Lula Da Silva
On Sunday, October 2, Brazilians will head to the polls to elect a new president and the two main contenders are the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and ex-President Lula da Silva.
When President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's second term in office ended in 2002, the opinion polls showed that Lula would be his successor, but a lot of Brazilians thought that the leftist trade unionist would undo so many years of Cardoso's economic reforms. They felt that Lula, who had little formal education might set the nation back, but they were wrong.
Lula quit school after the second grade to work and help his poor family. He was born in the state of Pernambuco In Brazil's poverty-ridden northeast and worked as a shoeshine boy, street vendor, and factory worker. He joined a trade union where he rose to the position of Union President and this post brought him national attention.
Together with others, they formed the left-wing Workers' Party. During his tenure as president, he presided over an extraordinary economic boom. His social welfare program called Bolsa Familia provided financial aid to over twelve million Brazilians, thereby reducing poverty and misery in Brazil.
In his inauguration speech, Lula said that he would consider his life's mission accomplished if every Brazilian was able to have three square meals a day. In this regard, he launched the "Fome Zero" (Zero hunger) program which was designed to facilitate access to adequate food for all Brazilians, especially the poor.
Lula's social intervention programs endeared him to so many Brazilians, especially those in the North and Northeast. He increased the minimum wage from 200 reals to 510 reals which were 100 dollars to 205 dollars. Ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is lauded for openly acknowledging the existence of racial discrimination in Brazil, but it was Lula, who took so many concrete measures to address the issue.
He created a Secretariat for Policies Promoting Racial Equality, a ministry that addressed racial discrimination and he signed into law a bill mandating the inclusion of the history of Africa and Afro Brazilian culture in the curriculum of all elementary schools.
Lula initiated the University Program for All which offered private universities, and federal tax exemptions in exchange for undergraduate scholarships covering tuition. The policy included quota reservations for Brazilians of African descent, mixed-race and indigenous people.
Lula was so successful that his handpicked successor Dilma Rouseff was elected president, but she was impeached by Congress and removed from office. Dilma was impeached for cooking the government books to hide the scope of Brazil's deficit problem.
The Workers' Party under the leadership of both Lula and Dilma was hit with scandals that tarnished the image of the party. Investigators uncovered corruption between the state-owned oil and petrol company Petrobras and several construction companies. Many politicians were implicated in this scandal called operation car wash relating to campaign funds.
In 2017, Lula was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption in a controversial trial. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and his sentence was later increased to 12 years, effectively preventing him from standing in new presidential elections.
Jair Bolsonaro a far-right nationalist won the presidency by tapping into a deep well of resentment of the Worker's Party because of the scandals. Brazilians wanted a change and Jair Bolsonaro successfully offered himself as the alternative.
President Bolsonaro has been labeled a racist because of remarks he made about native Americans and Brazilians of African descent. In an interview on Roda Viva a Brazilian talk show, Bolsonaro was asked about the historical debt Brazil owes to the blacks who were brought in large numbers to Brazil as slaves.
He replied "What historical debt are you talking about? I didn't send anyone into slavery" adding that the Portuguese traders were not responsible for Brazil's trans-Atlantic slave industry and that black people themselves handed over the slaves.
He is also quoted as saying: "the Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have a culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory?" In an outburst, he says: "There is no indigenous territory where there aren't minerals.
Gold, tin, and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I'm not getting into this nonsense of defending the land for Indians".
After serving one and half years in prison, Lula was released and the corruption convictions against him were annulled, paving the way for him to run for a new presidential term. The Supreme court ruled that Lula was tried by a court that did not have proper jurisdiction over the case.
Lula's chance of winning the October election is strengthened by his choice of Vice Presidential candidate Geraldo Alckimin a well-known politician who was the Governor of Sao Paulo and also his Presidential rival in the 2006 elections. Campaigning for the elections is officially scheduled to begin in August but both candidates are unofficially campaigning.
Bolsonaro has stylistic similarities with Donald Trump and some media have nicknamed him the Trump of the Tropics. His anti-democratic credentials are similar to Trump's. Bolsonaro is laying the groundwork to discredit Brazil's electoral process by claiming without proof that the electronic voting machines can be compromised and he frequently lashes out at the Brazilian Supreme Court and Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
President Bolsonaro's handling of the coronavirus is regarded by many as one of the worst pandemic policy responses in the world. Over half a million Brazilians have died of COVID-19.
President Bolsonaro downplayed the gravity of the pandemic from the beginning. He spread false information about covid -19, opposed social distancing, and refused to wear a mask. A Senate committee report concluded that Bolsonaro's ultimate goal was rapid contagion so that Brazil would reach head immunity.
The committee recommends the impeachment of the President. There are scandals dogging the Bolsonaro family. The President and his sons have been accused of running a racket that involves hiring close associates as employees and then receiving a cut of their salaries back from them. The scheme is locally known as "rachadinha" or salary split.
Bolsonaro's anti-graft credentials, which helped him get elected have been seriously dented and Brazil's dim economic situation has only worsened matters for him. Lula is Brazil's most popular politician and a giant in modern Latin American politics. During his term as president, the UN World Food Program (WFP) awarded him the title of "World Champion in the Fight against Hunger.
In late 2005, Lula's Government paid off Brazil's debt to the IMF in full, two years ahead of schedule. And after decades as the largest foreign debtor among emerging economies, Brazil under Lula's watch became a net creditor in January 2008. Between 2003 and 2015, 178 new college campuses were created across the country.
Despite the scandals that rocked his government, Lula da Silva left office with a popularity rating of over 80 percent and he has been consistently leading in the polls. Lula, who is 76 has recently married Rosangela da Silva a 55-year-old sociologist and an activist of Lula's Workers' Party. Bolsonaro has replaced Federal Police Chiefs tasked with leading probes into his family.
He issued a range of controversial presidential decrees on everything from indigenous land rights to social media moderation, but the Supreme court has blocked many of these moves as unlawful. Bolsonaro a Donald Trump admiring nationalist will most likely go the way of Donald Trump - a one-term president. As for Lula da Silva, he is cruising to victory by all indications.