“Indignation is the word that we have to have in the face of what is happening.” With these words, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ignited the spirits of thousands of young people gathered in the auditorium of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), who braved the heat of the torrid tropical autumn to listen to the leader of the Brazilian left . France 24 was there.
“Brazil is the third largest producer of food on the planet, the largest producer of animal protein in the world. So it is not admissible to see people running after an overturned truck with chicken carcasses or people picking up bones to make a broth. It is not a fault of meat, it is not a lack of rice, it is not a lack of beans, it is not a lack of soy. It is a lack of shame on the face of the people who govern this country,” criticized Lula.
The former president of Brazil, who currently he is the clear favorite in the October elections with 43% voting intention, passed like a hurricane through Rio de Janeiro, the electoral fiefdom of Jair Bolsonaro. It has been an intense week full of meetings, in which he participated in the celebration party for the centenary of the Communist Party of Brazil and met with several politicians from Rio de Janeiro to weave future alliances.
“Guedes does not know how to work for the Brazilian people, only for the market”
The trade unionist who governed Brazil between 2003 and 2010 did not miss the opportunity to criticize the economic policy of the current government of Jair Bolsonaro, marked by recession and inflation. It is estimated that at least 19 million Brazilians are currently hungry.
“We are not going to let (the oil company) Petrobras be handed over to the big international companies. We are not going to let them continue condemning 19 million Brazilians to hunger,” promised the former president during the closing of the ‘First International Meeting on Democracy and Equality ‘, an event organized by the Puebla Group, which brought together great names from the Latin American and Spanish left in Rio de Janeiro.
In an amphitheater full of flags and red shirts, Lula also attacked Paulo Guedes, the ultra-liberal Minister of Economy, who revived the legacy of the ‘Chicago boys’, the group of 25 Chilean economists who formulated the economic policy of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. “Guedes does not know how to work for the Brazilian people, only for the market,” said the candidate, who opposes the privatization of large state companies, such as Petrobras, Eletrobras or Correos.
“Wait for me, we’re going to come back, and when we come back, we’ll try to ‘abrasileira’ the price of things,” Lula stressed after recalling that, during the 2008 crisis, when a barrel of oil cost $140, Brazilians bought gasoline at 2.60 reais ($0.55). It should be noted that the founder of the Workers’ Party is firmly opposed to the policy of linking the price of oil to the dollar, adopted during the term of former president Michel Temer, something that in his opinion only enriches the shareholders at the expense of impoverishing the Brazilians.
Lula shows his facet as a feminist man
The event was attended by some former presidents, such as the Colombian Ernesto Samper and the Spanish José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). “I met many presidents, but the president who cared the most about the poor, about the humblest, was Lula. He is the politician I heard the most about what hunger represents,” said Zapatero during the final act of the congress. .
A day earlier, during the inaugural conference, the former president of the first joint government in Spain, which had 50% of ministers, showed his facet as a feminist man. “The history in favor of equality is the history against discrimination. In my experience, I have come to the conclusion that every time historical discrimination is ended, the door is opened to end more discrimination and we are closer to the idea of equality The greatest discrimination in history was against women.
It was the one that lasted the longest: centuries. It was the most heartbreaking because for centuries they were deprived of their status as persons, as subjects with rights who can have freedom. In my country, it took women seven centuries to access university. There were seven centuries of discrimination to access knowledge, culture, science,” she said.
The Spanish left had a striking role thanks to the presence of Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice President and Minister of Labour. A militant of the Communist Party of Spain and affiliated with the United We Can formation, Díaz has been responsible for a very long negotiation with businessmen and unions that culminated in the repeal of the Spanish Labor Reform. On more than one occasion, Lula has stated that she wants to use the example of Spain to do the same with the reform approved during the Temer government, which has made millions of Brazilian workers precarious.
“We speak, dear president, the same language, the language of democracy, the language of women who are not going to stop. Women are the engine of change. We give life and we are going to change the world, in Brazil too”, Yolanda Díaz said in the box. “The only one who can do it again, as we did in Spain, the recovery of rights for workers is Lula da Silva, and he will do it as soon as he becomes president again. Go ahead, yes, we can”, he concluded, referring to the training politician who governs in Spain in coalition with the socialists.
Dilma Rousseff: “I want to tell you that we are back”
Another protagonist of the act was the former president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, who in 2016 suffered an impeachment. “I am going to repeat what I said when I left the Presidency of the Republic, on August 31, 2016. I said that we would return and that things would not stay like this. I want to tell you that we are back. We will be in the streets defending the reconstruction of Brazil The acknowledgment of President Lula’s innocence allowed us to once again have an alternative in the field of defending the people of this country”, she declared emotionally.
His presence next to Lula contradicts the theory that the pre-candidate would try to hide from his successor, who did not know how to maintain a fluid relationship with Parliament and ended up being removed from his position in the middle of his second term. During her conference, Dilma Rousseff stressed the importance of making the transition to a sustainable development model and of resuming job creation. “We are not just any continent. This potential power of Latin America has to be strengthened and centralized in our regional integration. Latin America cannot be condemned to being a mere producer of raw materials. We have to return to an industrial policy. Who is satisfied with being a simple technology importer is not going to generate income,” he defended.
Lula’s tour of Rio de Janeiro, who in 2010 left the Government with an 87% approval rating, coincides with the announcement by former Minister of Justice Sérgio Moro to withdraw from the electoral contest. Moro, who in his pre-campaign did not exceed 8% of voting intentions, is the anti-corruption judge of Operation Lavajato, which in 2018 imprisoned Lula and prevented him from participating in the elections, which led to the election of Bolsonaro. Later, he agreed to join the new right-wing government, something highly criticized by his detractors.
Finally, the long-awaited electoral debate between Lula and Moro is not going to take place. It was something longed for by the millions of Brazilians who attended his numerous confrontations in court live, during the trial against Lula. It remains to be seen whether Lula’s advantage will hold over the next six months. For now, Bolsonaro has begun to climb in the polls, but in Brazil everything is possible and until October 2 the complex electoral plot can take several unexpected turns.
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