.

In front of delegations from left-wing and progressive parties from 27 countries, the Brazilian president urged “living democratically in diversity” to confront the “fascist extreme right” that has “returned to growing all over the world.”

He affirmed that, even though the “extreme right” considers the Sao Paulo Forum an anti-democratic platform, in truth it was founded in 1990, at his initiative and that of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, as a formula to promote the search for power among the left. by popular vote.

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“It was the first Latin American experience that brought together the entire left without ending their differences” to “discuss how to conquer political and democratic spaces,” he said.

“They call us communists, as if they offended us with that,” but “they would offend us if they called us neo-fascists,” said the president, who called attention to the “threat” that the extreme right represents “for Latin America and the world.”

Lula asked the Latin American left to be more sensitive to criticism, “because we are often wrong,” and to “exercise democracy to the maximum,” since it is the only way to “end hunger and misery,” which should be the “sole goal” of every progressive leader.

According to Lula, “democracy is not a pact of silence”, but “a society in movement”, and when a leader “suffers a defeat, he cannot remain lamenting”, but must understand what mistakes he could have made to be defeated in the urns.

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However, he stated that when it comes to a “colleague”, instead of “criticizing him publicly”, it is “better to talk personally” and point out his possible mistakes.

Even so, he maintained that “it is much better to have a colleague who makes a mistake, in order to be able to criticize, than to have a fascist in power“, as he maintained that It happened in Brazil between 2019 and 2022, when Jair Bolsonaro ruled.

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“Those four years in Brazil should be a lesson for everyone” and serve to “understand that either we organize ourselves, or the extreme right will be there, telling lies and violating civility to return to power,” he warned.

Sao Paulo forum

He Sao Paulo forum, founded in the city of the same name in 1990had among its main promoters the Workers’ Party (PT) of Brazil, which has returned to power with Lula this year.

Political forces of all shades of the left coexist on that platformfrom Nicaraguan Sandinismo, Cuban Communism and Venezuelan Chavismo, to others that are more moderate and that are situated in the progressive spectrum, such as the Uruguayan Broad Front or the PT itself.

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At the meeting in Brasilia Delegations from a hundred political parties from 27 countries participate, among which are Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Paraguay. In addition, representatives of some countries outside Latin America are presentsuch as Germany, France, Portugal, Türkiye and Iran.

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This edition has been convened under the motto “Regional integration to advance Latin American and Caribbean sovereignty“.

This “left-wing summit” will conclude next Sunday, when the final document will be approved, the draft of which calls for “taking advantage” of the “opportunity to have in Latin America and the Caribbean a majority of governments made up of progressive political forces and social movements.”

It also highlights “the need to build integration”, “protect nature, peoples and sovereignty”, as well as “fight against the effects of neoliberalism in the region”.

EFE