President Lula da Silva: “Love defeated hate. Long live Brazil!"

When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 77, arrived this Sunday afternoon, already invested as head of state, at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, he was greeted by a gigantic crowd dressed in red with a roar of ecstasy.

The emotion reserved for the one who has transformed the lives of millions of his compatriots.

They dreamed of this moment years ago.

Waiting a few hours under the inclement sun of the capital was the least of it.

“Love defeated hate.

Long live Brazil! ”, The already president has proclaimed in his second speech of the day, the most heartfelt, the one dedicated to his compatriots.

The former worker and union leader has been moved to tears when talking about the misery suffered by millions of Brazilians.

Jair Bolsonaro, in the United States, has not attended the ceremony.

Lula has promised to fight without quarter against the inequality that weighs down a country that he already presided over between 2003 and 2010. He has recalled that the richest 5% of Brazilians accumulate the same income as the remaining 95%.

Brazil has lived this New Year a political moment that would have been unimaginable not so long ago.

As Brazilians like to remind us, politics here is one of those that will delight any screenwriter.

Both in words and in his gestures, the new president of Brazil has insisted on several ideas: one, he will govern for all Brazilians, those who voted for him and those who did not;

two, he will pay special attention to those who have less, to those who need the State to guarantee their mere survival (income distribution was the hallmark of his two previous terms), and three, victory this time is not a personal achievement nor of the Workers' Party (PT), but of the broad front that he managed to forge with former adversaries.

Only in this way did he manage to defeat Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 67, and it was by little: only 1.8 points.

The president reminded the legislators that 20 years ago, after his first victory, he said in his speech that his life's mission was for every Brazilian to eat three meals a day.

"That I must now repeat that commitment today in the face of the advance of misery and hunger, which we had overcome, is the most serious symptom of the devastation of recent years."

His priority now, he said, will be to rescue 33 million Brazilians from hunger and 100 million from poverty.

After the ceremony, Lula has signed the decrees with the first measures.

She has started by guaranteeing the payment of a monthly aid of 600 reais for 21 million poor Brazilians.

Others restrict the sale of arms, reinforce the fight against deforestation or lift the secrecy imposed by Bolsonaro on official matters, among other measures.

Following the ceremony from a room in the Planalto Palace, Rosa Amorim, 26, a PT deputy in the State of Pernambuco, is jubilant.

“Today Brazil resumes its hope.

Lula is the dream of a Brazil for everyone”, said this young woman from the Landless Workers Movement who, two decades ago, was already campaigning for Lula, who was born in her land.

Her parents have followed a moment of enormous importance for this family from the other side of the street, with the town, in the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, crowded.

Some 300,000 people have participated in the great party, which has included concerts before and after the ceremony.

Excited, the 32-year-old cleaning worker Sunamita Priscila also attended.

She knows Lula with a closeness that few enjoy her.

He worked at the presidential residence during the last year the former metalworker was president, before leaving power in 2010. Then he worked "with Doña Dilma, with Mr. Temer, and with him," he says, referring to Bolsonaro.

She is evangelical, she asks "God to guide her along the way because things are not easy."

The vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, has had an enormous role in the ceremony.

Lula has arrived in a convertible Rolls Royce, but, contrary to what tradition dictates, she was accompanied by Alckmin and their wives.

It was his way of emphasizing that Bolsonaro's "Government of National Destruction" lost the elections thanks to an unprecedented coalition to the left and right of the PT.

Alckmin is a classic center-right figure who lost the 2006 elections to Lula, voted in favor of

, and is now "comrade Alckmin."

The guests who have followed the ceremony from the Planalto Palace magnificently reflect the change that Bolsonaro's departure entails.

Instead of a panorama starring white men in suits or uniforms, the attendees were a more faithful reflection of Brazilian society, with many women, young black men, some women dressed in white with spectacular headdresses, followers of the religions that bequeathed to Brazil their ancestors, enslaved Africans, several indigenous people with their headdresses and paintings or a

with a spectacular red dress.

Brazilians who during Bolsonaro's term have not felt comfortable in their country because the head of state insisted on attacking them and dismantling the policies built over the last few years or decades to protect them.

Bolsonaro, always determined to treat Lula as an enemy, did not attend the ceremony.

He has been in the United States since Friday after two months in which he has been practically silent.

How he will shape his political future and whether he will take an active role as leader of the opposition to Lula is anyone's guess at the moment.

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