Brazil would seem to turn again on a known point.
The return to power from the political rubble of the PT Lula da Silva was a consequence of the failed populist government of Jair Bolsonaro and especially his
disruptive, racist and fanatic personality.
The right-wing leader, in turn, had achieved the impossible of achieving the presidency from his previous insignificance riding on the
serious slippages and self-sufficiency
of the administrations of Dilma Rousseff, Lula's former powerful minister who closed that initial era of the PT in collapse.
Now it is Lula who could be experiencing the reconstruction of the power that he imagined extinguished from his predecessor.
This is what Bolsonaro's supporters translate from the
massive event last Sunday the 25th on Paulista Avenue
.
But perhaps this is an exaggerated conclusion.
Bolsonaro's centrality occurs as a reaction to a notable
cache of evidence
about the former president's own steps that culminated in the insurrection of January 8, 2023. That bitter Sunday, just days after Lula's inauguration, a horde of Bolsonaro fans The former president attacked the headquarters of the Executive, the Judiciary and Parliament in the Plaza of the Three Powers in Brasilia.
The very serious episode was the outcome of the demand to
annul with a blow
the narrow electoral victory of the PT leader pronounced by extremist troops camped in front of the barracks.
Serious extravagance in the largest democracy on the continent.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his recent visit to Guyana.
AFP Photo
Those tests are so definitive that the former president in his speech to the crowd
drifted into a failure
that entertained the ruling party.
"What was the coup? The tank in the street, the weapon, the conspiracy.
Nothing was done in Brazil"
("What is a coup d'état? It's a tank in the street, a weapon, a conspiracy. None of this was done in Brazil")
"Now the coup is because there is a minute of the state decree of defense? Coup using a Constituição?
("Now the coup is due to the fact that there is a draft decree for the defense of the State? A coup using the Constitution?")
Unexpected admission that there was a text with these insurgent intentions.
Coup evidence
The investigation against Bolsonaro is based on messages and testimonies from Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, the president's former aide-de-camp.
From this source it emerges that in a meeting in July 2022 Bolsonaro "suggested
ways to attack the electoral system
and - after the elections in October of that year - his role in drafting the alleged draft decree in which the coup d' état would be based,”
Folha
details .
The decree that the former president cited.
The government did not take long to take advantage of the message.
"Perhaps this is the first time in history that people who committed criminal acts call for an event in a public square and
in the middle of the crowd confess to the crime and go further
," said Chief of Staff Rui Costa.
In the demonstration organized by his favorite pastor, Silas Malafaia, Bolsonaro
sought to appear moderate
, ease tensions and there was no coup cry of
“I authorize you”
that marked his repeated attacks on the electoral system in the past.
It was clear that the former president feels
cornered by the judicial cases
that have already earned him a conviction for unfounded allegations of fraud, the withdrawal of his passport and his ineligibility for public office until 2030. But with the act he got the photo he intended to display that maintains its vote base intact, 25% loyalty despite the barrage of complaints, ability to amplify the rift in the country and warn of possible political costs if the offensive continues.
A point in its favor was the presence on stage of the governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas, that of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema or that of Santa Catarina, Jorginho Mello among others.
Heavyweights who are actually competing for Bolsonaro's electoral spoils,
sure that the future awaits them.
The coup attack on the headquarters of the three powers on January 8, 2023 in Brasilia. Photo EFE
From that perspective, the San Pablo demonstration was also an expression of weakness, which is the view preferred by the ruling party, even scathingly warning that there were fewer people than the far-right expected.
But
it would not be advisable for Lula to fall into underestimations
.
At the beginning of his third term, the leader of the PT was reluctant to punish his predecessor so as not to make his political path easier with victimization and the energy borrowed from remaining hand in hand in a ring with the president.
It was better to bet on oblivion
.
Supreme Judge Alexandr de Moraes, whom Bolsonaro attacked for years, did not stop at these considerations and put together a
case that could be decisive
for the fate of the former head of state.
Lula should now look more closely at the electoral base that maintains that path, they are not all extremists.
She should not lose sight of the fact that he came to the presidency with just 1.8% of the votes and in the second round of an election that was defined from the center by the middle class
fed up with Bolsonaro's intolerance.
The massive event of the Bolsonaristas last Sunday the 25th. Photo AFP
The weight of that social sector was such that the PT in the campaign
washed its red color to a white one,
showed Lula praying and silenced the extremes of the leftist origin of the PT.
Symbols that had actually already been dissolved as proof of the orthodox economic cabinet headed by
the pragmatic Fernando Haddad,
supported by the markets after the unexpected growth of 2.9% last year and with an annual inflation of 4.62% within of the goals for the first time since 2020.
These successes, which prove the resilience of the South American giant and support Lula's image, will
not be repeated this year
, the Ministry of Economy itself acknowledges.
The government's goal of zero budget deficit in 2024 and the risk of an expansion of public spending also come into serious doubt.
What is worrying,
Estadao
points out , is the low speed of economic growth from the third to the fourth quarter, of 0.1%;
the certainty that the agribusiness will not repeat the performance of 2023 and the reduction in investments, 3% compared to 2022.
The Getulio Vargas Foundation projects that
the country will grow +1.4%
this year.
The markets, according to the Central Focus Bulletin, average +1.6%, while the government calculates +2.2%.
The obstacle of very high interest rates, at 12.25%, tends to ease.
So far, the orthodoxy-governed Central Bank has ordered three rate cuts of 50 basis points each, and at least two additional cuts of equal magnitude are on the way.
But it is insufficient.
This is a delicate terrain and for the government it will be central
to maintain the seduction of that moderate electorate
with a view to the municipal elections next October after the resounding failure of the PT in the 2020 event. Bolsonaro's street act also points to this examination .
Winning the municipalities confirms political power.
Lula needs it to reduce the challenge posed by the right that controls Congress and forces him into virtual co-government.
Seventies microphone
Therefore, he should review his attachment to a seventies microphone, at times unusual, which
damages his leadership
and scares the moderate vote, especially if the economic numbers arrive with limits.
In that sense, point out that there is no democracy in Venezuela, contrary to what the PT leader has emphasized and hasten a condemnation of the Chavista despotic escalation against the opposition, the press and human rights organizations.
Nor has Ukraine been to blame for the war
that Russia declared against it, as Lula claimed to the contrary after his trip to China, and it would be important to denounce the scandalous death of the opponent Alexei Navalni and not silence him as the president has done.
At the same time he failed to
compare the Jewish Holocaust with the nightmare of Gaza
.
He thus underestimated the historical tragedy that Nazism generated against the Jewish people and the seriousness with which the disaster experienced by the Palestinians of that territory should be addressed.
There is a government in Israel to be questioned as Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira did at a higher level without falling into unfriendly and provocative slogans.
These views of a world that no longer exists are shots in the feet that
pave the way for the Bolsonaro supporters or their allies
.
As
Valor Economico
pointed out , which is not usually lenient with the government,
“they are voters who maintain that the polls were manipulated and ignore the progress of this government, to which they attribute skyrocketing price increases and rampant corruption.
A crowd impregnated with the virus of denialism that returns with a broad and resistant strain of contagion.”