Brazil

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blindpig
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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 29, 2022 3:14 pm

The Most Important Election in Brazil’s History
By BRYAN PITTS
October 29, 2022

Brazil faces a stark choice in its presidential runoff Sunday. Can Lula and the Left overcome Bolsonaro’s misinformation and attempts to buy the vote?

By Bryan Pitts for NACLA

n Sunday, up to 156 million Brazilian voters will go to the polls to choose a new president in a run-off election. The stakes could not be higher. The far-right incumbent is Jair Bolsonaro, whose term (2019-2022) has been marked by endless controversy, accusations of corruption, and the death of more than 600,000 Brazilians in a woefully mismanaged pandemic. He will face the center-left former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose eight years in power (2003-2010) witnessed major reductions in poverty and inequality, sustained efforts to expand rights for marginalized groups, and unprecedented prestige for Brazil on the international stage.

Although Lula defeated Bolsonaro by 5.2 percentage points in the October 2 first-round vote, he did not achieve the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. The most recent polls show Lula leading by margins of 2-6 points. Yet confidence in the polls has been shaken by their failure to accurately forecast Bolsonaro’s first-round total. Most polls placed him between 35 percent and 38 percent of valid votes, but when the votes were counted, the incumbent had 43.2 percent. For his part, Bolsonaro has used the polls’ first-round inaccuracy to claim that they were rigged against him and to call for a law punishing firms for polls that fail to reflect the final vote.

Bolsonaro has also employed the time-honored Brazilian tactic of using his executive control over federal funds to influence the vote, but on an unprecedented scale. Since August, his government has increased cash payments for poor families in the Auxílio Brasil program, the rebranded version of Lula’s wildly popular Bolsa Família program, and raised the number of Auxílio Brasil beneficiaries by 3 million. Bolsonaro also created special subsidies for truckers and taxi drivers, increased payments to help families buy cooking propane, and moved up a variety of welfare payments to take place in advance of the second round vote. The Lula campaign has filed a complaint with the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), alleging that pro-Bolsonaro businesses have attempted to coerce their employees into voting for the incumbent.

On top of all this, Bolsonaro has continuously made unsubstantiated claims that Brazil’s globally-respected electronic voting system—in place since the 1990s—is susceptible to fraud. These allegations are being spread internationally by Trump allies such as Steven Bannon, and claims are now circulating in far-right circles that the U.S. companies they have accused of rigging the 2020 election for Joe Biden are now being used in Brazil to steal the election from Bolsonaro.

Despite the ludicrousness of these claims, Bolsonaro has an advantage that Donald Trump lacked in his attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. election: a long tradition of military intervention in politics. As recently as 2018, the military pressured the Supreme Court to send Lula to prison for his politically-motivated conviction on false corruption charges. Could this mean that Bolsonaro has a better chance of succeeding at overturning the election than Trump did?

In fact, despite these attempts to buy votes and sow doubts about the trustworthiness of Brazil’s democratic institutions, there is still cause for optimism going into Sunday. Both the third- and fourth-place finishers, Mato Grosso do Sul senator, Simone Tebet, and former Ceará governor and Lula cabinet member, Ciro Gomes, have endorsed Lula. Tebet has actively campaigned for Lula, while Gomes, after a tepid initial endorsement, has been silent, just as he was in the 2018 runoff. Nonetheless, polls indicate that most of their supporters will back Lula.

While uncertainty about the polls’ accuracy continues, the firm that came closest to predicting the first-round result, predicting 50.3 percent for Lula and 41.1 percent for Bolsonaro, currently shows Lula with a 53 percent to 47 percent lead. Other polls show Lula with as much as an 8-point lead. After the first debate on October 16, focus groups and pundits generally agreed that Lula outperformed his rival. The former president will have a final chance to increase his lead in Friday’s final presidential debate.

Lula’s lead has widened slightly in the wake of an October 14 podcast interview in which Bolsonaro appeared to speak favorably of statutory rape. The president claimed that he “felt a spark” during an encounter with a group of 14- and 15-year-old Venezuelan girls who he took for sex workers, as he rode his motorcycle on the outskirts of Brasília. The opposition quickly jumped on his statement to accuse him of pedophilia. Bolsonaro has also had to explain his friendship with former federal congressman Roberto Jefferson, who is facing attempted murder charges after opening fire on federal police officers last Sunday. The officers were attempting to arrest Jefferson for breaking the terms of a home confinement, after being arrested in 2021 for spreading political disinformation via social media.

On balance, then, the indications point toward Lula winning the runoff on October 30. Should Bolsonaro lose, there is little doubt that he will follow the lead of his friend and hero, Trump, and declare—again, without evidence—that the results were fraudulent. However, fears of a military coup to overturn the election are, if not entirely unfounded, certainly overblown. There appears to be little appetite among military leadership for another blatant intervention in civilian political institutions. The military’s ignominious withdrawal from power amidst mass protests and economic collapse at the close of the 1964-1985 dictatorship persists in the national memory, and it is unlikely the military would decide en masse to support another such intervention. Moreover, historically military interventions have nearly always taken place at the behest of a decisive majority of the country’s civilian political class. As my forthcoming book argues, the trauma of military tutelage during the last dictatorship has created great reticence among Brazil’s political elite toward any prospective attempt by the military to return to power.

If the polls are indeed within striking distance of the final results, and if Bolsonaro does founder in his probable attempt to overturn the election, it is likely that on January 1, 2023, Lula will be sworn into office for a third term as president. And the Left in the Global North will watch with hope that he can indeed fazer o Brasil feliz de novo—make Brazil happy again.

https://www.brasilwire.com/the-most-imp ... s-history/

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Bolsonaro Calls Ballot The Most Important Election In Brazil

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Archive photograph dated October 22, 2022, showing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, while participating in a campaign event, in Guarulhos | Photo: EFE/ Sebastião Moreira

Published 27 October 2022

The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and candidate for re-election for the Liberal Party (extreme right) on Thursday described this Sunday's ballot as the most crucial election in the country in a campaign event he held in Rio de Janeiro.

This Sunday's election is "one of the most important elections" in the country, said Bolsonaro in his speech during the event, reported local news portal G1.

The ultra-right candidate participated in a caravan in the Baixada Fluminense and then held a rally in the West Zone of Rio.

Bolsonaro was accompanied by the reelected governor of Rio, Cláudio Castro, deputies, local political and religious leaders.

The candidate attacked in his speech his adversary, former leftist president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011): "More than choosing a president identified with you, it is choosing what we want for our Brazil. Is it the return of the past, of corruption? Or is it the permanence in this path of peace, work, order, and progress?".

Bolsonaro highlighted the reduction in inflation in recent months, driven by the fall in fuel prices.

In September, Brazil registered deflation for the third consecutive month.

The runoff between Lula and Bolsonaro will be held this Sunday and the left-wing leader starts with a slight advantage; according to the Datafolha poll released on Thursday, he would have 49 percent of the votes against Bolsonaro's 44 percent.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... -0015.html

Lula Accuses Bolsonaro of Isolating Brazil From the World

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Lula (l) and Bolsonaro (r) during their latest debate | Photo: Prensa Latina

Published 28 October 2022

On Friday, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took advantage of the last debate between candidates before Sunday's presidential elections to accuse the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, of having adopted a foreign policy that isolated Brazil from the entire world.


"Brazil will continue like you, alone," said Lula in the last debate between the two candidates before Sunday's runoff election, held in a Globo TV studio in Rio de Janeiro.

Discussing foreign policy proposals for the South American giant, the former trade unionist accused the ex-military man of being isolated. "What are you going to do to reinsert Brazil in the world?" he asked.

Bolsonaro did not answer immediately and Lula reiterated that the former paratrooper "has no relationship with any country in the world...he knows that our foreign policy (during his administration from 2003-2011) was the most effective," he said.

The former mechanic recalled that "Brazil was a major international player during my administration...Nobody wants to talk to Brazil and no country wants to receive Bolsonaro", stressed the presidential standard-bearer of the Workers' Party.

From the beginning of the televised confrontation, Lula invited his political adversary to stop lying before the Brazilian people and again commented that "no president of any country wants to come here," alluding to the frictions Bolsonaro had with world leaders over environmental policy issues.

Mediated by journalist William Bonner, the debate established five blocks: the first and third were free topics, lasting 30 minutes.

After the end of the event, the candidates participated in a press conference, with 10 minutes each.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Lul ... -0020.html

Brazilian Amazon Loses More Than 9,000 KM2 So Far This Year

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Fisherman Manoel Andrade de Araújo, 73, observes his boat stuck in the low waters of Lago do Aleixo affected by drought, on October 25, 2022, in the Amazon , in Manaus (Brazil) | Photo: EFE / Raphael Alves

Published 28 October 2022 (17 hours 28 minutes ago)

The Brazilian Amazon has lost more than 9,000 square kilometers of virgin vegetation so far this year, according to official data released Friday by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology.


Between January 1 and October 21 of this year (the latest data available), satellites issued deforestation alerts for 9,277 square kilometers, the agency reported.

This is the worst number in the entire history of Deter, INPE's Real Time Deforestation Detection (Deter) system.

Even with two months left in the year, that mark already surpasses the entire year of 2019, the worst to date, when 9,178 square kilometers of forest were lost.

Fires and deforestation in the Amazon have broken records year after year during the mandate of President Jair Bolsonaro, who always denied the problem and encouraged the practice of environmental crimes, such as illegal mining, for example.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0015.html

Lula's party reversed this trend once and must win in order to do it again.

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Lula says Bolsonaro will pay for mistakes during the pandemic

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Throughout the debate, both Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro attacked each other, making references to mistakes made during their terms. | Photo: EFE
Published 29 October 2022

At another point in the debate, Lula da Silva blamed Bolsonaro for leading the country to international isolation during his government.

During the second presidential debate in Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that current President Jair Bolsonaro will one day have to pay for the mistakes made during the pandemic, which has left more than 690,000 dead from Covid-19 in the country. country.

The former president and candidate for the Workers' Party (PT), blamed his rival for the impoverishment of the population in the last four years.

"One day you will have to pay for the nearly 300,000 people who died due to the delay in the immunization process against Covid-19 in Brazil," Lula blamed Bolsonaro, recalling that he delayed the decision to purchase vaccines and resisted Recognize the severity of the disease.


At another point in the debate, Lula da Silva blamed Bolsonaro for leading the country to international isolation during his government.

From the beginning of the television confrontation, Lula invited the right-wing president to stop lying to the Brazilian people and once again commented that "no president of any country wants to come here," alluding to the friction that Bolsonaro had with world leaders over security issues. environmental policies.


Throughout the debate, both Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro attacked each other, making references to mistakes made during their terms.

Bolsonaro repeatedly accused the former president of lying during the electoral campaign and also, in reproaching him for the corruption scandals that tarnished his government (2003-2010) and that of his co-religionist Dilma Rousseff.

To respond to Bolsonaro's provocations, Lula addressed the spectators to "apologize" for the lack of proposals in a debate where the word "lie" was the protagonist.

In the final part of the debate, the PT candidate asked for the vote to restore harmony in the country, assuring that Brazil "probably" experienced its best moment during his administration.


For his part, Jair Bolsonaro took advantage of his final statement to defend the most conservative values, stating that his opponents defend the liberation of drugs and the legalization of abortion.

The president concluded by repeating his campaign slogan "Brazil above all, God above all."


Lula reaches the second round as the candidate with the most votes in the first round, with 48.4 percent obtained on October 2, compared to the 43.2 received by Bolsonaro.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/brasil-l ... -0005.html

Google Translator

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Brazil: Between Democracy and Far-Right Autocracy
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 28, 2022

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Juraima Almeida and Aram Aharonian
Nothing will be the same in Brazil from the night of Sunday 30, when 156 million Brazilians will have chosen their next president from the extreme right-wing Jair Bolsonaro and the progressive Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and decided between democracy and a future for all, or the autocracy of a government backed by the military commanders, for the benefit of the richest.

“We have reached the moment to define our destiny. Nothing will be as before, after next Sunday. We will be profoundly happy or unhappy. We will regain the power to decide the destiny of the country. Or we will definitively give up the power to define what we want for Brazil,” explains sociologist Emir Sader.

The unknown is whether Bolsonaro will accept a possible defeat after sowing suspicions against the voting system for months in the purest Donald Trump style. Although he has toned down his threats, he remains elusive about what his reaction will be in the event that he loses to Lula, the favorite in the polls.

From the time the results are known until the inauguration of the next president on January 1, 2023, the last two months of the year will pass. Whatever the outcome, everything points to the perpetuation of the asymmetric polarization between a light left and an aggressive extreme right in a country with fragile democratic institutions.

The battle is not only between Lula and Bolsonaro, but between democracy and authoritarianism, food sovereignty and hunger, dignity and servility, religious freedom and Pentecostal moral crusade. Whoever wins, what is certain is that a dark cloud of far-right parliamentarians will continue to be active in the country, occupying the space of opposition to the progressivism of the Workers’ Party (PT). And, surely, Bolsonaro will be the great spokesman of this camp.

Between the extreme right and democracy

The election in Brazil mobilizes forces and movements of the extreme right all over the world, while foreign democracies prepare to ratify on Sunday the results of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) in the hope of avoiding a space for a democratic rupture or a questioning of the results.

In several foreign capitals, the order of the governments is to prepare the news cables so that on Sunday, the winner of the election may be congratulated by the presidents. The strategy was used in the election of Joe Biden in the United States, in an effort to stifle Donald Trump’s operation to question the result and warn of alleged fraud.

What is desired is to avoid a repetition of the scenario of the assault on the Capitol in the United States in 2021, with an eventual coup d’état: an endorsement on Sunday of the TSE results may send a signal that an institutional breakdown will not be welcome. Washington also alerted the Brazilian government that there is no room for Bolsonaro to question the electoral process.

This week, the presidents of the governments of Spain and Portugal, Pedro Sánchez and Antonio Costa, announced their support for the candidacy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and both insisted on defending democracy. Weeks ago the support came from former European heads of state and government, including those of the right wing.

“The outcome of the Brazilian presidential election will have a decisive impact, which will go far beyond its borders. When democracy is in danger, it is necessary to unite the divergent to defeat the antagonists. That is why we, former heads of state and government of various political persuasions, support the candidacy of former President Lula,” said former French President François Hollande.

Also on the list are José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Spanish Prime Minister, Massimo d’Alema and Enrico Letta, former heads of government of Italy, Micheline Calmy Rey, former president of Switzerland, and Elio di Rupo, former prime minister of Belgium.

But the election also mobilizes the extreme right of the world, which in the last four years has had bolsonarismo in power in Brazil to advance its agenda and dismantle consensus on human rights issues. In the first electoral round, Bolsonaro’s campaign released a video in which several far-right leaders announced their support for the Brazilian. Almost all of them were out of government or had been defeated in recent elections, except Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister.

The polls do not like him

In his quick speech this Wednesday night, Wednesday 26, at the Palácio da Alvorada, President Jair Bolsonaro admitted that his polls counted fewer votes than his campaign team expected stated: “In certain places I thought he would do well and could even win (…), we lost. Certainly the insertions made a difference.”

Perhaps that explains the president’s irritation, the suspension of his trip to Rio de Janeiro, the hasty convening of threatening meetings in Brasília with ministers, military commanders and campaign advisors, and the call to the press for his pronouncement.

If Bolsonaro’s intention was to demonstrate strength, the effect was the opposite: it was a testimony of weakness and fear of defeat at the polls. The campaign for reelection detected that he has fewer votes than he imagined and the candidate tries to defame or postpone the vote scheduled for Sunday, as advised by his domestic and foreign advisors.

Bolsonaro follows a similar script – this one second-hand – to the one adopted by Trump when he tried to derail the elections in that country: denouncing that there would be a flawed vote counting system and retail fraud, calling his voters to remain in the streets in a state of alert, before, during and after the opening of the polls.

Bolsonaro is complaining about the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, because he did not respond to a request to open an investigation into the complaint that twelve radio stations in the Northeast were not broadcasting his electoral propaganda. “He is desperate because he knows he is going to lose.” commented Lula.

A concerted effort of recommendations from his advisors dissuaded Bolsonaro from trying to hurl vilifications against the TSE president. And the coup announcement that many feared became a drop in the bucket. By the way, a coup is not announced, it is implemented.

Ricardo Noblat talks about Bolsonaro’s plans for Sunday night: since the votes in the northeast – where Lula leads – are the last to be counted, Bolsonaro will rush to announce his victory when he is ahead in the count. If the election ends with his defeat, he will say that the election was stolen from him and that he will react “within the four lines of the Constitution.” Or simply say it was stolen.

All the resources of the State to stay in office

But what has never, ever been seen before concerns the vast distribution of resources, exceeding 13.6 billion dollars in the attempt to buy votes, leaving a huge hole in the public accounts for 2023 and drastic cuts in resources destined for education and health, environmental protection and indigenous rights.

What no one manages to understand, much less explain, is how all this, from the spreading of scandalous lies to the scandalous distribution of public money both through “social benefits” and an illegal “secret budget”, happens in the face of the inactivity of the authorities, both of the Superior Electoral Court and the Federal Supreme Court, says writer and analyst Eric Nepomuceno.

Perhaps it is a sign of Jair Bolsonaro’s dishonesty in order not to abandon the prerogatives of the presidential chair and thus be able to evade the courts of justice. But it is also a dramatic demonstration of the extent to which Brazilians allow themselves to be manipulated.

“Apesar de você, amanhã há de ser outro dia. Eu pergunto a você. Onde vai se esconder da enorme euforia?” (In spite of you, tomorrow will be another day. Where are you going to hide from the enormous euphoria?), sang Chico Buarque.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... autocracy/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 30, 2022 5:32 pm

Brazilian Polling Stations Begin to Receive Voters

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People line up to vote at Pedro II school, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Oct. 30, 2022. | Photo: teleSUR

Published 30 October 2022 (3 hours 3 minutes ago)

With notoriously forced smiles and no crowd to cheer him on, the far-right politician Bolsonar walked in and out of the polling place in Rio de Janeiro.

On Sunday, the Brazilian polling stations opened their doors at 8:00 local time for the second round of the presidential elections, in which current President Jair Bolsonaro and the Workers' Party candidate Lula da Silva face off.

Some 156.4 million Brazilians are called to the polls, which will remain open until 5:00 p.m., although as in the first round, held on October 2, all voters who are in line at the closing time.

Voting will take place in 5,570 Brazilian cities and in 181 locations abroad. Both candidates rushed until the last moment on Saturday to close a fierce campaign, which lasted two and a half months.

On Sunday, surrounded by a dozen bodyguards, Bolsonaro voted in Rio de Janeiro at 8:10. Neither supporters nor opponents were present when he voted at a polling place where the only crowding and noise was caused by journalists.

The tweet reads, "Brazilian presidential elections 2022 / Second round. Brazilians arrive to vote in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Over 10,000 people are expected for the voting, which began 45 minutes ago."

With notoriously forced smiles and no crowd to cheer him on, the far-right politician walked in and out of the polling place. Bolsonaro said a few words to the press and left escorted by a caravan of security cars.

Brazilians residing in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, and Japan were the first ones to vote in the second round of elections. Due to the time difference, elections there have already concluded and polling stations have begun the process of counting and verifying votes.

In the first round, Lula was the most voted candidate with 48.4 percent of the valid votes, compared to 43.2 percent obtained by the former Captain Bolsonaro. The voting intention polls carried out in the last week also predict Lula's victory this Sunday.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0001.html

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Bolsonaro Ally Team Murders Unarmed Man, Destroy Evidence
By BRASILWIRE
October 29, 2022

Away from the presidential race, the biggest scandal in Brazil’s post dictatorship history may be taking place in the state of São Paulo, in its race for Governor. It involves a staged assassination attempt, the murder of an unarmed man, and secret service agents ordering the destruction of evidence.

São Paulo is Brazil’s most powerful state, with the GDP and population of a large European country. Yet ignored internationally, a shocking story is unfolding in the final days before the 2022 election runoffs which involves São Paulo gubernatorial candidate and Bolsonaro ally Tarcísio Freitas staging a fake assassination attempt during a campaign event in a favela, with one of his staff murdering an unarmed man as he rode by on his motorcycle.

Tarcisio, Bolsonaro’s former infrastructure minister, who hails from Rio de Janeiro and has never lived in the state he seeks to govern, has been linked with organised crime Militias that terrorise his home state. He has allotted a substantial amount of his TV campaign time to refute this accusation. Tarcisio has also promised powerful evangelical Universal Church a role in his state government if elected. He has also promised to privatise the massive state water company Sabesp.

Earlier his week, Folha de S. Paulo newspaper revealed audio recorded by the cameraman of a Freitas employee, who is on loan from Brazil’s Intelligence agency ABIN, ordering him to erase footage, which he said was of Freitas security officers shooting unarmed Felipe Lima, 28.

4 witnesses now say they saw Tarcisio Freitas’ security staff murder an unarmed man in Paraisópolis favela that day.

On Wednesday, human rights group Tortura Nunca Mais demanded that the police conduct an internal investigation of what they say has all the signs of an execution. Another of Tarcisio’s promises is to remove the requirement for police uniforms to carry cameras.

The day of the shooting, during their allotted television time, the Bolsonaro campaign ran footage of frightened Tarcisio campaign workers ducking for cover, and falsely insinuated that organised crime group PCC had attempted to kill him because it supports presidential candidate Lula. As more information came in, Tarcisio immediately started back peddling on his initial statements made on social media insinuating it was an attempt on his life.

After a spokesman for São Paulo military police announced that it was not an assassination attempt, cameraman Marcos Andrade went to Folha with his story of being forced to erase his video, saying that he fears for his life.

In the gubernatorial debate on Thursday 27th October, candidate Fernando Haddad (PT) asked Tarcisio why he had his staff destroy evidence of murder. Tarcisio claimed he was acting in “good faith” to protect those present. Haddad repeated, “Did your campaign destroy murder evidence or not?”. Tarcisio had no plausible response.

“Did you destroy evidence, Tarcisio?”

“It was in good faith”

“So you destroyed it?”


The makeup of Tarcisio’s team is another cause for concern. There were seven military police officers, one federal police officer and an ABIN intelligence agent working for his campaign on the day of Felipe Lima’s murder, and opponent Fernando Haddad has pointed out that he doesn’t have any such security detail. It is not normal for Gubernatorial candidates to have police officers of any sort working for their campaign. The Federal Police officer who was – bizarrely – working for Tarcisio that day also worked for Jair Bolsonaro on the day of the controversial knife incident in Juiz de Fora during the 2018 election.

The implications are staggering, especially given that ABIN agents were involved, overseen by Bolsonaro ally, head of institutional security and key planner behind the Military’s return to power, General Heleno. By his side at Bolsonaro’s press conference on Thursday night, Heleno was the only high profile military figure who is still accompanying the president in public. Even Bolsonaro’s own vice, General Braga Netto, has been almost invisible during the second round of the election.

Although Tarcisio has been leading in polls, the candidates were technically tied two days before the election. In the wake of this developing scandal, Tarcisio’s campaign fear it could cost him the vote, which would cause the Bolsonaro coalition to lose its chance at governing Brazil’s largest state. It may also result in Tarcisio or his staff being charged with murder.

That this grave story and others similarly damaging to Bolsonaro and far right allies’ chances of re-election have been ignored by anglophone media will be another serious question for the aftermath.

https://www.brasilwire.com/bolsonaro-al ... -evidence/

Vargas Llosa And The Autocratic Involution Of Liberalism
By BRASILWIRE
May 17, 2022
By Atilio Borón

I must admit, Vargas Llosa is, as Jorge Luis Borges would say, “incorrigible.” The passage of time is implacable and in his case, unlike others, it has accelerated his physical but above all mental degradation. The Peruvian storyteller has already succumbed to what Alejo Carpentier, in his extraordinary novel (The Kingdom of this World), called “the irreparable outrage of the years.” His most recent public statements, reproduced urbi et orbi by the media scoundrels at the empire’s service, plunge him even deeper into ignominy and opprobrium. Invited to the Buenos Aires Book Fair, he took the opportunity to rub elbows with the most rancid of the Argentine authoritarian right-wing, mortal enemy of democracy in this country. And shortly afterward, or more precisely on May 11, he gave a talk in Montevideo where, when asked his opinion about the future elections in Brazil, he declared that “Bolsonaro is a very difficult case. His antics are very difficult for a liberal to accept. Now, between Bolsonaro and Lula, I prefer Bolsonaro. Even with the antics, he is not Lula.” He lamented that in Europe there is a “kind of infatuation with Lula” despite the fact that the former Brazilian president “was in prison” and the judges convicted him “for thievery.”

It is obvious that the author of Conversation in the Cathedral is trapped at the bottom of an ideological whirlpool that leads him to the most repugnant extremes of political thought. Only a fatigued or hopelessly worn-out mind can qualify as “antics” that numerous intellectuals and academics, as well as various social movements and popular forces in Brazil, have described as genocidal policies. There are reports from Brazil’s Senate that ratify this, and complaints at the Hague’s International Criminal Court, from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), for the crimes of genocide and ecocide. Of course, for the sad character we are dealing with, these are nothing but propaganda maneuvers, artifacts of the left’s “cultural war,” in its relentless combat against the forces of “freedom,” which have in the multi-prizewinning writer their figurehead and greatest worldwide propagandist.

That superficiality with which he judges Bolsonaro’s crimes goes hand in hand with the airiness with which he assures that judges “condemned Lula as a thief”. He fails to say that it was not “judges” but Judge Sergio Moro, a diligent student of the “Best Practices” courses that the U.S. government organizes annually to train the minds of judges, prosecutors, attorneys, academics, journalists, and politicians brought to that country to learn from a group of experts how justice is administered, journalism and teaching are practiced and the good laws that the empire needs are elaborated. Somersaulting several centuries backward, Moro took modern law back to the times of the Holy Inquisition and condemned Lula “because he had the conviction that this man had stolen,” although he acknowledged that he did not have a single piece of evidence to substantiate his ruling. Of course, this was lawfare by means of which it became necessary to remove Lula from the electoral competition and facilitate the win of Bolsonaro, who rewarded the corrupt judge by appointing him Minister of Justice and Public Security of Brazil. But again, for Vargas Llosa, these are all unimportant details. What is certain is that, given the choice between Bolsonaro and Lula, he prefers the violent genocidal friend of the paramilitaries and mortal enemy of human rights, over the former metalworker.

Vargas Llosa deserves the most categorical repudiation. A little over a year ago he wrote a long article extolling two shadowy Colombian “narco-governors:” Álvaro Uribe Vélez and Iván Duque. Names associated with the most horrendous crimes perpetrated in that long-suffering nation: “mass graves,” “false positives,” displacement of millions of peasants by paramilitary henchmen, and indiscriminate killings. More recently, under the Duque government, Colombia has entered an endless sequence of assassinations of political and social leaders, a true drop by drop genocide that enjoys official impunity. And shortly thereafter, unhinged by the prospects of Pedro Castillo’s possible triumph in the Peruvian presidential elections, the novelist burned all of his idols, abjured all of his convictions and put the entire immense propaganda apparatus of the empire at the service of Keiko Fujimori, the same who just a few months previously was accused of corruption and total complicity in the crimes of her father, former President Alberto Fujimori. As they say, Don Mario is a man of principles…

But one must take the analysis one step further because the tremendous political and ideological involution of this character only gives the appearance of an idiosyncratic question, exhausted by his arrogant vanity. The reactionary deviation of his thought is an exemplary illustration of the historical evolution of liberalism – in its most diverse currents – within the framework of a new general crisis of capitalism that has gathered force due to the radically changed international geopolitical balance in recent months. The siren songs of yesteryear, falsely democratic and respectful of human rights, have given way to an open apology for all kinds of despotism. This is what Vargas Llosa reflects in his public statements on the situation. Hence the names of his new heroes: Bolsonaro, Duque, Keiko … The market’s invisible hand has become the iron fist of fascism. Faced with such a threat, the people’s forces must not continue in sterile divisions. If they are not capable of uniting in the face of the monster that can already be seen in the serpent’s egg, the future of humanity will hang by a thread, and the worst dystopias will be children’s stories compared to what that vengeful, racist and oppressive rightwing will be capable of doing in order to defend its threatened interests and privileges.

Source: Blog Atilio Borón

Translation: Red en Defensa de la Humanidad – Cuba

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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 31, 2022 2:05 pm

Lula Becomes Brazil’s New President Despite Bolsonaro’s Voter Suppression Tactics
OCTOBER 31, 2022

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This Sunday, October 30, former President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva outvoted President Jair Bolsonaro, less than two hours after the polling stations closed to conclude the second round of elections that were held to choose the president of Brazil.

With 98.86% of total votes counted, the official website of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal declared him the winner with 50.83%, represented in 59,563,912 votes, while Bolsonaro got 49.17%, which translates into 57,627,462 votes, a difference of more than 2 million votes.

The Brazilian electoral authority website indicates that with these values ​​the choice is already defined mathematically in favor of Lula.


With these results, Lula becomes the first Brazilian to enter the Planalto Palace for a third term, and Bolsonaro the first president not to be re-elected for a second term, according to RT.

Likewise, it points out that the narrow margin, the narrowest since the redemocratization of the country, reflects a completely divided country but also the voter suppression launched on election day to discourage voting in areas known to be supportive of Lula.

Electoral irregularities

The polls closed at 5:00 p.m., Brazil time, after a day in which more than 156 million Brazilians were eligible to vote. With a total of 124.25 million votes counted by the electoral authority, it represents an approximate turnout of 79.6%.

The day was marked by complaints of roadblocks by the police in the northeast of the country, in Lula’s electoral fiefdom, to prevent or delay voters’ access to polling stations.


This was denounced by deputy Paulo Teixeira, of the Workers’ Party (PT).

According to Teixeira, law enforcement agencies controlled by the government tried to “create artificial political incidents for the benefit of the candidacy for re-election,” Jair Bolsonaro and to the detriment of Lula da Silva.

Lula’s first message after his victory: “Democracy”

“Democracy,” was the first tweet that the elected president of Brazil published on his Twitter account after his victory was announced. He accompanied the tweet with a photo on the Brazilian flag with his hand over it.


Hundreds of Lula’s supporters are celebrating on Paulista Avenue in São Paolo, where he himself can also be located. They are awaiting his first speech as winner of the contested presidential race.

Featured image: Lula Da Silva, the new president of Brazil, holding a Brazilian flag during a campaign rally a few days before the second round. Photo: EFE.

(Últimas Noticias) by Aurig Hernandez, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/lula-becomes ... n-tactics/

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Brazilian Police Make Checkpoints Hindering Movement of Voters

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Federal highway police carry out a bus checkpoint, Oct. 30, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @slpng_giants_pt

Published 30 October 2022 (20 hours 14 minutes ago)

Citizens denounced these checkpoints are taking place mainly in the Northeast, a region that has traditionally supported Lula da Silva.


A few hours before the conclusion of the Brazilian runoff on Sunday, democratic social and political forces denounced events that could be hindering the electoral process.

In response to the complaints, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) asked the Federal Highway Police (PRF) for explanations for carrying out operations that are hindering the free movement of citizens.

TSE President Alexandre de Moraes summoned PRF Director Silvinei Vasques to ask why the police are carrying out checkpoints, despite the fact that the electoral authority expressly prohibited any police action that could hinder the transportation of voters.

URGENTE | BRASIL | Bolsonaro esta impidiendo que la gente del nordeste de Brasil pueda votar libremente utilizando para ellos a las policías.
En otras ciudades autobuses repletos de votantes están detenidos en recintos cercanos a los centros de votaciones. pic.twitter.com/x4052HkARd

— PIENSAPRENSA 315 mil Seguidores (@PiensaPrensa) October 30, 2022


The tweet reads, "Using the police, Bolsonaro is preventing people in the Brazilian northeast from being able to vote freely. In other cities, buses full of voters remain stopped in precincts near voting centers."

Through social networks, citizens denounced the checkpoints are taking place mainly in the Northeast, a region that has traditionally supported the Workers' Party presidential candidate Lula da Silva.

The Brazilian Northeast has the largest number of states in the country: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceara, Maranhao, Paraiba, Piaui, and Pernambuco. Within this region, many Indigenous peoples have actively opposed the environmental destruction caused by President Jair Bolsonaro.

The majority of the Indigenous population lives in rural areas and travels to voting centers by bus. Stopping these vehicles implies directly obstructing the movement of voters, as denounced by independent media.

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The tweet reads, “Federal Highway Police disobeys the TSE and multiplies actions against voter transportation.”

"They are trying to end one of the most sacred rights of our Constitution: the vote. It is an action with clearly electoral objectives. Let the Northeast vote!" Senator Humberto Costa said.

"Urgent! The Bolsonarist Federal Highway Police director Silvanei Vasques stated through a statement that he will NOT carry out any order from Alexandre de Moraes. THAT IS A COUP!," outlet PopTime tweeted, attaching the document signed by Vasques.

During the first round held on Oct. 2, Lula da Silva obtained 48.12 percent of the valid votes in the Northeast states, while Bolsonaro obtained 43.47 percent.

[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1586769902756540417[/youtube]

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0011.html

Brazil “Is Back,” Says Lula After Election Victory

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Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hugs members of his entourage after delivering a speech today in Sao Paulo (Brazil). | Photo: EFE / Sebastiao Moreira

The winner of the Brazilian presidential elections on Sunday, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), assured that he would work to put his country back on the international stage in his victory speech at the Intercontinental Hotel in the state capital.

"Today, we are telling the world that Brazil is back and is too big to be relegated to the sad role of a pariah," he exclaimed.

The former President and metal worker focused on international politics in the last stretch of the electoral campaign.

"What I hear the most in my international trips is that the world misses that sovereign Brazil that spoke on equal terms with the richest and most powerful countries and, at the same time, contributed to the poorest countries," he said.

He also recalled that his previous administrations strengthened Mercosur and other regional integration organizations.

"We are going to reconquer the credibility, predictability and stability of the country so that investors regain confidence in Brazil, so that they stop seeing our country as a source of immediate and predatory profit and become our allies in economic growth with social inclusion and environmental sustainability," he proposed.

He also spoke of recovering partnerships with the United States and the European Union under new standards. "We are not interested in trade agreements that condemn our country to enter the role of the seller of commodities and raw materials. We are going to reindustrialize and invest in the green economy", he added.

At the same time, he raised the end of the right to veto that undermines the balance between nations in the UN and the enlargement of the General Assembly and the Security Council.

"We are ready to re-engage in the fight against hunger in the world. Brazil is ready to regain its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis by protecting all our biomes, especially the Amazon rainforest," he concluded.

Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential elections on Sunday with 50.90 percent of the votes, against 49.10 percent for his rival, the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, so as of January 1, he will assume his third term as the head of the Executive.

Lula promises to open Amazon preservation to international cooperation

"We will monitor the surveillance of the Amazon and combat any illegal activity. At the same time, we will promote the sustainable development of the communities that live there and prove once again that it is possible to generate wealth without destroying the environment. We are open to international cooperation to preserve the Amazon, but always under Brazil's leadership, without giving up our sovereignty", said the former president (2003-2011).

The former metallurgist affirmed: "Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon; a standing tree is worth more than tons of illegally extracted timber, a river of clean water is worth more than all the gold extracted at the cost of mercury that kills the fauna and puts human life at risk."

"When an indigenous child dies because of the greed of predators, a part of humanity dies with it (...) We commit with the indigenous peoples; we want environmental pacification, we are not interested in a war for the environment, but we are ready to defend it from any threat", he completed.

The president-elect elaborated on the idea of generating sustainable development for food production, as opposed to the agribusiness that drove Jair Bolsonaro's candidacy in 2017, which massively turned out to the polls in the present elections.

"Our most urgent commitment is to end hunger again; we cannot accept as normal that millions of men, women and children do not have to eat in this country or that they consume less protein than necessary. We are the third largest producer of food and the largest producer of animal protein," he emphasized.

And he added: "We are capable of exporting to the whole world and we have the duty to ensure that every Brazilian can have breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. This will once again be the number one commitment of my government".

"We cannot accept as normal that entire families are forced to sleep on the streets; that is why we will resume the "my house my life" program and bring back inclusion programs. Brazil can no longer live with this immense concrete wall of inequality. This country has to recognize itself, to find itself again", he concluded.

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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 01, 2022 2:11 pm

Lula Becomes Brazil’s New President Despite Bolsonaro’s Voter Suppression
OCTOBER 31, 2022

Image
Lula Da Silva, the new president of Brazil, holding a Brazilian flag during a campaign rally a few days before the second round. Photo: EFE.

This Sunday, October 30, former President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva outvoted President Jair Bolsonaro, less than two hours after the closing of the polls, concluding the second round of presidential elections in Brazil.

With 98.86% of total votes counted, the official website of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal declared Lula the winner with 50.83%, represented in 59,563,912 votes, while Bolsonaro got 49.17%, represented in 57,627,462 votes, making a difference of more than 2 million votes.

The Brazilian electoral authority website indicates that with these values ​​the choice is already defined mathematically in favor of Lula.


With these results, Lula becomes the first Brazilian to enter the Planalto Palace for a third term, and Bolsonaro the first president not to be re-elected for a second term, according to RT.

Likewise, it points out that the narrow margin—the narrowest since the redemocratization of the country—reflects a completely divided country, and it can also be attributed to the suppression launched against voters on election day to discourage voting in areas known to be supportive of Lula.

Electoral irregularities

The polls closed at 5:00 p.m., Brasília time, after a day in which more than 156 million Brazilians were eligible to vote. With a total of 124.25 million votes counted by the electoral authority, it represents an approximate turnout of 79.6%.

The day was marked by complaints of roadblocks by the police in the northeast of the country, in Lula’s electoral fiefdom, to prevent or delay voters’ access to polling stations.


This was denounced by deputy Paulo Teixeira of the Workers’ Party (PT).

According to Teixeira, law enforcement agencies controlled by the government tried to, “create artificial political incidents for the benefit of the candidacy for re-election [Jair Bolsonaro],” and work towards the detriment of Lula da Silva.

Lula’s first message after his victory: “Democracy”

“Democracy,” was the first tweet that the elected president of Brazil published on his Twitter account after his victory was announced. He accompanied the tweet with a photo on the Brazilian flag with his hand over it.


Hundreds of Lula’s supporters (as well as Lula himself) are celebrating on Paulista Avenue in São Paolo, and they are awaiting his first speech as winner of the contested presidential race.

(Últimas Noticias) by Aurig Hernandez, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/lula-becomes ... n-tactics/

******

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM BRAZIL WITH LULA'S VICTORY
31 Oct 2022 , 5:14 pm .

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PT supporters in Brazil (Photo: Rodolfo Buhrer / Reuters)

The electoral results in Brazil gave Lula da Silva the victory, who will assume his third presidential term with 50.90% of the votes, just over 2 million votes ahead of Jair Bolsonaro.

Due to the context and the actors involved, this is a historic election for the South American country. Lula will govern Brazil from January 1, 2023, after having spent time in prison in a conspiracy via lawfare and leaving, 580 days later, free to start a political career that seemed to need artificial respiration, and at the head of the Party of the Workers (PT).

The still Brazilian president, at the close of this article, has not commented on the results of this Sunday, October 30, although his political allies recognized the victory of his antagonist , which gives him little room for maneuver to launch the announced claim. of fraud, without real and verifiable basis.

The eyes of an entire continent were on the outcome of the Brazilian presidential vote because it gives a definitive turn to the heralded "second progressive cycle", in a country that has suffered a continuous economic crisis since 2015, a parliamentary coup in 2016 against Dilma Rousseff (last representative of the PT in government exercises), the leonine imprisonment of Lula and the rise of Bolsonarismo as a stable political option.

POLARIZATION AND GOVERNANCE

It is true that the electoral map for this Sunday the 30th shows a fairly defined panorama in terms of polarization. Basically, each side has its strongholds in territorial terms: the big cities support Bolsonaro (Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro), while the vast rural populations and the Brazilian northeast do the same with Lula.

But beyond the electoral, polarization is a phenomenon that has clear political and social invocations that generate tensions in and between state powers, political groups and the politically active population, both in Brazil and in other countries of the world.

The composition of the Congress and the Senate is shared with a dominant majority by the Bolsonarismo, represented by the Liberal Party (PL), so the alliances will be decisive for the governability of the next Lula administration.

However, in the parliamentary space there is a highly fragmented representation of some 30 parties, which has the PL as its real opposition as a unified political bastion, which will play against the PT and the da Silva presidency, which has 10 parties. allies.

Not surprisingly, Lula's message was one of reconciliation: "I am going to govern for 215 million Brazilians and not only for those who voted for me," he said, and finished: "There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, a great nation."

While the media does the same, polarization does not seem to have a reduction in its influence in the near future, especially in a Brazil where the media act as political actors and Bolsonarism will try to politically capitalize on any negative challenge from the new administration.

Pragmatism could lead to generating unprecedented alliances between the cracks of both blocs in Congress, since there are groups within the coalitions that from January 2023 will be opponents and would be willing to negotiate and be co-opted by one or another agenda of PT, for example, around tax reform, the privatization of state companies and public spending.

But in the Senate, with the majority in favor of the Bolsonarist agenda, new lawfare processes could be promoted , either against officials of the Federal Supreme Court with whom the current president has had declaratory and judicial confrontations, or against the leaders of the PT. Recent history indicates that this last option could be probable, together with the campaign that has been enthroned in recent years about the alleged "corruption" of Lula da Silva during his two consecutive terms of government (2003-2011).

On the contrary, Bolsonaro, already stripped of presidential immunity, could face charges for investigations into embezzlement of public funds, theft of salaries of public personnel and mismanagement of the covid pandemic.
Similarly, the PT government will have to deal with states governed by its main political rival, especially Sao Paulo (where Tarcísio de Freitas, former Minister of Energy and Mines of Bolsonaro, also won the ballot), perhaps the most important federal entity of the country, due to its immense industrial capacity.

Since the PT took the reins of government in Brazil at the beginning of the 21st century, there had not been a context like the current one in which polarization had such rigid force. Although the opposition to PT has had right-wing and conservative accents in the past, today it manifests itself in a coherent way in the leadership of Bolsonaro and other personalities around the PL, among them prominent religious figures (Protestant and related sects) and social media personalities. digital.

ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

Bolsonaro's legacy in the presidency is marked, above all, by the fact that more than 700,000 people died in Brazil during the covid pandemic, the environmental danger in the Amazon and the multiplied misery among the population.

At least 33 million Brazilian citizens are mired in hunger , a figure that Lula has put on the table in every debate and electoral promise. Likewise, 115 million people struggle with "food insecurity". As many as 79% of families are held hostage to high levels of personal debt.

The economy has been slowly recovering from the pandemic downturn, based on rising commodity prices during 2022. But Brazil's long-term economic record, especially since the 2008 crisis, is one of slowing GDP growth. and productivity, increased public and private debt and, above all, extreme inequality in wealth and income.

For perspective: Between 2010 and 2014, Brazil ranked seventh among the world's largest economies. In 2020, it fell to 12th place. In 2021, it reached 13th place, according to risk rating agency Austin Rating . The trend growth rate has been falling, as the British economist Michael Roberts shows .

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TITLETEXT: Fall in Brazil's real GDP from 2000 to 2022 CREDITS: File, Archive

The Brazilian Marxist economist Adalmir Marquetti analyzes the reason why there was trend growth during the Lula governments:

"The PT governments combined elements of developmentalism and neoliberalism in a contradictory construction, organizing a great political coalition of workers and capitalists that made it possible to increase real wages and reduce poverty and inequality while maintaining the profits of productive and financial capital. The fall in profitability after the 2008 crisis broke the class coalition built during the Lula administration The government of Dilma Rousseff adopted a series of fiscal stimuli for the accumulation of private capital with meager economic growth After her re-election, the The government implemented an austerity program that resulted in negative growth rates. With the economic crisis deepening and without political support, Rousseff was removed from power."

The breakdown of the political coalition organized by the PT and Lula's leadership, crystallized in the coup against Dilma in 2016, was in part a product of that drop in economic growth, in turn a consequence of the 2008 crisis and the fall in the prices of raw materials in the 2010s. “The simultaneous fall in the rate of profit and financial profitability was the beginning of the end of the class coalition built by the Lula government,” concludes Marchetti.

It is true that there has been some economic recovery since last year in Brazil, but rising inflation (6.85% per year) and the economic prospects for next year do not seem to favor a context of governance by the Lula administration similar to that of his two previous governments.

Roberts is blunt about Brazil's economic prospects:

"The IMF forecasts real GDP growth of just 1% for Brazil next year. At the same time, more than half of Brazil's population remains below a per capita monthly income of R$560. Reducing this level of poverty below 25% would require productivity four times faster than the current rate. And there is no prospect of that under capitalism in Brazil."

However, the president-elect declared that, for his economic governance plans, he is proposing a new trade relationship with North Atlantic powers such as the United States and the European Union: "We are not interested in trade agreements that condemn our country to the eternal role of exporter of raw materials. (...) So that they stop seeing our country as a source of immediate and predatory profit, and become our partners in the recovery of economic growth, with social inclusion and environmental sustainability".

To carry it out, Lula has indicated that his administration will be more centrist. The elected president seems to be seeking to revive the pragmatism that he embodied during his first term, focusing on the economy with the traditional social manual of the PT, which would seek an improvement in the conditions of inequality of the Brazilian people.

BRAZIL, THE EMPIRE AND MULTIPOLARITY

Lula was one of the founders of the BRICS in 2006 and has already stated that he wishes to insist on new multilateral relations, such as a reform of the dynamics of the United Nations (UN) Security Council.

At the same time, the next Brazilian government intends to "expand cooperation" with the United States .

It should be noted that Bolsonaro played for the US side in international relations until, as a result of the escalating war waged by Washington and NATO against Russia (and China), he also sat down to participate in the geopolitical and geoeconomic forums of the multipolar block in assumption. In the same way, but protected by a style already recognized in the top leader of the PT, Lula would seek to balance his relations with both blocs.

Without a doubt, Brazil will once again focus on its relations with South America, bearing in mind that its closest allies are in the region and govern in different countries, such as Argentina, Chile and Colombia, and to a lesser extent Cuba and Venezuela. This tilts the balance much more towards a kind of "second progressive cycle" in the region, where integration mechanisms could be activated, especially from the economic, commercial and financial side.

Let us remember that Lula is promoting the idea of ​​creating a single currency in Latin America, one that refers to the SUCRE, a proposal by President Hugo Chávez within the framework of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
The globalized connection between countries has created a complex network of supply chains where Brazil is a fundamental factor on this side of the world. Kingdom of raw materials, such as oil products and agribusiness, this country will continue to strengthen its export muscle, with China as its main partner (with 67.9 billion dollars in exports), far ahead of the United States (with 21, 9 billion dollars) and Argentina (with 8.57 billion dollars).

With Bolsonaro, these relations had their regular course, without political problems of any kind, despite the (unsuccessful) pressure from Washington for the Planalto Palace to condemn Russia for its military actions in Ukraine. Of course, with Donald Trump, Brasilia's relationship with Washington was much more fluid due to ideological and political affinities than with the current Democratic administration, which enthusiastically welcomes a new PT government.

But with Lula, according to what was said during the electoral campaign, there will be a greater consolidation of Brazilian participation in the BRICS (which in 2023 will most likely expand with new members, perhaps including Saudi Arabia, Argentina and India) and a deepening of the relationship with China , a crucial point of the foreign policy of the PT since the first government of da Silva.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/qu ... ia-de-lula

LULA DA SILVA PRESIDENT-ELECT OF BRAZIL: SOME DATA FROM THE BALLOT
31 Oct 2022 , 10:08 am .

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Lula's speech after winning the ballot in Brazil (Photo: AFP)

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the ballot in Brazil this Sunday, October 30, with 50.9% of the valid votes. The narrow margin with which he prevailed over Jair Bolsonaro, who obtained 49.1% of the vote, will be a reflection of the Brazilian political map in the coming years.

And it is that the elected president will have 14 opposition governors, including the most populous and wealthy states, compared to 11 of the alliance that accompanies him. He won't have it easy either in Congress, whose majority is conservative and Bolsonarist.

This election was not exempt from scandals and denunciations, as the Bolsonaro government used all the resources at its disposal to hinder and intimidate Lula's voters. There were allegations that Brazil's Federal Highway Police blocked the country's highways to prevent Lula voters from traveling. The PT member said that he did not face a candidate, but rather the machinery of the Brazilian government at the service of a candidate.

Other data:

*On this occasion, abstention was 20.55%.
*Lula's vice president will be the former governor of Sao Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, an old political enemy with whom he established alliances to seek a certain "plurality."
*Bolsonaro is the first Brazilian president who does not win re-election.
*Lula will be the first president of Brazil to win a third term and the most voted in Brazilian history (60 million votes).
*President Joe Biden and other leaders congratulated Lula on his victory.
*Arthur Lira, Bolsonaro's main ally in Congress, declared that "the will of the majority expressed at the polls should never be challenged."
*With the defeat of Bolsonaro, the Lima Group, a non-binding regional alliance that became an imperial bastion against Venezuela, ends.
*Bolsonaro has not spoken or acknowledged defeat. Some claim there was fraud. After the results were known, he locked himself in his house and has remained silent until now.

https://misionverdad.com/lula-da-silva- ... l-balotaje

Google Translator

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Brazilian Electoral Judge Orders the Clearance of Roadblocks

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A roadblock in Brazil, Oct. 30, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @o_antagonista

Published 1 November 2022

Since Sunday night, Bolsonarista truckers have carried out roadblocks in 20 states to protest against the victory of Lula da Silva.

On Monday, Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) President Alexandre de Moraes ordered the "immediate clearance of the roads" blocked by truckers who do not accept the defeat of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in the second round held on Oct. 30.

Since Sunday night, Bolsonarista truckers have carried out some 270 roadblocks in 20 states to protest against the victory of the Workers' Party candidate Lula da Silva.

Moraes maintains that the Federal Highway Police (PRF) "has not fulfilled its constitutional and legal task," which could lead to the dismissal or arrest of Director Silvinei Vasques.

The TSE judge ordered Vasques to adopt "immediately all the necessary measures to clear" the roads. In the event that this does not happen, the PRF could receive a fine of US$19,500 per day as of midnight this Monday.


Moraes also asked the Justuce Minister Anderson Torres, the commanders of the Military Police of 27 states, the Attorney General Augusto Aras, and the subnational prosecutors to take "the measures they deem pertinent" to solve the problem.

In the second round of the presidential elections held on Sunday, Lula da Silva was the winner with 50.9 percent of the votes, compared to 49.1 percent obtained by the former Capitan.

So far, Bolsonaro has not yet made any statement on the electoral results. This keeps Brazilians in suspense given that the far-right politician had threatened on several occasions not to accept the result of the elections if he lost.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0001.html

Norway's Amazon Funds to Resume Under the Lula Government

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A landscape in the Amazon basin, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @krikss

Environment Minister Eide described Lula's electoral triumph as something good for both Brazil and the whole world.


On Monday, the Norwegian government announced its willingness to unlock its financial contributions to the Amazon Fund, which were suspended three years ago as a result of public policy actions undertaken by right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.

Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide indicated that Norwegian officials will establish contact with Lula's technical team before he assumes the Brazilian presidency on January 1, thus seeking to advance the procedures for the reactivation of the environmental fund.

"We will speak with his people to fix the formalities. There are significant amounts frozen in accounts for the fund," Eide told the Norwegian agency NTB.

In 2019, Germany and Norway froze their contributions to the Amazon Fund indefinitely due to the boost that the Bolsonaro administration gave to extractive activities, which favor the deforestation of the largest tropical rainforest on the planet.


When that happened, Bolsonaro responded by disqualifying the donors' decision, stating that the Norwegians "have no morals to give examples" because they kill whales and extract oil from the North Pole.

The Norwegian environment minister recalled that "the significant increase in deforestation during the Bolsonaro administration was very serious. All those who are concerned about the climate have seen with pain how he ignored old agreements and promises." For this reason, Eide described Lula's triumph as something good for both Brazil and the whole world.

The Workers' Party leader will begin his third term in January 2023. Previously, he held the presidency between 2003 and 2010, a period in which Brazil stood out as an economy with high levels of growth and social inclusion.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nor ... -0010.html

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Defeated, Bolsonaro isolates himself, cancels interviews and does not respond even to close advisors
“Bolsonaro doesn’t want to receive anyone,” aides say after Lula’s presidential election victory

October 31, 2022 by Brasil de Fato

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Caption: Ex-captain left his official residence, the Alvorada Palace, to travel to Granja do Torto—Flickr/Beto Barata

President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, who was just defeated in the elections, isolated himself after the confirmation of the[ victory of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on October 30. The former captain canceled a press statement at the Alvorada Palace, in the capital of Brasília, right at the beginning of the vote count.

According to Globo, “Bolsonaro does not want to receive anyone.” The report continues, “ministers and deputies who tried to visit him this Sunday after the results of the polls were informed that the president does not want to see anyone at this time, not even his closest allies.”

Veja magazine corroborated: “Jair Bolsonaro, according to his aides, has isolated himself in the presidential quarters and is not taking phone calls from any close allies,” their report states.

Bolsonaro started out the election in the lead, Lula eventually won with 50.9% of the vote. When the data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had already indicated that Lula was close to winning, the current president’s convoy left the Alvorada Palace, traveling towards Granja do Torto, the official residence occupied by the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes. Then the convoy returned to Alvorada.

Bolsonaro is the first president in the country’s history to lose the race for reelection since this became possible in 1997, during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration.

This article was originally published on Brasil de Fato.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/10/31/ ... -advisors/

“There are not two Brazils. We are one people, one nation,” says Lula in speech
In the first speech following his victory, Lula called for the unification of Brazil to build a democracy that fights inequality

October 31, 2022 by Brasil de Fato

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Lula speaking in São Paulo after his victory was confirmed.

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party of Brazil addressed supporters in São Paulo after his victory was confirmed on October 30. In the speech, Lula defined the priorities of his future government, called on the Brazilian people to overcome divisions, and rebuild the country around a clear priority: the arduous struggle against economic and social misery.

“Our fight does not begin and does not end with the election. Our struggle for a fair country, in which all Brazilians can work, study, eat, will be [our struggle] for the rest of our lives,” he said. “Brazil is my cause, the people are my cause, and fighting misery is the cause I will defend until the end of my life.”

Lula began his speech by thanking the support he received in the second round, citing in particular Senators Simone Tebet (MDB-MS) and Eliziane Gama (Citizenship-MA). He also thanked his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, whom he called a “great companion”, and Fernando Haddad, defeated candidate for the government of São Paulo and former minister of education: “great partner, who ran an extraordinary campaign”.

“All my life I have always thought that God was very generous with me, for having left where I was and getting to where I got to. Especially at this moment when we are not facing one man, one candidate. We faced the machine of the Brazilian State, put at the service of the candidate for reelection, to try to prevent us from winning the elections,” said Lula.

“I consider myself a citizen that had a process of resurrection in Brazilian politics. Because they tried to bury me alive, and I am here to govern this country in a very difficult situation, but I am sure that, with the help of the people, we will find a way out so that this country can live harmoniously, and we can reestablish peace among families, [and] those who think differently.”

Again referring to the need for peace, Lula affirmed that the great winner of the elections was the Brazilian people. “It is the victory of an immense democratic movement that was formed above political parties, personal interests, ideologies, so that democracy would emerge victorious.”

Lula then qualified this democracy: “the Brazilian people want to live well, eat well, [and] have a good home. A job, with a fair salary always readjusted above inflation, and quality public policies. The Brazilian people want to have hope again. This is how I understand democracy. Not just as a beautiful word written in law, but as something tangible that we can build day by day. During the campaign, we made a promise to this real, concrete democracy. And we will seek to build it every day of our government.”

Lula stated that the economy needs to return to “functioning as an instrument to improve the lives of all, and not to perpetuate inequalities.” To this end, he cited support for family farming and micro and small entrepreneurs, in addition to actions to combat gender and race inequalities.

“Only in this way will we be able to build a country for all, with equal rights, whose priority is those who are most in need,” he said. “Our most urgent commitment is to end hunger again,” he assured.

Once again emphasizing the need to pacify the country, Lula united the ideas of fighting inequality and of uniting the Brazilian people.

“There are not two Brazils. We are a single country, a single people, a great nation. It is of no interest to anyone to live in a family where discord reigns. It is time to bring families back together, to remake the ties broken by the criminal spread of hate. No one is interested in living in a divided country,” he defended.

“Brazil can no longer live with this immense bottomless pit, this wall of concrete and inequality that separates Brazil into unequal parts that do not recognize each other. This country needs to recognize itself, to find itself again.”

This article was originally published on Brasil de Fato.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/10/31/ ... in-speech/

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Xi congratulates Lula on Brazil election win
By MO JINGXI/SERGIO HELD | China Daily | Updated: 2022-11-01 07:38

Image
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva acknowledges his supporters at an election night gathering in Sao Paulo on Sunday following his victory in Brazil's presidential election. [Photo/Agencies]

Chinese leader vows cooperation with president-elect after weekend poll

President Xi Jinping on Monday sent a congratulatory message to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his election as Brazilian president, saying that he stands ready to work with Lula da Silva to promote bilateral ties to benefit the two countries and their peoples.

Xi said that both China and Brazil are major developing countries and important emerging economies that share broad common interests as well as responsibilities.

With joint endeavors from the two countries' successive governments and people from all walks of life, the China-Brazil relationship has made considerable progress with fruitful results achieved in all fields since the establishment of diplomatic relations 48 years ago, he said.

To maintain the long-term friendship and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation serves the fundamental interests of both countries and their peoples, Xi said.

It also helps to maintain regional and global peace and stability and promote common development, he added.

The Chinese president said he highly values developing China's relations with the South American country and he will work with the Brazilian leader to make planning for and push forward the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership in the long run.

Lula da Silva, who is popularly known as Lula, beat far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in an unexpectedly tight contest on Sunday that came after months of intense and occasionally confrontational campaigning. Lula da Silva will now take the reins of the country on Jan 1.

Difficulties to overcome

"Lula will face a country that is primarily and, first of all, extremely divided into two key yes-or-no-type voters," Benny Spiewak, a partner at SPLAW, a law firm in Sao Paulo, told China Daily.

Lula da Silva won with 50.9 percent of the vote, while Bolsonaro, a 66-year-old former army captain, received 49.1 percent. More than 118.5 million people over 16 years of age voted.

Neither candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of voting on Oct 2, sending the contest to a runoff.

The difference between the candidates was only about 2.1 million ballots and it was the first time that an incumbent president seeking reelection had failed in the attempt.

Voters not only chose a president but also had to pick among 24 candidates for governor in 12 states.

The results were in line with expectations and the first round of voting, when Lula da Silva obtained 48.4 percent of the vote and Bolsonaro 43.2 percent.

Lula da Silva, 77, who governed Brazil between 2003 and 2010, now faces challenges very different from a decade ago. He will have to address the 33 million suffering from hunger among the 214 million Brazilians. He will also have to deal with the continuing and rapid loss of the Amazon rainforest due to illegal logging and the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

"Lula enters power to a Brazil very different from the one he led until 12 years ago. It will be a challenge for him to integrate a deeply polarized people, with a high number of Bolsonaro supporters casting doubt on the election results," said David Castrillon, a research professor at the School of Finance, Government and International Relations at Externado University of Colombia.

Getting his initiatives through, such as a new labor law, the creation of a ministry for indigenous peoples and establishing a minimum wage that grows faster than inflation, will be among the key early challenges for Lula da Silva.

"Lula will have to face an adverse economic environment, amid a global recession and severe setbacks in social issues — an area in which he already left an important legacy as president. The expectations of those who put him in power are high, and the toolbox he has at his disposal will be few," said Castrillon.

Following Sunday's election result, Lula da Silva said it is not a victory for him, his party, or for the parties that supported him, but a victory for the Brazilian people.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20221 ... 7f8b4.html
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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Wed Nov 02, 2022 2:09 pm

Lula’s Victory Speech 30/10/2022
By BRASILWIRE
November 1, 2022

Translation of the speech given by Luis Inácio Lula da Silva immediately after confirmation that he was the new president elect of the Federative Republic of Brazil.

”My friends,

We have reached the end of one of the most important elections in our history. An election that put two opposing projects for the country face to face, and that today has only one great winner: the Brazilian people.

This is not my victory, or the PT’s victory, or the victory of the parties that supported me in this campaign. It is the victory of a huge democratic movement that was formed, above political parties, personal interests and ideologies, so that democracy could win.

On this historic October 30th, the majority of the Brazilian people made it clear that they want more democracy, not less.

They want more social inclusion and opportunities for all, not less. They want there to be more respect and understanding among Brazilians, not less. In short, they want more freedom, equality, and fraternity in our country, not less.

The Brazilian people showed today that they want more than to exercise their sacred right to choose who will govern their lives. They want to participate actively in the decisions of the government.

The Brazilian people showed today that they want more than just the right to protest that they are hungry, that there are no jobs, that their salary is insufficient to live with dignity, that they have no access to health and education, that they lack a roof over their heads to live and to raise their children safely, that there are no prospects for the future.

The Brazilian people want to live well, eat well, have a good home. They want a good job, a salary always adjusted above inflation, they want quality health care and public education.

They want religious freedom. They want books instead of guns. They want to go to the theater, see cinema, have access to all cultural activities, because culture feeds our soul.

The Brazilian people want hope back.

This is how I understand democracy. Not just as a beautiful word written in law, but as something tangible, that we feel in our skin, and that we can build in everyday life.

It was this democracy, in the broadest sense of the term, that the Brazilian people chose today at the ballot box. It was this democracy – real, concrete – that we committed to throughout our campaign.

And it is this democracy that we will seek to build every day of our government. With economic growth distributed among the entire population, because this is how the economy should work – as an instrument to improve the lives of all, and not to perpetuate inequalities.

The wheel of the economy will start turning again, with job creation, wage appreciation and renegotiation of the debts of families who have lost their purchasing power.

The wheel of the economy will turn again with the poor included in the budget. With support for small and medium-sized rural producers, who are responsible for 70% of the food that reaches our tables.

With every possible incentive for micro and small entrepreneurs, so that they can put their extraordinary creative potential at the service of the country’s development.

It is necessary to go further. Strengthen policies to combat violence against women, and ensure that women earn the same salaries as men for equal work.

To fight relentlessly against racism, prejudice and discrimination, so that whites, Blacks and Indigenous people have the same rights and opportunities.

This is the only way we will be able to build a country for all. An egalitarian Brazil, whose priority is the people who need it most.

A Brazil with peace, democracy and opportunities.

My friends,

As of January 1, 2023, I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not only for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are a single country, a single people, a great nation.

It is of no interest to anyone to live in a family where discord reigns. It’s time to bring families back together, to rebuild the bonds of friendship broken by the criminal spread of hate.

No one is interested in living in a divided country, in a permanent state of war.

This country needs peace and unity. The people do not want to fight anymore. The people are tired of seeing the other as an enemy to be feared or destroyed.

It’s time to put down the weapons that should never have been taken up. Guns kill. And we choose life.

The challenge is immense. This country must be rebuilt in all its dimensions. In politics, in the economy, in public management, in institutional harmony, in international relations and, above all, in caring for the people most in need.

We need to rebuild the very soul of this country. To recover generosity, solidarity, respect for differences, and love for one’s neighbor.

To bring back the joy of being Brazilian, and the pride we always had in the Green and Yellow and the flag of our country. This Green and Yellow and this flag that belong to no one but the Brazilian people.

Our most urgent commitment is to end hunger again. We cannot accept as normal that millions of men, women and children in this country have nothing to eat, or that they consume fewer calories and proteins than necessary.

If we are the world’s third largest producer of food and the first in animal protein, if we have technology and a huge amount of arable land, if we are able to export to the entire world, then we have the duty to guarantee that every Brazilian can have breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

This will, once again, be the number one commitment of our government.

We cannot accept as normal that entire families are forced to sleep on the streets, exposed to the cold, rain and violence.

Therefore, we will resume Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life), with priority for low-income families, and bring back the social inclusion programs that lifted 36 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty.

Brazil can no longer live with this immense bottomless pit, this wall of concrete and inequality that separates Brazil into unequal parts that do not recognize each other. This country needs to recognize itself. It needs to reconnect with itself.

Beyond fighting extreme poverty and hunger, we are going to reestablish dialogue in this country.

We have to reestablish the dialogue with the Legislature and the Judiciary. Without attempts to exaggerate, intervene, control, or co-opt, but rather to rebuild a harmonious, republican coexistence among the three branches of government.

Democratic normality is consecrated in the Constitution. It establishes the rights and obligations of each power, each institution, the Armed Forces, and each one of us.

The Constitution governs our collective existence, and no one, absolutely no one, is above it, no one has the right to ignore it or to flout it.

It is also more urgent than ever to resume the dialogue between the people and the government.

That’s why we’ll bring back the national conferences. So that the interested parties can choose their priorities, and present the government with suggestions for public policies for each sector: education, health, security, women’s rights, racial equality, youth, housing, and so many others.

Let’s resume the dialogue with the governors and the mayors, to define together the priority public works for each population.

It doesn’t matter which party the governor and the mayor belong to. Our commitment will always be to improve the lives of the people of each state and each municipality in this country.

We will also reestablish the dialogue between government, businessmen, workers and organized civil society, with the return of the Council for Economic and Social Development.

In other words, the major political decisions that impact the lives of 215 million Brazilians will not be made in secret, in the dead of night, but after a broad dialogue with society.

I believe that the main problems of Brazil, of the world, of the human being, can be solved with dialogue, and not with brute force.

Let no one doubt the power of the word, when it comes to seeking understanding and the common good.

My friends,

In my international travels and in my meetings with leaders from many countries, what I hear most is that the world misses Brazil.

Longing for that sovereign Brazil, that spoke as an equal with the richest and most powerful countries. And that at the same time contributed to the development of the poorer countries.

The Brazil that supported the development of African countries, through cooperation, investment, and technology transfer.

Who worked for the integration of South America, Latin America and the Caribbean, who strengthened Mercosur, and helped create the G20, UNASUR, CELAC and BRICS.

Today we say to the world that Brazil is back. That Brazil is too big to be relegated to this sad role of the world’s pariah.

We will win back the credibility, the predictability and the stability of the country, so that investors – domestic and foreign – will regain confidence in Brazil. So that they stop seeing our country as a source of immediate and predatory profit, and become our partners in the resumption of economic growth with social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

We want fairer international trade. We want to resume our partnerships with the United States and the European Union on new terms. We are not interested in trade agreements that condemn our country to the eternal role of exporter of commodities and raw materials.

Let us re-industrialize Brazil, let us invest in the green and digital economy, let us support the creativity of our businessmen and entrepreneurs. We want to export knowledge as well.

We will fight again for new global governance, with the inclusion of more countries in the UN Security Council and with the end of the veto, which undermines the balance between nations.

We are ready to re-engage in the fight against hunger and inequality in the world, and in efforts to promote peace among peoples.

Brazil is ready to resume its protagonism in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all of our ecosystems, especially the Amazon forest.

Under our government, we were able to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80%, considerably reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.

Now, let’s fight for zero deforestation of the Amazon.

Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon. A standing tree is worth more than tons of wood illegally extracted by those who think only of easy profit, at the expense of the deterioration of life on Earth.

A river of clean water is worth much more than all the gold extracted at the expense of mercury that kills animals and puts human life at risk.

When an Indigenous child is murdered by the greed of the exploiters of the environment, a part of humanity dies along with it.

For this reason, we will resume monitoring and surveillance of the Amazon, and combat any and all illegal activity – whether it be mining, logging or illegal agriculture.

At the same time, we will promote the sustainable development of the communities that live in the Amazon region. We will prove once again that it is possible to generate wealth without destroying the environment.

We are open to international cooperation to preserve the Amazon, whether in the form of investment or scientific research. But always under the leadership of Brazil, without ever renouncing our sovereignty.

We are committed to Indigenous peoples, to the other peoples of the forest, and to biodiversity. We want environmental peacemaking.

We are not interested in a war for the environment, but we are ready to defend it from any threat.

My friends,

The new Brazil that we will build on January 1st is not only of interest to the Brazilian people, but to all people who work for peace, solidarity and brotherhood, anywhere in the world.

Last Wednesday, Pope Francis sent an important message to Brazil, praying that the Brazilian people will be free of hatred, intolerance and violence.

I want to say that we wish the same, and we will work tirelessly for a Brazil where love prevails over hate, truth conquers lies, and hope is greater than fear.

Every day of my life I am reminded of the greatest teaching of Jesus Christ, which is to love your neighbor. So I believe that the most important virtue of a good leader will always be love – for his country and for his people.

As far as we are concerned, there is no lack of love in this country. We will take great care of Brazil and the Brazilian people. We will live in a new time. One of peace, of love and of hope.

A time when the Brazilian people will once again have the right to dream. And the opportunities to accomplish all that they dream of.

For this, I invite each and every Brazilian, regardless of which candidate they voted for in this election. More than ever, let’s work together for Brazil, focusing on what unites us, rather than on our differences.

I know the scale of the mission that history has in store for me, and I know that I will not be able to fulfill it alone. I will need everyone – political parties, workers, businessmen, congressmen, governors, mayors, people of all religions. Brazilians who dream of a more developed, fairer, and more fraternal Brazil.

I will say again what I said during the whole campaign. Something that was never just the mere promise of a candidate, but a profession of faith, a lifetime commitment.

O Brasil tem jeito (Brazil has a way forward). All of us together will be able to fix this country, and build a Brazil the size of our dreams – with opportunities to transform them into reality.

Once again, I renew my eternal gratitude to the Brazilian people. A big hug, and may God bless our journey.


https://www.brasilwire.com/lulas-victor ... 0-10-2022/

What Can The Western Left Learn From Lula’s Breathtaking Victory?
By BRASILWIRE
November 1, 2022

Lost in international jubilation that has met Lula da Silva’s incredible political comeback are the sheer financial scale of what he had to defeat, and the makeup of a new re-organised progressive coalition he now leads – which will change Brazil’s politics for a generation.

By Alex Fleck

The Worker’s Party in Brazil has just won the most contested election in the country’s history. From a jailed politician up until 2019 to now the president elect with the largest amount of votes in the country’s history, Lula built a formidable coalition in order to overcome all obstacles, smears, and illegal use of public funds that would be used against him.

The extent to which Bolsonaro moved every lever he could to get reelected cannot be overstated. At the beginning of the year, the federal government pushed through Congress a 50% increase in the direct cash payment program “Auxilio Brasil”, Bolsonaro’s rebranded version of “Bolsa Familia”, a worker’s party program. The move also expanded to include more families on the program. Then, after the first round of voting, his administration used State-owned banks to start offering government-backed micro-loans to beneficiaries of Auxilio Brasil. Bolsonaro also announced over 178 billion reais in public expenditure for 2023 in order to try and appeal to working class voters.

In addition, Bolsonaro was helped immensely in his campaign by social media platforms, Brazil’s election finance laws and personal cash donations by wealthy allies. According to researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, YouTube’s algorithm overwhelmingly recommended pro-Bolsonaro content to its users, especially from “Jovem Pan” (55% of first recommendations), a major media ally to Bolsonaro. It seems like YouTube’s new algorithmic content policy that seeks to recommend content that is “informative, plural and from reputable sources” may have even privileged Jovem Pan, as it may have been labelled as a mainstream media outlet.

Bolsonaro also counted on a large financial war chest assembled by his business allies. While Brazilian electoral law prohibits corporations from donating to political campaigns, the limits to public contributions are lax. Billionaires can donate up to 10% of their gross yearly income to campaigns, which netted Bolsonaro with a nearly 100 million reais worth of donations or 21 times more than Lula.

Then, on election day, Bolsonaro’s government mobilized the federal highway police force to institute highway checkpoints throughout the country, especially targeting the Northeast and areas of the Southeast, which were known to be part of Lula’s stronghold. When the Electoral Court’s president, Justice Moraes, vetoed those operations on election day, the federal highway police defied his ruling by ignoring his orders to stand down. That was the last straw in a series of illegal measures.

Even against all of this, PT won, and an incumbent president was defeated at the ballot box for the first time since return to democracy in 1985. In order to understand how Lula managed to assemble his coalition in a hotly contested race, we need to first understand what his broad political front actually was. The Worker’s Party leadership recognized that they needed all the help they could muster in order to beat Bolsonaro, but teaming up with others did not mean relinquishing or abdicating its pro-worker roots.

Lula won the election by forming a real coalition. Not the type usually found in western liberal organisations that mostly resembles an abusive relationship, where the centrist liberals dictate the technocratic policies and the leftists are told to just shut up or they will help elect a right wing ghoul. In PT’s winning coalition, partners get to debate politics on its merits and decide what is popular with voters and what would be a winning message.

This equal footing in the coalition wasn’t just given to us though. Brazil isn’t some magical land where liberals are especially enlightened and allow the left to have real input. A great number of them did help to elect Bolsonaro after all. Brazilian liberals didn’t just easily acquiesce to Lula’s working class politics. They have put up quite the fight and the usual suspects are already back to pressuring PT to govern as a neoliberal centrist. Again, they aren’t genius political operators: there is very little intelligence in demanding that PT govern like the now defunct centre-right PSDB. After all, those were the policies that got us Bolsonaro in the first place and buried PSDB in the process.

The reason for such a balanced coalition isn’t political discourse in the public sphere either. We didn’t “market place of ideas” our way into this. While Lula is a phenomenal politician with a singular charisma and talent of engaging his audience, his main trump is power. Simply put, PT is a massive organization, born out of a coalition between the labour movement, leftist academics, left-wing clergy, former left-wing guerrillas and multiple social movements, including MST, the largest. No matter the city or the candidate, PT will always land at least 25% of the vote in Brazil. The size, popularity, organization and resources of the party enables leadership to wield such power in favour of their own policies and campaigning. Lula himself has also been the most popular president Brazil has ever had. At the end of his second term, he had an 83% approval rating. Those are Saddam Hussein-like numbers. This buys you significant leverage.

Furthermore, Lula is a real moderate. Not the US centrist democrat or Blairite type, but a real one, with negotiating abilities honed from decades in the union movement. He uses these abilities to leverage his power and reach compromises with both sides of his coalition. PT did not simply co-sign the pro-business side’s politics, or focus-grouped their way into a platform. They combined policies and campaign strategies coming from the actual left and the centre-right.

His political talent extends to his ability to foresee political dynamics and tendencies. He knew that Bolsonaro would throw the kitchen sink at him, and he did. Bolsonaro did everything he could, broke every imaginable law. Lula foresaw that, if he really was going to beat Bolsonaro, he needed to compete for every single possible vote and that demanded the broadest of coalitions without compromising democratic values.

Lula’s campaign reflected that. For every centre-right politician that joined the partnership, there were also 2 or 3 radical socialist housing activists. Lula managed to get his former rival Alckmin as VP, but also got PSOL’s support as well, the socialist party founded by former PT leftists that were expelled from the party for being too radical in the 2000s.

For every music video filled with A-list celebrities, there was also a rally at a favela with local activists and community leaders. PT married the 2016 Clinton-esque rhetoric about how Bolsonaro was a threat to democracy with real substantive policies that sought to address the working class’s material needs. PT’s ads heavily reflected the difficult living conditions of poor Brazilians and spoke on how to put the people’s housing and even nutritional needs back into the Federal Budget.

Lula gained the support of most major bankers in the country, but never wavered from denouncing the anti-worker reforms passed with their support after the coup against Dilma Rousseff. The coalition’s platform clearly stated that the new government would repeal such reforms to improve worker’s rights. He even called Dilma’s former VP Temer for what he is: a golpista (coup architect). Yet, he still got his daughter’s vote.

– Footnote: if you are a fan of Brazilian music, you might have immediately thought of this song. “Jorge Maravilha”, composed by Chico Buarque during the military dictatorship, was motivated by a rather odd situation he faced after one of his many encounters with the dictatorship’s police. After being arrested, Chico was asked by a policeman to autograph one his albums for his daughter. The song, which managed to initially avoid censorship and was released under the pseudonym “Julinho de Adelaide”, masterfully synthesizes the encounter: “A daughter in the hand is worth two parents in the bush… You may not like me, but your daughter does”. The song also gained a life of its own after rumours emerged, later denied by Chico, that the song was written to skewer Dictator General Geisel, whose daughter was a big fan of Buarque.



When asked if his cabinet would include equal representation between men and women, he simply acknowledged that determining who his ministers would be was a task for after the election and that it would need to be negotiated within the coalition. He did, however, turn the discussion from representation into distribution and discussed how his government would address issues that disproportionately affect women like the gender pay gap, childcare and domestic violence, no matter the gender of the actual minister.

Lula managed to accomplish this due to his ability to show the popularity of his politics. Lula’s 2011 popularity numbers reflect not only how effective his policies were in improving the life of working-class Brazilians, but also how the people actively credited them for it. Liberals ultimately had no chance but to agree to campaigning on those credentials. In addition, Bolsonaro’s posture also reflected the popularity of Lula’s redistributive policies. In the months preceding the election and even during the election cycle, Bolsonaro tried to implement many policies that would benefit the working class to reduce Lula’s margins.

These measures may seem incongruent with Bolsonaro’s politics, especially due to his Minister of the Economy, Chicago boy Paulo Guedes. However, Guedes followed his mentor’s letter to Pinochet to its tee: used small direct cash payments to the poor as a way of hiding the socio-economic disasters promoted by his economic policies of austerity. Yet again, radical right wingers display the odd propensity to trying to helping fascists hold on to power.

The left, however, quickly managed to neutralize some of these tactics. When these turbo-charged cash payments came to a vote, in a masterful stroke, PT voted in favour of them. The party stated that it could not vote against people’s material needs and added this message to its ads: “take the 600 reais with one hand and vote for Lula with the other”.

https://www.brasilwire.com/what-can-the ... g-victory/

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Bolsonaro urges to respect constitutional order in Brazil

Image
The Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, reported that Bolsonaro had authorized him to start the government transition process. | Photo: EFE
Published November 1, 2022 (14 hours 50 minutes ago)

Despite not acknowledging his defeat in the last elections, Bolsonaro declared that he will continue to comply with the mandates of the Constitution.

Two days before the second round of the presidential elections in Brazil, in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected, the current president Jair Bolsonaro spoke on Tuesday and urged respect for the constitutional order in the country.

Despite not acknowledging his defeat in the last elections or referring to Lula to congratulate him on his victory, he declared that he will continue to comply with the mandates of the Constitution of the South American country.

"As president of the Republic and as a citizen, I will continue to fulfill all the mandates of our Constitution," he told reporters.

Given the blockades of roads in several states by Bolsonaro sympathizers protesting the results of the ballot, the president stated that "peaceful demonstrations will always be welcome, but our methods cannot be those of the left."

The current head of state thanked those who voted for him in the second round of elections and assured that they are "in favor of order and progress."

After his brief speech, the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, reported that Bolsonaro had authorized him to start the government transition process.

"President Jair Messias Bolsonaro authorized me, when he tells me to, based on the law, to start the transition process," he notified the media.

For her part, the president of the Workers' Party (PT), Gleisi Hoffmann, reported that the elected vice president Geraldo Alckmin will coordinate Lula's team to carry out the transition process with the current government.

Lula won the elections last Sunday with 50.9 percent of the vote, 60,345,999 votes, while Bolsonaro obtained 58,206,354, which is 49.1 percent.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/brasil-b ... -0015.html
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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:03 pm

The International Meaning of Lula’s Victory
By MARCELO ZERO
November 2, 2022

Like the phoenix, Lula, who led the best government in Brazilian history, has returned in an extraordinary manner to save us from bolsonarista neo-fascism and to pacify and rebuild the country – a herculean, heroic task which only he can lead.

by Marcelo Zero

Lula’s historic victory was a front-page story in the World’s leading newspapers. The New York Times, for example, published several articles on the subject, with great visibility and emphasis. The same happened with newspapers and magazines in Europe and Latin America.

On October 31, Lula’s victory was the biggest headline story on the planet. As well it should have, since it is one of the biggest stories of political resurrection in modern history.

A few years ago, as Lula himself points out, he was buried alive in the dungeon of judge Sérgio Moro, who convicted him without material evidence based on coerced plea bargain testimonies extracted from blackmailed convicts desperate for sentence reduction, and a public opinion manipulated by a childish power point presentation.

Image

At the time, they said that Lula was finished forever and that the PT had been destroyed. This was the dominant narrative in the corporate media that had decisively contributed to the 2016 coup and to Lula’s political imprisonment

But like the phoenix, Lula, who led the best government in Brazilian history, has returned in an extraordinary manner to save us from bolsonarista neo-fascism and to pacify and rebuild the country – a herculean, heroic task which only he can lead.

The only parallel to this kind of political trajectory in modern times is the case of Nelson Mandela, who came out of Robben Island prison to end apartheid, reconcile South Africa and free it from world isolation.

More importantly Lula’s victory, as the New York Times rightly pointed out in a widely publicized video, represents the possibility of saving the planet.

Bolsonaro has transformed Brazil into and international pariah, a kind of planetary black sheep, due in large part to his active and abject anti-environmentalism.

He threw all of the internal and external environmental advances made by the PT – including the huge reduction in deforestation and significant international commitments to greenhouse gas reduction – to the most backward interests of unbridled capitalism and held a fire sale – literally.

The world has rightly come to fear that Bolsonaro would let the Amazon burn in an irreversible process that would eventually bring global warming to the disastrous point of no return.

This grotesque anti-environmentalism, added to scientific denialism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and, above all, the constant flirtation with dictatorship, made Bolsonaro a persona no grata for most of the world’s countries.

The relief of the so-called international community with the election of Lula, therefore, is not surprising. The fascistic far right and community of climate deniers have lost their main bastion.

The great world leaders, Biden at the forefront, rushed to recognize Lula’s legitimate and democratic victory, something Bolsonaro refused to do.

These rulers are well aware that Lula, the only Brazilian politician who has ever managed to become a great world leader, will be able to contribute, once again, to the solution of serious international problems, starting with the climate crisis, passing through hunger, economic crisis, war and by the aggravation of geopolitical tensions.

Lula will certainly use his great negotiating power and Brazil’s broad soft power to contribute to a more symmetrical, multilateral, peaceful and prosperous world order.

Under Lula the BRICS, Africa, the Middle East, South-South cooperation and, above all, sovereign regional integration will once again be central to our foreign policy. At the same time, Lula should invest in good relations with the US, the European Union and other more traditional allies, as he has always done.

With Lula, Brazilian foreign policy will once again be universalist and pragmatic, without ideological conditionalities such as those imposed by Bolsonaro, especially in the period of madness under Ernesto Araujo, who was Brazil’s only pre-enlightenment Foreign Affairs Chancellor in history.

With Lula, the world can breathe again, smoke-free.

https://www.brasilwire.com/the-internat ... s-victory/

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Bolsonarists Demand Military Coup to Challenge Elections in Brazil
NOVEMBER 3, 2022

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Bolsonarists protesting Lula victory with Nazi salutes. Photo: File.

This Wednesday, November 2, followers of Jair Bolsonaro protested in front of army barracks in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to demand that military chiefs stage a coup d’état to prevent the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking presidential office in Brazil.

As seen in several videos published on social networks, protesters sang the Brazilian anthem and gave Nazi salutes.

The demonstrations began on Sunday night, after the results confirmed Lula as the winner, with 50.9% of the vote versus the incumbent Bolsonaro, who received 49.1% of the vote


The demonstrations by Bolsonaristas in front of the military barracks took place after Bolsonaro’s post-election speech, in which he said supported the demonstrations.

“Lula cannot take over,” one protestor, identified as Rafael Viera said. “He was condemned, and he will not get a break if he assumes the government.”

The protesters interpreted the president’s speech as an invitation for them to continue demonstrating and claiming that the elections were fraudulent.

This Tuesday, after two days of silence, Bolsonaro finally spoke about the elections, without acknowledging his defeat against Lula.

Bolsonaro specified that “peaceful demonstrations are welcome,” and said that these newest protests are, in his opinion, “the result of indignation and a feeling of injustice over how the electoral process was carried out.”

“Bolsonaro did not recognize Lula’s victory in his speech,” said one of the protesters. “That’s why we are here, not to allow him to take office.”

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) determined that the Military Police participated in pro-Bolsonaro demonstrations, including on national roads and highways, and that Silvinei Vasques, director of the Highway Police, is under investigation.

The supreme court also authorized the military police to identify trucks used to block traffic, arrest any offenders, and fine them 100,000 reais (more than 19,000 dollars) per hour.


(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón

https://orinocotribune.com/bolsonarists ... in-brazil/

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Truckers’ Blockades Lifted in Brazil

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Thousands of people participate in a protest by followers of former President Jair Bolsonaro for the result of the elections today, in front of the Eastern Military Command, in Rio de Janeiro | Photo: EFE / Antonio Lacerda

Published 3 November 2022

Brazil's Highway Police confirmed Thursday that the totality of the blockades that completely obstructed the passage on the country's roads, orchestrated by bolsonarista truckers who did not accept the triumph of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president-elect, were lifted.


"All federal highways (are) free of blockades," the agency said in a message on Twitter.

According to the highway authority, 936 demonstrations blocking the passage on the main roads of the South American giant were lifted.

The Highway Police also reported that only 24 partial roadblocks remain in 5 of the 27 Brazilian states, three of them located in the Brazilian Amazon - Amazonas, Pará and Roraima - as well as in Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, bordering Bolivia and Paraguay.

After three days of blocking the country's main highways, the blockades were lifted more quickly on Thursday following a message from President Jair Bolsonaro, who, in a video posted on his social networks on Wednesday night, called for respect for the right of people to move about.

The protests began on Sunday night after the victory of Lula, who, with 51.9% of the votes, was the winner of the second round of the presidential election in Brazil, against Bolsonaro's 49.1%.

The truck drivers' movement began to lose strength after the current president, seeking reelection, implicitly acknowledged his defeat on Tuesday after almost two days in silence.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Tru ... -0018.html

Bolsonaro supports coup demonstrations in TV intervention Comments

The outgoing president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro spoke publicly again after the defeat in the presidential elections last Sunday to support the coup groups.

Despite the express request to unblock the roads, the outgoing president reiterated that the protests are welcome.

Still without directly acknowledging the election results, Bolsonaro cited the Constitution and what he called the "democratic game" to clearly ask his supporters to unblock highways across the country.

The blockades described by the electoral authorities as anti-democratic began on Sunday night and spread to several states in the country.

According to the Federal Highway Police, in a bulletin released this Wednesday, there are 126 interdictions or blockades on federal roads throughout the country. Another 732 demonstration points would have been dispersed.

Bolsonaro, in his speech, said: “I know you are upset, sad and expected something else. I am also upset and sad, but we have to keep our heads in place," said the representative, and then asked: "Clear the roads, we are not going to lose our legitimacy."

After speaking of "our legitimacy," Bolsonaro said that the blockades are spontaneous and that they are causing damage to Brazil.

“It hurts our economy. I know that the economy is important, you may now be finding other more important things, I understand, but I make a call”, he said.

Despite the express request to unblock roads, the outgoing president reiterated that the protests are welcome.

“Let's do what needs to be done. I am with you and I am sure that you are with me. The request is the roads”, emphasized the president who has not recognized the electoral defeat.

https://www.telesurtv.net/bloggers/bols ... -0001.html

Google Translator

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Petro Talks to Lula: Close Ties Between Brazil and Colombia

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The President of Colombia Gustavo Petro | Photo: EFE / Mario Caicedo

Published 31 October 2022

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, communicated this Monday with the president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and said that the link between the two governments would be close due to the position of both on the Amazon.

"I have spoken by telephone with President Lula da Silva. I extended my most sincere congratulations. 'Relations between Colombia and Brazil will be close because we both love the Amazon,' he told me. So will be president Lula," Petro wrote on his Twitter account.

Earlier, the Colombian president highlighted the need to create a joint agenda with Brazil that will revolve around the environment and the fight against drugs.

"Topics of an agenda with Brazil: first, the rescue of the Amazon rainforest and its scientific research. Second, the path of a new non-violent anti-drug policy. Third, the integrated electric power grid of the Americas with clean energies. Fourth, Latin American economic integration," Petro said on his Twitter account.

The Colombian president had already expressed his support for the new president-elect when the results of the second round of the presidential election, held on Sunday, became known.

On his personal Twitter account, he posted "Viva Lula" as a way of celebrating the victory of the leader of the Workers' Party (PT, left-wing).

Lula won the runoff election in Brazil with 50.90 percent of the votes, against 49.10 percent for the current president, Jair Bolsonaro.

The president-elect will take office on January 1, 2023.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Pet ... -0012.html

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Russian CWP, Russian Communist Workers' Party congratulates the Brazilian Working People's Party and Luiz Inacio Lulu da Silva on their victory in the Brazilian presidential elections in October 2022
11/2/22 12:37 PM

Russian Communist Workers' Party congratulates the Brazilian Workers' Party and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on their victory in the Brazilian presidential elections in October 2022

The Russian Communist Workers' Party congratulates the Brazilian Workers' Party and Luiz Inacio Lulu da Silva on their victory in the October presidential elections.

This is undoubtedly a great success not only for the Party of Labor, but also for the entire working class and peasantry of the country in their struggle against imperialist pressure from outside and inside the country, which has significantly worsened the life of the working classes in recent years.

The most popular president in Brazil's history, Lula, a laborer from the Labor Party, faced trumped-up charges against which he fought steadfastly. These accusations eventually crumbled due to lack of evidence. Therefore, Lula's victory in the largest country in South America in this election is also a victory over the right-wing forces and their generally accepted practice of manipulating justice in all countries. His election marks an important step towards the unity of the Brazilian working people in their quest for self-determination of their destiny and true independence.

The Brazilian working class, as well as the poor peasantry, suffered the most due to the reactionary policies of the right-wing forces led by Jair Bolsonaro. Due to the unscientific, denial of the danger of the epidemic policy of the authorities, Brazil was among the countries most affected by COVID-19. Today, the president, elected by the majority of the people, will not only have to overcome the consequences of the previous rule, but also resist the pressure of the forces of internal reaction of big capital and their external allies, primarily US imperialism, that have not stopped resisting. The country, judging by the results of the elections, is essentially split. The system of capitalism is preserved and has not yet been questioned. In order to improve the situation of the people, the president and his party must find ways to rely on the strength and organization of the people themselves.

Critical assessments of the elected president of the positions of the Ukrainian authorities and the policy of the Kyiv regime towards Russia give hope for the development of friendly relations between our countries and mutual assistance, which is in the interests of the working people of Russia and Brazil.

The RCWP wishes success to the people of Brazil and the elected president in resisting the pressure of imperialism, which requires proletarian solidarity with the working people of the whole world.

CC RKRP

October 31, 2022 Russia, Leningrad

http://solidnet.org/article/Russian-CWP-2022/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 08, 2022 6:13 pm

Bye-Bye, Bolsonaro
By EMIR SADER
November 8, 2022

Bolsonaro looks at Donald Trump and Bolivia’s Jeanine Áñez and understands the risks he now faces

By Emir Sader*

The operation to block the Workers Party from continuing to govern Brazil was monstrous. Jair Bolsonaro installed a neoliberal model to guarantee support of business leaders, incorporating support from evangelical Christians. He employed the most violent rhetoric possible threatening the opposition, the judiciary, the media and governments of other countries.

He established a climate of terror, aggression, insecurity and instability in the country as Brazil proceeded without real democracy from the time of the coup against Dilma Rousseff.

He privatized public companies, isolated Brazil on the world stage, projected the worst image that a country could have and implemented the world’s worst policies to protect the public from the Covid 19 pandemic.

The economy suffered through a deep recessive cycle with high unemployment. The vast majority of Brazilians ended up working in a precarious manner without signed work cards and any type of employment guarantee.

Fake news was multiplied by robots, generating a parallel reality full of lies. He governed Brazil as an autocrat without dialogue, debates or consulting with the public. He became a president without a political party, without any kind of collective leadership of the country.

He was a person who was hated by ever increasing sectors of the population. He had to set up a gigantic operation to falsify votes in his attempt to be reelected.

Despite all of this, he ended up as the first Brazilian president to ever lose reelection. Now, he panics at the though of the scenario he will have to face staring on January 1, when he will no longer have any of the legal immunity enjoyed by a president and will suffer from a series of court rulings against him and his sons. He looks at Trump and Janine Áñez and understands the risks he now faces.

Worried about this, Bolsonaro tries to project a less violent public image. He complimented the truck company roadblocks on the highways, but condemned the use of violence that is inherent in these types of protests. He wanted to project himself as an opposition leader against Lula’s government, but no important allies that were on his side want to align with him anymore, opting instead to get closer to Lula.

Bolsonarismo is here to stay, as has happened on other countries where sectors of the middle class and popular movements have radicalized towards the extreme right. But it suffered a defeat and will now go through a period of isolation as more of the crimes committed by the Bolsonaro administration surface and as Lula consolidates his power. But Bolsonaro himself will disappear from Brazilian political life. The vast majority of parties that supported him – even sectors of big business and Evangelical leaders – are now leaning closer and closer to Lula.

Lula already occupies the center of political life, as if he has already taken power. He has received invitations to important international meetings taking place this November, weeks before his January 1 inauguration.

Lula is now organizing his government, which will have a nucleus of cabinet ministers from the PT in the most important positions. But the broad front that supported Lula, together with the sectors that are joining him now, will have to be incorporated into this government, which will have over 30 ministries. Lula’s inauguration itself will be a great demonstration of international prestige, as he has already received compliments from all of the world’s major leaders, some of whom will appear on Brasilia’s esplanade this January 1st.

Now, Brazil says goodbye to Bolsonaro and frees itself from its worst government in history. To paraphrase the old saying, Brazil hasn’t arrived in Heaven, but it’s already left Hell.

*Emir Sader, one of Brazil’s most prominent Marxist intellectuals, is a retired Political Science Professor from Rio de Janeiro State University, a member of the Workers Party and has written or edited 36 books.

This article originally appeared in Fórum, was translated by Brian Mier and can be read in it’s original Portuguese here.


https://www.brasilwire.com/bye-bye-bolsonaro/

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Lula da Silva speaking at the national congress of the PT Party in 2017. (Lula Marques/Agência PT, CC BY 2.0)

What worries the U.S. most about Lula
By Steve Ellner (Posted Nov 05, 2022)

Originally published: Consortium News on November 3, 2022 (more by Consortium News) |

President Joe Biden kept a promise to Lula da Silva by congratulating him for “free, fair and credible” elections minutes after Sunday’s results declared Lula the winner over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Pundits have interpreted the Biden administration’s words on the Brazilian election as a demonstration that it was rooting for Lula over his opponent, known as “Tropical Trump.” This reasoning is at best misleading, if not completely faulty.

What has Washington actually most worried about Lula is the reemergence of a powerful non-aligned movement and the prospect that a progressive like Lula would be at the helm. During his previous two presidencies, Lula cast himself as a spokesman for the Global South.

Times have changed since then. There is a growing number of ideologically diverse governments, which were formerly subservient to the U.S. and are now boldly defying Washington’s dictates, creating fertile ground for the expansion of a bloc of non-aligned nations that has been reinvigorated by opposition to NATO’s stance on Ukraine.

The vast majority of the world’s population, from China and India to South America and Africa, have not joined the sanctions regime against Russia and are gradually coalescing around an a new and emerging economic, financial and commercial system alternative to the West.

Furthermore, the total inability of the world’s major powers, specifically the U.S. and Western Europe, to broker an agreement to end the Ukraine conflict, opens space for a leader like Lula, who throughout his career has excelled at negotiating with politicians of diverse political orientations.

Foreign Policy in the Forefront
Lula’s victory on Sunday was razor-thin with 50.9 percent of the vote to 49.1 for Bolsonaro. Just as during his past presidencies (2003-2010), the center and right, including Bolsonaro’s allied parties, will control congress. This unfavorable balance of power will undoubtedly force Lula into making concessions on the domestic front, such as possibly softening his campaign pledge to tax the rich.

But on foreign policy he will be under less domestic pressure and is poised to keep his campaign promise to play a key role in regional and world affairs. In his victory speech in Sao Paulo on Sunday he pledged to reverse Brazil’s “pariah” international status, the result of Bolsonaro’s contempt for diplomacy and his outrageous statements, such as blaming China for Covid and Leonardo DiCaprio for the Amazonian fires in 2019.

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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro in April 2020. (Palácio do Planalto, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Shortly after first coming to power in 2003, the Washington establishment viewed Lula as a reliable moderate and a counter to firebrands such as Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Néstor Kirchner. Mexico’s former foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, in his famous book Leftovers: Tales of the Two Latin American Lefts, praised Lula as levelheaded and contrasted him with the “bad left” of Chávez & Co. whom he characterized as “populist” and “anti-American.”

But the favorable characterization of Lula changed in 2010, not as a result of Lula’s domestic policies, but rather his foreign policy, specifically his recognition of a Palestinian state on the basis of 1967 borders. A half dozen other Latin American governments then followed suit. The same year Lula, in the words of Reuters, “angered Washington” over his talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his defense of Iran’s nuclear program.

After that, Lula was no longer the pragmatic leftist answer to irresponsible populism, but was rather portrayed as a populist himself. The Wall Street Journal titled an article on the first round of the presidential elections held on Oct. 2, which put Lula ahead, “Populism Wins Brazil’s Election.” WSJ editor Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote:

Now candidate Lula is again promising moderation. His greatest political advantage is his image as a benevolent populist.

Rhetoric is an important element of populism, but in Lula’s case, what the U.S. is worried about are concrete actions he may take as president that would challenge U.S. hegemony. The threat stems largely from the bloc of five powerful nations that form BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

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Lula da Silva, second from left, with BRIC leaders in 2010. (José Cruz/ABr, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Skeptical Washington officials and pundits had dismissed the group’s summits as “talk shops” by governments that had little or nothing in common. That was the gist of then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “Remember BRICS?” tweet upon leaving office, in which he insinuated that India’s and Brazil’s fear of Russia and China made the organization useless.Now, two years later after Ukraine and with Lula as president-elect, that skepticism appears completely unfounded.

Lula was imprisoned in 2018 on what his supporters say were trumped-up corruption charges. In a 2019 prison interview, he declared “BRICS was not created to be an instrument of defense, but to be an instrument of attack.” His references this year on the campaign trail to BRICS, as well as regional organizations such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) (which Bolsonaro withdrew from) and the Union of South American Nations ( UNASUR), reinforced this message. After meeting with Lula the day after his triumph on Monday, Argentine President Alberto Fernández said,

‘with Lula, we will now have an activist for our bid’ to join BRICS.

Washington views BRICS’ expansion as a threat, exacerbated by Russia’s and China’s membership in the organization. In the closing weeks of Brazil’s presidential campaign, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), wrote:

With the BRICS… set to expand to include Argentina, Iran, and possibly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, Russia may acquire even more partners, ones that together represent a significant percentage of global GDP and a large percentage of the world’s population.

How ‘Neutral’ is Lula?

Washington can’t be at all pleased by Lula’s position on the Ukrainian conflict. Lula has insisted that BRICS play a role in the search for a negotiated solution and is committed to attempting to broker a peace deal. In the words of Telesur, Lula said “peace could be reached at a bar table, which caused uneasiness in the diplomatic representation of Ukraine in Brazil.”

But it’s not only the fear that Lula is closer to Russia and China than he is to Washington (which he is) that keeps U.S. policymakers up at night. Unlike Washington, Lula has acknowledged the legitimacy of Venezuelan democracy and, according to journalist Ben Norton, told local media that U.S.-recognized president Juan Guaidó is a “warmongering criminal who should be in prison.”

On the eve of the election, Lula told the Economist “People only talk about Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela. Nobody talks about Qatar. Nobody talks about the United States.”

A BRICS Currency

Lula has insisted, since his Workers’ Party lost power in 2016, that the BRICS’ major shortcoming was its failure to launch a new currency to rival the dollar. In an interview from prison, Lula recalled,

When I discussed a new currency… Obama called me, telling me, ‘Are you trying to create a new currency, a new euro?’ I said, ‘No, I’m just trying to get rid of the U.S. dollar.’

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March 14, 2009: President Barack Obama welcoming Brazilian President Lula Da Silva, to the Oval Office. (White House, Pete Souza)

Prospects for a BRICS reserve currency are much more promising in 2022 and its five member countries are behind the idea. Indeed, this year the currencies of all five BRICS nations have outperformed the Euro.

Washington’s political weaponization of the dollar goes beyond the super-power rivalry with Russia and China as U.S.-imposed international sanctions have brought misery to people of the Global South including to Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Nicaragua.

One Pole Against Many

The notion of a “multipolar world” frequently invoked by Lula envisions the emergence of diverse blocs including that of the non-aligned nations. An article in this summer’s issue of Foreign Policy by Shivshankar Menonor, a national security expert, reflects the thinking of many in Washington who are wary of non-alignment.

When the international system is failing or absent…, it is no surprise that leaders turn to nonalignment. The more the United States, Russia, China, or other powers pressure other countries to choose sides, the more those countries will be drawn to strategic autonomy, which could create a poorer and crueler world as countries reduce external dependence and consolidate their homefronts.

Some on the left are also uneasy. Longtime political activist Greg Godels calls multipolarity “a notion first discussed by bourgeois academics looking for tools to understand the dynamics of global relations” and adds “there are no guarantees that the poles that emerge or challenge the post-Cold War super-pole are a step forward or a step back simply because they are alternative poles.”

The presence of the racist government of India’s Narendra Modi in BRICS and Saudi Arabia’s desire to join it cast doubts on the organization’s progressiveness.

Saudi Arabia’s recent surprising decision to buck the U.S. by rejecting Biden’s plea to pump more oil to help lower international prices and hurt Russia doesn’t make the nation any less reactionary. But that’s precisely why the leadership of a progressive like Lula at the world level is of such importance—and causes alarm in Washington.

The original non-aligned movement (NAM) was founded in the 1950s by leaders like Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Kwame Nkrumah, were all left leaning and committed to socialism. The movement played a key role in favor of decolonization, disarmament, and opposition to racism and apartheid.

NAM still exists but the Soviet Union is gone, one of the two powers the movement was not aligned with. Only the U.S. remains. Lula has not hidden his criticism of the U.S., even his suspicion that U.S. investigators collaborated with Brazilian prosecutors in putting him behind bars, an accusation that has been well documented by the news outlet Brasilwire.

Lula is poised to become the leader of the progressive tide that has swept Latin America, beginning with Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s victory in Mexico in 2018.

The real question is whether Lula will put his political savvy to the test by playing a leadership role in favor of a progressive brand of multipolarity in a growing movement worldwide that is challenging U.S. hegemony and that cuts across the political spectrum—and how Washington will react to it.

https://mronline.org/2022/11/05/what-wo ... bout-lula/

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LULA AND AN OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE MISSED
6 Nov 2022 , 1:10 p.m.

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Among some academics and opinion makers, a consensus has been reached to baptize this moment the "second progressive wave" (Photo: DPA / Europa Press)


Lula da Silva's victory in Brazil has opened the debate, not only about the challenges and opportunities that he will have in his new government, but also about what can be extracted from it on a regional scale, considering the current distribution of the balance of power in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Brazil is an important geopolitical actor for the region. For this reason, our analysts dedicated the last Mission Truth Twitter Space to talk about the implications of the latest electoral results.


Franco Vielma, a columnist for this forum, began the space by bringing up the milestone of Lula da Silva's re-election, which was preceded by a "heated political climate" in the country. First, because of what the last four years of Jair Bolsonaro's government meant for the development of domestic politics. His management adds new nuances clearly differentiated from the time in which Lula governed and was consecutively re-elected.

Vielma included the current geopolitical context: "In addition to the conflict that is taking place right now in Ukraine and the great crisis that is developing from energy, the dispute over raw materials."

It is about the distortion of the supply chains, which affects Brazil for being anchored to the dependence on fertilizers for the crops of its agribusiness. Lula's social policies were largely dismembered by the governments of Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro, so the impoverishment of society becomes more acute and there is no protection against rising fuel prices.

"That is to say, a very adverse economic dynamic is developing in Brazil, especially for the popular classes," added our analyst, reiterating that the president-elect comes to assume a presidency in a context of crisis, and also of destruction, of the economic fabric. different from how he had left it.

A second important element that the analysts evaluated had to do with the way in which the electoral event in Brazil unfolded. The usual thing is to think that, once the victory of one of the candidates is announced, an orderly transition occurs. However, with each new election in the region, it is confirmed that this has long ceased to be the case. In Brazil, Bolsonaro did not appear until two days after the announcement, and not to acknowledge the results. His statements were marked by "indignation" and claims of "injustice", and by a wink of approval at the mobilizations and blockades by Bolsonarism, which had started a day earlier.

In this regard, William Serafino, a columnist for Misión Verdad , mentioned the leaks of information from Brazilian intelligence that affirm that "a larger movement of mobilization in the street, of clashes, of political violence, and with attempts at violence is being prepared. of armed violence", which would be seeking to prevent an orderly transition to the new Lula government.

Serafino explained that the election in Brazil, like other electoral processes, shows that the left and right axes have been diluted as a framework for understanding politics and the location of the actors themselves, at least in conventional terms of the political discourses of the century. XX.

"It is not fully understood that those liberal rules of the game that had been established, where one adversary accepts the victory of the other, is an issue that is becoming part of the past. In the case of Bolsonarism, they are showing power in the street Serafino continued.

Bolsonarism, in addition to having a majority presence in the Brazilian Congress, has many links with the Army, with the police and, of course, with the Liberal Party. That is where Bolsonarism is inserted.

What does this tell us? That the elections can no longer be considered the end and the result of nothing; they are one more human resource in a battle between power technologies and force and influence devices, the analyst emphasized. No government in Latin America, under current conditions, will be able to maintain power only through elections.

In Serafino's opinion, "if there is no constituent body in Brazil, there is no removal of the aristocratic and oligarchic architecture that has always governed that country, it will be very difficult to establish a governability framework afterwards."

Analysts warned not to get carried away by the romanticization that is being given to the scenario in Brazil after Lula's electoral victory. Beyond the symbolism of his return or the fact that he is the first president in the history of his country to repeat for the third time, Lula's victory is not exceptional, nor is it the point on which to focus. This was stated by Gustavo Borges Revilla, director of Misión Verdad .

"We depersonalize the analysis, it is not at all exceptional. What is brutally exceptional for me is that a figure like Bolsonaro has at this moment the political capital that he has, that is, 49% of the votes in his favor, his option , that is, his way of referring, his way of understanding, of understanding, of narrating, of naming politics, of naming people, of categorizing things, of thinking".

SECOND WAVE?

One last point to highlight from the extensive and in-depth analysis that was given in the last Space of this forum is how the newly positioned Latin American leaders of the so-called "second progressive wave" have been left.

*In Bolivia, the actors of the 2019 coup d'état are once again reorganized and causing strikes and blockades in the streets;
*in Argentina there was an attack against the vice president Cristina Fernández, built and constituted from the right-wing forces with the support of the media powers;
*in Ecuador, a left shows shameful passivity while the country is being plundered and taken over by drug traffickers;
*the internal crisis in Cuba, a country that has not finished advancing due to the complex economic situation resulting from the "sanctions" left by the Donald Trump administration;
*and the only one who seems to have real intentions of shaking something up in the region, apart from President Nicolás Maduro, is President Gustavo Petro.

In this regard, Borges Revilla emphasized President Alberto Fernández, since his case reflects very well the example of a political leader who does not respond to the expectations of the population who put him there with their votes to address the economic and social crisis that left the elites while they held political power.

"People vote for them because they are supposed to constitute a different proposal and the responsibility for violating that established order falls on them. And finally, in the case of Alberto Fernández, it ends up being a farce for those who voted and believed. He has not even there has been a minimum of confrontation with the media and judicial power, for example".

It is not about Alberto Fernández as an individual, but about this way of dealing with politics that is now called "progressivism", which does not seem to understand why he is in power, since he does not comply with a minimum program to serve the population and the planetary crisis, sabotages the integration mechanisms and has no proposals or convening actions.

Among some academics and opinion makers a consensus has been reached to baptize this moment the "second progressive wave". The confirmation of Lula's third term consolidates this group. In that sense, and understanding that Brazil is not just any country and that Lula is not just any politician, what is the opportunity that the "first wave" once had and that now cannot be lost again?

It would be a matter of concretely and precisely promoting certain integration mechanisms (Unasur, CELAC, ALBA-TCP) jointly, taking advantage of a situation of formation of comprehensive blocks of countries, on a global and regional scale, that could counterbalance the hegemony decadent United States. The 2000s were an opportunity that faded with political changes in key countries on the continent in the years that followed.

The one of 2020 seems to offer a similar scenario, with another context and different actors, however the republiqueta instinct could prevail in the mentality and strategy of many politicians and presidents in Latin America, which could hinder efforts to revive a dynamic conducive to integration, however pragmatic and appropriate.

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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 11, 2022 2:38 pm

Government of transition in Brazil: understand how it works and what it can do
The new president can appoint a group of 50 people who, in theory, should have access to the current government’s information

November 09, 2022 by Brasil de Fato

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Vice-President elect Geraldo Alckmin, center, is leading the government of transition which facilitates the change from the current government to the incoming one. Photo: Geraldo Alckmin

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) will only take office on January 1, 2023, but he has been hard at work since the results of the second round of voting were announced. Now, the work of the transition process has begun which will facilitate the changes from the current government to the incoming one.

According to Rafael Mafei, a professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) Law School, “President Lula’s duties begin to take effect mainly as soon as he is sworn into office, on January 1,” but, “for now, he has the political duty to begin the work for the transition to be successful.

This must be done “by indicating the best names from his base of support to carry out the task of taking charge of the current state of public administration, preparing the first measures of the new government right away. His main task now is political, that of setting up the government itself, with the appointment of ministers.”

How does it work?

Acting in his capacity as the officially elected president, Lula can start the government of transition by appointing a team of 50 people for the so-called Special Positions of the Government of Transition (CETG), according to Law 10.609/2002, enacted by Fernando Henrique Cardoso at the end of his second mandate.

Attorney Tânia Maria Saraiva de Oliveira, a member of the coordination of the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy (ABJD), explained that this team, led by a coordinator, aims to have access to information about the current functioning of the federal public administration.

“Members of the transition team will be appointed by the elected candidate and will have access to information regarding public accounts, programs, and projects of the federal government,” the legislation describes. The salaries foreseen for the members vary from R$2,701.46 to R$17,327.65.

Decree 7.221, from 2010, which also regulates the transition, determines that the appointment of the team will be made by the president-elect, but that “the Minister of State Chief of Staff of the Presidency of the Republic will be in charge of coordinating the work related to the government transition process. Once the work is done, 10 days after the inauguration of the new president, the positions will be mandatorily extinguished.

“The rules of the transition process are not an option between governments. Law 10,609 of 2002 and Decree 7221 of 2010 mandate a transition process between the current government and the elected government, which starts right after the proclamation of the election result and ends with the inauguration of the new president,” Oliveira explained.

“In this case, the holders of all organs and entities of the public administration are obliged to provide the requested information and to provide all the technical and administrative support that is necessary for the work. So this is not an option for the Bolsonaro government. The transition is a legal obligation that has its own law and decree.”

Geraldo Alckmin will be the coordinator

Alckmin will work directly with the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, and will be responsible for the current government’s dialogue with the transition team. The governing party has already determined the headquarters of the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Brasília to carry out the work.

Alckmin wrote on Twitter: “I appreciate the confidence of President @LulaOficial in the mission of coordinating the government of transition. The work of our team will be guided by the principles of public interest, collaboration, transparency, planning, agility and continuity of services.”


Alckmin signed, on Tuesday November 8, the ordinances related to the period of the government of transition. One of them appoints three coordinators of the process: the PT president, Gleisi Hoffmann, who will manage the political coordination of the transition cabinet; Aloizio Mercadante, the coordinator of the cabinet’s technical group; and former congressman Floriano Pesaro, the cabinet’s executive coordinator. Lula’s wife, Janja da Silva, will coordinate the organization of the presidential inauguration, which traditionally takes place on January 1.

There will also be a political council formed by leaders of the parties that participated in the coalition that elected Lula as president. The group will have the following members: Gleisi Hoffmann (PT), Carlos Siqueira (PSB), Daniel Tourinho (Agir), Felipe Espírito Santo (Pros), Antonio Brito (PSD), Guilherme Ítalo (Avante), Jeferson Coriteac (Solidariedade), José Luiz Penna (PV), Juliano Medeiros (PSOL), Luciana Santos (PC do B), Wesley Diogenes (Rede) and Wolnei Queiroz (PDT).

What happens if Bolsonaro impedes the work of transition?

Oliveira affirms that the legislation does not foresee any type of sanction or penalty for refusing to carry out the transition process. “Now, obviously, as a general rule, if the government refuses to comply with this process, which is established in law, it may be accused of administrative misconduct,” she emphasized.

USP Professor Mafei pointed out that Bolsonaro has the obligation to “cooperate with the transition team,” but such cooperation will happen directly with the members of the current government that will provide information to the transition team. For these members, there is a legal obligation, “which can be demanded by court order, under penalty of the crime of disobedience, if necessary.”

“The main punishment,” therefore, “will not fall on the president of the Republic, but on the funcionaries of the ministries, secretariats and other organs of the public administration that do not make the best efforts to cooperate with the transition.”

According to Mafei, “an eventual punishment of Bolsonaro would fundamentally depend on whether he committed, during the transition, an act defined as a crime, such as misfeasance.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/09/ ... it-can-do/

Lula must save Brazil from savage capitalism, says Federal Deputy Juliana Cardoso[
Bolsonaro had accelerated a project that Cardoso says was an “avalanche of savage capitalism. It is a capitalism that kills, that destroys, that makes a lot of money for a few people”

November 11, 2022 by Vijay Prashad, Zoe Alexandra

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Juliana Cardoso

Juliana Cardoso is sitting in her office in front of a lavender, orange, and yellow mandala that was made for her. She has been a member of São Paulo’s city council since 2008. On October 2, 2022, as a candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Cardoso won a seat in Brazil’s lower house, the Federal Chamber of Deputies.

She is wearing a t-shirt that bears the powerful slogan: O Brasil é terra indígena (Brazil is Indigenous land). The slogan echoes her brave campaign against the disregard shown by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s 38th president defeated on October 30, towards the Indigenous populations of his country. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Bolsonaro vetoed Law no. 14021 which would have provided drinking water and basic medical materials to Indigenous communities. Several organizations took Bolsonaro to the International Criminal Court for this action.

In April 2022, Cardoso wrote that the rights of the Indigenous “did not come from the kindness of those in power, but from the struggles of Indigenous people over the centuries. Though guaranteed in the [1988] Constitution, these rights are threatened daily.” Her political work has been defined by her commitment to her own Indigenous heritage but also by her deep antipathy to the “savage capitalism” that has cannibalized her country.

Savage capitalism

Bolsonaro had accelerated a project that Cardoso told us was an “avalanche of savage capitalism. It is a capitalism that kills, that destroys, that makes a lot of money for a few people.” The current beneficiaries of this capitalism refuse to recognize that the days of their unlimited profits are nearly over. These people – most of whom supported Bolsonaro – “live in a bubble of their own, with lots of money, with swimming pools.” Lula’s election victory on October 30 will not immediately halt their “politics of death,” but it has certainly opened a new possibility.

New studies about poverty in Brazil reveal startling facts. An FGV Social study from July 2022 found that almost 63 million Brazilians – 30% of the country’s population – live below the poverty line (10 million Brazilians slipped below that line to join those in poverty between 2019 and 2021). The World Bank documented the spatial and racial divides of Brazil’s poverty: three in ten of Brazil’s poor are Afro-Brazilian women in urban areas, while three-quarters of children in poverty live in rural areas. President Bolsonaro’s policies of upward redistribution of wealth during the pandemic and after contributed to the overall poverty in the country and exacerbated the deep social inequalities of race and region that already existed. This, Cardoso says, is evidence of the “savage capitalism” that has gripped her country and left tens of millions of Brazilians in a “hole, with no hope of living.”

To sow hope
“I was born and raised within the PT,” she tells us, in the Sapopemba area of São Paulo. Surrounded by the struggles against “savage capitalism,” Cardoso was raised by parents who were active in the PT. “As a girl, I walked amongst those who built the PT, such as José Dirceu, José Genoino, President Lula himself,” as well as her mother — Ana Cardoso, who was one of the founders of the PT. Her parents—Ana Cardoso and Jonas “Juruna” Cardoso — were active in the struggles of the metalworkers and for public housing in the Fazenda da Juta area of Sapopemba. A few days after he led a protest in 1985, Juruna was shot to death by mysterious gunmen. Juliana had been sitting in his lap outside their modest home in the COHAB Teotônio Vilela. Her mother was told not to insist on an investigation, since this would “bring more deaths.” This history of struggle defines Juliana.

“We are not bureaucrats,” she told us. “We are militants.” People like her who will be in the Congress will “use the instrument of the mandate to move an agenda” to better the conditions of everyday life. Pointing to the mandala in her office, Juliana says, “I think this lilac part is my shyness.” Her active life in politics, she says, “kind of changed me from being shy to being much firmer.” There is only one reason “why I am here,” she says, and that is “to sow, to have hope for seeds that will fight with me for the working class, for women, during this difficult class struggle.”

Politics in Brazil is violent
Lula will be sworn into office on January 1, 2023. He will face a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate that are in the grip of the right-wing. This is not a new phenomenon, although the centrão (center), the opportunistic bloc in the parliament that has run things, will now have to work alongside far-right members of Bolsonaro’s movement. Juliana and her left allies will be in a minority. The right, she says, enters politics with no desire to open a dialogue about the future of Brazil. Many right-wing politicians are harsh, formed by fake news and a suffocating attitude to money and religion. “Hate, weapons, death”— these are the words that seem to define the right-wing in Brazil. It is because of them that politics “is very violent.”

Juliana entered politics through struggles developed by the Base Ecclesiastical Communities (CEBs) of the Catholic Church, learning her ethics through Liberation Theology through the work of Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns and Paulo Freire. “You have to engage people in their struggles, dialogue with them about their struggles,” she told us. This attitude to building struggles and dialoguing with anyone defines Juliana as she prepares to go to Brasilia and take her seat in the right-wing dominated National Congress.

Lula, Juliana says, “is an ace.” Few politicians have his capacity to dialogue with and convince others about the correctness of his positions. The left is weak in the National Congress, but it has the advantage of Lula. “President Lula will need to be the big star,” said Juliana. He will have to lead the charge to save Brazil from savage capitalism.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/11/ ... a-cardoso/

Another wasted adjective, it always ends up savage.

What will Lula’s foreign policy look like?

Lula’s incoming government has an immense challenge ahead to repair historic relations and alliances which were undermined by Bolsonaro

November 09, 2022 by Pedro Marin

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Brasília, 2010. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Brazilian President Lula, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pose for the official photo during the 2nd BRIC Heads of State and Government Summit Photo: José Cruz/ABr/Wikimedia

The tenure of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is defined by the deforestation of the Amazon, the return of 33 million Brazilians to hunger, and the terrible governance of the country during the pandemic.

But it also marked a radical turning point on a subject that receives little public attention in general: foreign policy. It’s not just that the Bolsonaro government has transformed Brazil, a giant in land area and population, into a kind of diplomatic dwarf. Nor is it just the fact that Bolsonaro turned the country’s back to Latin America and Africa. The most serious thing is that in his pursuit of aligning Brazil to the United States, Bolsonaro broke with a long tradition of Brazilian foreign policy: the respect for constitutional principles of national independence, self-determination of the peoples, non-intervention, equality between States, defense of peace, and peaceful solution of conflicts.

Despite the different foreign policies adopted by Brazilian governments over the years, no president had ever so openly broken with these principles. Never had a Brazilian president expressed such open support for a candidate in a US election, as Bolsonaro did to Trump and against Biden in 2020. Never had a president so openly despised Brazil’s main trading partner, as Bolsonaro did with China on different occasions. Never had a Brazilian president offended the wife of another president as Jair Bolsonaro, his Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, and his son Representative Eduardo Bolsonaro did in relation to Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte. And never, at least since re-democratization in the 1980s, has a president talked so openly about invading a neighboring country as Bolsonaro did toward Venezuela.

This attitude has thrown Brazil into a position of unprecedented diplomatic isolation for a country recognized for its absence of conflicts with other countries and its capacity for diplomatic mediation. As a result, during the campaign for the 2022 elections—won by Lula da Silva on Sunday, October 30, by a narrow margin of 2.1 million votes, with 50.9 percent of the votes for Lula against 49.1 percent for Bolsonaro—the topic of foreign policy appeared frequently, with Lula promising to resume Brazil’s leading role in international politics.

“We are lucky that the Chinese see Brazil as a historic entity, which will exist with or without Bolsonaro. Otherwise, the possibility of having had problems of various types would be great. … [For example, China] could simply not give us vaccines,” professor of economics at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) Elias Jabbour tells me. “Brazil should once again play a decisive role in major international issues,” he adds.

The return of ‘active and assertive’ foreign policy?

International relations during the first Lula administrations, from 2003 to 2011, were marked by Celso Amorim, minister of foreign affairs. He called for an “active and assertive” foreign policy. By “assertive,” Amorim meant a firmer attitude to refuse outside pressure and place Brazil’s interests on the international agenda. By “active,” he was referring to a decisive pursuit of Brazil’s interests. This view was “meant to not only defend certain positions, but also attract other countries to Brazil’s positions,” Amorim said.

This policy meant a commitment to Latin American integration, with the strengthening of Mercosur (also known as the Southern Common Market) and the creation of institutions such as Unasur, the South American Institute of Government in Health, the South American Defense Council, and CELAC. The IBSA forum (India, Brazil, and South Africa) and the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) were also established. During this period, Brazil also advanced its relations with the European Union, Africa, and the Middle East. Due to Brazil’s size and the diplomatic weight it took on by increasing its diplomatic representation worldwide, Brazil came to be an important player in international forums, seeking to advance discussions toward multilateralism and greater democratization of these forums, effectively mediating sensitive issues such as the Iran nuclear agreement with the UN and tensions between Venezuela and the US during the Bush administration.

So far from God and so close to the US

There is a popular phrase throughout Latin America, originally said by Mexican General Porfirio Díaz, overthrown by the Mexican Revolution in 1911: “Poor Mexico! So far from God and so close to the United States.” It applies outside the bounds of its original time and place. Today’s Latin Americans could easily swap out “poor Mexico” for their own country, whether that’s Colombia, Guatemala, Argentina, or even Brazil—a country where a Christ the Redeemer statue is an international tourist attraction.

In a scenario where nations are heading toward war and confrontation, the return of a diplomatically active Brazil may be exactly what the world, and Latin America in particular, needs. “For the past 40 days, the war in Ukraine has been heading toward a point of no return. Diplomatic exits are no longer on the agenda and the use of brute military force has increased,” says Rose Martins, a doctoral candidate in international economic relations at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). “In this scenario, the BRICS and its New Development Bank offer alternatives for economic development distinct from the neoliberal terms.”

The question, perhaps, is which “world” actually looks forward to an active Brazil. This resumption may interest the Third World, for example, but there are doubts about whether it would interest the so-called Western world. “In this global situation, in which there is a dispute over ‘cosmotechnics’ and among which the exercise of force is in place, Brazil will have to play in a very balanced way, with great caution,” says Professor Héctor Luís Saint-Pierre, coordinator of the Defense and International Security Study Group (GEDES). “I can imagine two possible attitudes: from the point of view of the dispute over cosmotechnical hegemonies, it would be the pragmatic non-alignment. In other words, entering into commercial, economic, and technological relationships in a pragmatic way, non-aligned: neither with one nor with the other,” he says. “And with regard to the US, a certain precaution, because they are at war—we are not. We don’t need to go to war to defend US interests: the right thing to do, to defend Brazilian interests, is not going to war. Sometimes national interests are defended by not going to war.”

In addition to the external challenge, Lula arrives at the presidency in a very different situation from that found in his first term. Not only will he have to deal with all the institutional destruction left by Jair Bolsonaro, but he will also have to deal with the members of his own “broad front” coalition—many of whom had been radical opponents during his previous governments. One of the most sensitive topics, however, is how the armed forces will act. Since the coup against Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, the generals have returned to the Brazilian political scene, expanding their domains to the point of conquering thousands of positions under Bolsonaro—a scenario that puts a country that only left its last military dictatorship 37 years ago on alert. “More than paradoxical, it is aporetic. It’s a dead-end situation,” says Saint-Pierre, when I ask him whether the way to disarm military power internally would be to carry out a consistent foreign policy, or if, in order to carry out a consistent foreign policy, it would first be necessary to disarm military power. He believes that Lula will have to establish some kind of pact with the military, in which their demands are respected, so that he can effectively govern. But for all the challenges, Saint-Pierre, Martins, and Jabbour all seem to agree on one point: the Lula government’s foreign policy will definitely be better for Brazil, Latin America, and the world than Bolsonaro’s. So do the Brazilian people.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/09/ ... look-like/

***************

Analysis of the Brazil Elections and Bolsonaro’s Reaction
NOVEMBER 10, 2022

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Footage of Bolsonaro supporters raising Nazi salute in response to their recent defeat. Photo: Twitter.

By Gusatvo A. Maranges – Nov 3, 2022

The elections in Brazil were, without doubt, among the most important and anticipated events of the year in Latin America. The largest economy in the region’s political superstructure is a core element in the context of the new progressive wave across Latin America. Said wave will depend largely on Brazil’s political and economic trajectory. Domestically, it was vital, as Brazil barely survived 6 years of right-wing governance, combined with the pandemic, which plunged millions of Brazilians into poverty.

The winning candidate was, fortunately, the Workers’ Party (PT) representative Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won by a narrow margin of 2 million votes, or 0.8% of the vote. Regardless of how narrow, the victory was still resounding.

Jair Bolsonaro, the ultra-right-wing politician, had to rely on backing from the government machinery. Bolsonaro counted on the oligarchy and the Brazilian upper middle class’ support, meaning economic and influential power would be able to define any electoral process.

The main component of Lula’s victory was his collective leadership strategy and alliances with the most diverse political forces, ranging from the center-right to the most progressive and left-wing organizations in the country. However, once the elections are won, this type of coalition may turn into another battleground. Bolsonaro will be out of power in two months, differences could emerge, which may prove to hinder Lula’s government and leave him exposed to right-wing forces. Those whose main objective is to destroy Lula politically. Therefore, consistent work and a conscientious strategy will be needed to avoid such a dilemma.

The election’s results

An interesting fact about the election result is that young adults voted for Lula. This is peculiar since ultra-right politicians are often popular in this sector. However, in Brazil, it seems to be different.

Born before Lula’s first term, today’s young adults grew up firsthand with the improvements PT spearheaded over a 13 year administration. These same people have witnessed the disastrous mismanagement of Bolsonaro and are willing to recover what they consider normal living standards. At the same time, Bolsonaro’s neoliberal approach to social and economic issues are abhorrent when contrasted with Lula’s fair and modern treatment of human rights like LGTBQ+, women and black people’s rights, as well as environmental policies.

The elections showed a country divided economically and politically. It is no coincidence that Bolsonaro won in the richest Amazonian states, those with the highest Human Development Index (HDI) and the lowest illiteracy rates. Bolsonaro’s willingness to cut down millions of hectares of forests, ignoring the environmental consequences, earned him the logging and cattle sector’s support. Many of these businessmen not only funded Bolsonaro but campaigned for him by threatening their workers with consequences. They claimed Lula’s government would shut down their businesses.

Bolsonaro clearly won in the two states with the largest urban population, while Lula won in those with the largest rural population. This voter divide shows the abysmal chasm that exists between Brazil’s countryside and the cities. This was among the problems that both Lula and his PT successor, Dilma Rousseff, tried to alleviate by implementing social policies.

Comparing the votes by state, Lula won in 13 of the 23 states. Those with less population, low incomes, and hit hardest by COVID-19 due to their health systems’ weakness and governmental neglect.

Power distribution in state-level elections, however, was different, although balanced. The PT won only 4 out of the 23 governorships, with another 3 from the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), whose presidential candidate was Simone Tebet, one from the Solidaridade Party, and 3 from the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). The rest of the governorships are in Bolsonaro’s and his collaborators’ hands. The relationship between forces in the Senate and the House of Representatives is equally adverse for Brazilian progressives, further complicating government management.

The overseas vote also reveals the trans-nationalization of the right-wing agenda in the region. Although Lula won the overseas vote in general, in such cases as the United States, Bolsonaro won overwhelmingly. Something similar happened in Latin America, save for Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and Uruguay. Lula won all across Europe, where Brazilians are less exposed to the media might of the Latin America’s right-wing and the frenetic smear campaigns organized against Lula.

Lula is aware of the current political and social situation, hence his conciliatory stance. During his victory speech, Lula said he would work for all Brazilians regardless of whether they voted for him or not. Uniting the country is one of his priorities and, at the same time, his biggest challenge, given the right-wing parties’ political strength and capacity to mobilize their supporters.

Regarding domestic policy, Lula had a strong environmental and social justice agenda. These remain two neuralgic topics, ever since they were totally neglected by the previous administration. However, moving forward with concrete proposals may be complicated due to the opposition of agribusiness and economic elites, always reluctant to improve the country’s wealth distribution.

On the other hand, Congress’ composition will be Damocles’ Sword on Lula’s neck. The lawfare impeachment of Dilma is still fresh in many lawmen’s minds. Moreover, the polarization, or the division of political forces and the constant alliance changes in Brazil, are elements that weaken democracy and pave the way for the lawfare to act.

The response of the international community

Lula’s victory was a cause for joy not only for Brazil, where millions celebrated in the streets, but for the region in general. Dozens of presidents and prime ministers immediately congratulated Lula, most of them regional leaders such as Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez. Thanks to this victory, integration mechanisms such as the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) will get momentum. Brazil played a leading role in both projects, and the arrival of right-wing presidents like Bolsonaro marked the stagnation of both. Today, the obstacles are fewer, the opportunities to work together and move forward. Especially now that many countries in the region are more inclined to challenge neoliberalism.

The President of the United States did not miss a chance to make public his relief with Lula’s victory. His congratulations were among the first. Biden’s reaction was influenced by the acute discrepancies he had with Bolsonaro, a faithful follower of former President Donald Trump. This contradiction led to a rift between the two capitalist powers, something Biden is eager to revise given Brazil’s diplomatic and geopolitical importance in multilateral forums and organizations.

Bolsonaro’s response

While the whole world was celebrating, Bolsonaro went to sleep and took over 24 hours to make a statement. In his first words after the elections, contrary to tradition, he refused to acknowledge the results or congratulate Lula. He rather questioned the results, which was interpreted by his supporters as a call to maintain federal highways blocked. Hours later, however, when chaos had taken over the highways, Bolsonaro made a call to withdraw the blockades, but to maintain the protests.

Bolsonaro intends to keep Brazilian democracy in check, as Trump did in the United States. Once again, the right-wing’s modus operandi remains the same: not recognizing the election results, betting on social disorder as well as instability to hinder the new government’s work. Many are calling for the military to, fulfill their fantasies, and, step in.

In light of this, the presidential transition will be very complicated. Bolsonaro’s uncooperative attitude and the perennial threat of a coup d’état ever lingering overhead.

https://orinocotribune.com/analysis-of- ... -reaction/
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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 17, 2022 3:02 pm

João Pedro Stedile: “Lula’s victory is a political and social victory not just electoral”

In part one of this two-part interview, Stedile discussed the major challenges facing the incoming Lula government, the Bolsonarista blockades, and Lula’s priorities for foreign relations.

November 15, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch



Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party emerged victorious in the historic elections held in Brazil on October 30. With almost 50.9% of the votes, Lula, a trade unionist who was also president from 2003-2010, defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party who got around 49.1% in the run-off election. His campaign for this election was driven by the left, people’s movements, trade unions, and radical and progressive forces across the country.

In this two part interview series, we speak to Joao Pedro Stedile of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) about the implications of Lula’s victory for Brazil and the world and the challenges he will have to surpass in order to fulfill his election promises.

Peoples Dispatch: What is your major take away from the victory of Lula da Silva in the election on October 30?

João Pedro Stedile: The electoral victory was very close. But that does not reflect the correlation of forces in society. Over the past few months, the crisis has deepened significantly, in the economic, social areas as well as with environmental crimes and the political crisis itself.

This led the social classes to take different positions in relation to the elections. The main one was the change in the bourgeoisie, because the bourgeoisie had put Bolsonaro in government. Bolsonaro has no strength of his own. He has a group of fanatics, but he has no organized social force, because there is no fascist mass movement. He is the result of the crisis and in 2018, the bourgeoisie put him in government.

Now the bourgeoisie changed its position. Only a small part supported Bolsonaro. Even his biggest support in terms of resources, was from the extreme right-wing in the United States, from the Republicans, from Bannon. It is said that they sent 40 million dollars to [the Bolsonaro campaign], in addition to equipment, and people to manipulate social networks.

A large part of the bourgeoisie wanted a third way: neither Lula nor Bolsonaro. But they failed to make it a viable option. And a growing part of the bourgeoisie opted for Lula.

This changed the correlation of forces in society.

The same thing happened with the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie. 90% had supported Bolsonaro. Now 90% support Lula.

And in the working class, the same thing in 2018, even among the spaces of the working class, such as trade unions, trade union centers, and left-wing parties, we were divided. And now we are united for Lula. Although the poorest part of the working class that lives in the periphery, who are influenced by the Pentecostals, also voted for Bolsonaro.

So I wanted to convey to you that, despite the close election victory, in Brazilian society there is a broad spectrum of social and popular forces that support Lula. And that is why his victory is more than electoral. His victory is a political and social victory that gives us strength to begin making the necessary changes in the country.

PD: What is your perspective on the pro-Bolsonaro blockades that took place across the country?

JP: Well, Bolsonaro managed to become a leader using all possible resources in those four years of an extreme right wing [government].

But who are these militants of the extreme right?

They are a fraction of 10% of the reactionary right-wing white middle class who follow their leader Bolsonaro. But they’re not even a majority in the middle class, by and large. What happened? They are very influenced by that international coordination that exists globally of the extreme right. That’s the great novelty of the last six years that the extreme right in the world began to work together in various countries and help each other. And they have the same characteristics and that’s why they adopt the same tactics.

[The Bolsonaristas] lost the election, and oriented by that international bloc, they applied here what they had applied in Bolivia and what they had applied in the United States with the defeat of Trump. What happened both in Bolivia and in the United States? Their leaders are in jail and they did not achieve the support of the majority of the people.

The same thing happened here. Immediately after the defeat, those radicalized sectors, which are a minority, tried to block the roads with the support of sectors of the police, which was the same thing that happened in Bolivia and the United States.

But the major forces within Brazilian society, and the business community itself, the great majority were against it. And that created even greater isolation of Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro did not know how to take advantage of the 58 million votes [that he won]. He essentially threw those votes away because in two days the public opinion of all Brazil turned against them because of the road closures. To the point that Bolsonaro had to go on television and ask them to stop. So, little groups of them went then to the barracks.

Saying what? Crying out to the military to stage a coup to prevent Lula’s inauguration. But all these are acts of desperation of an extreme right wing that in reality has no social strength. Because if they were an organized social force, they would have carried out the coup before the elections and not now, when they are becoming more and more isolated.

PD: What will be the major challenges that people’s movements will have to face with the incoming Lula government?

JP: There are many challenges. The first challenge is that the popular forces have to maintain unity, like what we built in the campaign “Out Bolsonaro”. We have also built it with an organizational process that we call the Popular Committees, and we have managed to to organize around 7000 Popular Committees throughout the country.

Our intention is that these committees are not just electoral, but that they should be permanent committees and that from there the ideological struggle in society will be waged, with action on social media.

And the first task now is to try to discuss with our rank and file about an emergency plan that Lula must implement in the first four months of government from January to April.

This emergency plan has to address the key problems that the people are facing, with concrete measures that help to solve their needs. And above all to show to the people, that there have been changes not only of the president, but changes in the policy in the country.

We believe that it is necessary to have concrete, immediate measures to confront hunger, [which will need] quick food production, and there the peasantry will have an important role. It is necessary to have measures to tackle unemployment, which affects 70 million people and for that we have to restart the building of housing for the people, because it is a way to recover industry and employment. And we have to invest and put a lot of money into education so that young people can go back to school and especially to university. Throughout this crisis, 3 million young people dropped out of school and withdrew from university because they had no way to survive. So we have to bring back those young people who want to study but do not have resources.

And we must invest heavily in the Unified Public Health System, called SUS, because with more investment in public health we can hire more health professionals, deliver more medicine to the people and in this way you also solve the serious health problems that we are currently facing in the country.

So, in general, those are some concrete measures and in these coming weeks we will be discussing and coordinating so that the popular committees can discuss them and at some point by December we can present these proposals to the incoming president Lula.

PD: How do you think Lula will handle international relations with countries of the Global South, especially Latin America?

JP: Personally, I believe that the easiest and most visible changes the new president can make or the new government of Lula, will be in the international realm, because Lula has an internationalist vision.

He can become a great international leader and join the efforts of President Xi of China, of Pope Francis, who is a leader for Europe and the Western Christian world. And Lula emerges here in Latin America, also as a leader.

In his previous governments he visited 88 countries, and had opened doors of relations with Africa, with Asia, with the Arab world. So I think that Lula’s policy towards the Global South will be very effective in two directions.

First, in relation to Latin America. We have a new correlation of forces. The big countries are ruled by progressive governments like Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. And that allows a correlation of forces with which we can retake the unitary processes that had been started before and that in the last four years were slowed down. I am referring to CELAC which can be a necessary alternative to the OAS, that in spite of the changes of governments, continues to be manipulated by the United States. Transforming UNASUR into a large South American bloc. Mercosur, I believe that more than being of the Southern Cone, it has to become an economic bloc of South America. And also to promote other initiatives such as the Bank of South and projects of Latin American integration.

At the level of the Global South, I believe that the main instrument that Lula is going to work for and recover is the BRICS. BRICS for now consists of five countries, but the Chinese and the Russians have the political will to expand the BRICS and hopefully become a powerful economic bloc to confront the decaying imperialism of the United States and not to be following what the Europeans think. Argentina has already expressed its willingness to join, [as well as] Saudi Arabia, Nigeria.

So I think that Lula is going to work so that many governments will be able to participate in the BRICS and broaden participation. And from there it would become a very important economic bloc.

Lula is also committed to building a new international currency because the Dollar only serves the interests of the gringos. The Euro is in decline. So, there is a need to build a new international currency. It is not about changing to the Chinese currency. It is about building a new monetary reference that can serve as a parameter for commercial relations without any country having the right to issue currency, as is the case of the Euro and the Dollar, which is also a way of exploiting the Global South. And I believe that Lula is also going to push for several mechanisms to defend nature and expand trade with the Global South, be it from Latin America to Africa, be it with Asia.

So I am very optimistic with the changes that Lula will surely push fora in international relations.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/15/ ... electoral/

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Brazilians Criticize Military Commanders' Joint Statement

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Access roads to the Sao Paulo Legislative Assembly obstructed by Bolsonarists, Nov. 11, 2022. | Photo: Brasil de Fato

Published 11 November 2022

"It is not the role of military commanders to comment on the political process, much less on the performance of republican institutions," Gleisi Hoffmann pointed out.


On Friday, democratic intellectuals and politicians harshly criticized a public join statement whereby the commanders of the Navy, Army, and Air Force questioned the outcome of the Brazilian presidential election.

Their joint statement qualifies as "democratic acts" the protests that far-right groups have been carrying out to ignore the victory of Lula da Silva.

"Can the actions of those standing in front of a barracks calling for a military intervention be called a 'democratic act'?" said Senator Omar Aziz, a member of the Social Democratic Party who pointed out that the military are acting as "conspirators."

"It horrifies me that intelligent, educated people sign a statement saying that those are 'democratic acts.' They are riots and crimes. And those who accept them are colluding," he stressed.

"The statement from the commanders of the Armed Forces seems bland. It is not. It was written at the request of Bolsonaro to endorse the legitimacy of the demonstrations that take place at the gates of the barracks," historian Christian Lynch said, explaining that the joint statement was also written to support fake news about "the possibility" of electoral fraud.


The tweet reads, "The military commanders draw a fine, conservative line in which they defend legalism without criticizing the Bolsonaristas calling for a coup at the door of their barracks. Their statement includes messages to the Judiciary and indirect criticism of Moraes."

The Workers' Party president Gleisi Hoffmann also rejected a joint statement that goes far beyond the constitutional powers of those who signed it.

"It is not the role of military commanders to comment on the political process, much less on the performance of republican institutions. The right to demonstrate does not apply to anti-democratic acts, which should be addressed with a name: coup d'état," she said.

Hoffman also pointed out that far-right rallies are "neither peaceful nor orderly" as the joint statement erroneously implies.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0010.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Brazil

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 24, 2022 4:24 pm

‘Lula’s Victory Is One of the Most Impressive Political Comebacks of the Last 100 Years’
CounterSpin interview with Brian Mier on Brazilian election
JANINE JACKSON

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Janine Jackson interviewed BrasilWire‘s Brian Mier about the Brazilian election for the November 18, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.


Janine Jackson:  In the run-up to Brazil’s fateful October presidential election, elite US news media coverage was dominated by the theme that Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters, a la Trump, might not accept election results.

In the immediate wake of the remarkable victory of much-maligned progressive candidate Lula da Silva, elite US media coverage was dominated by the theme that Jair Bolsonaro, and his supporters, a la Trump, might not accept election results.

Palpably less interesting to these media is how and why Lula won against multiple odds, including the power of incumbency, a sea storm of targeted misinformation and the amplified threats of disruption.

Those priorities, that focus, represent lost opportunities for US citizens to learn, not a gloss about a savior, but to learn about the deep, complex, coalitional work that goes into defeating a neofascist at the polls. And that focus will surely shape coverage of what comes next.

We’re joined now by Brian Mier. He’s co-editor at BrasilWire and correspondent for TeleSur’s news program From the South, author/co-editor of the book Year of Lead: Washington, Wall Street and the New Imperialism in Brazil, as well as a freelance writer and producer. He joins us now by phone from Recife. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Brian Mier.

Brian Mier: Hi. Thanks for having me back.
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(New York Times, 11/10/22—updated headline)
JJ: I see a number of tells in elite US coverage of Lula’s victory. And let’s just start with election integrity. So many words, so many words, like these from the New York Times’ Jack Nicas, their guy on this: “Brazil Election Report Finds No Sign of Fraud, yet Fuels Disbelief.” And the story goes:

Brazil finds itself in a tricky situation. Security experts say its electronic voting system is reliable, efficient and, like any digital system, not 100% secure. Now politically motivated actors are using that kernel of truth as reason to question the results of a vote in which there is no evidence of fraud.

So the current is: Fraud? There was no fraud, but people think there was fraud. It’s a problem how much fraud people think there was. Now to be clear, there’s no evidence of any. But did we mention fraud?

I’m thinking that things are going to change going forward, but right now, while declaring it a non-issue, US media have made the predominant topic, in the immediate wake of the election, the idea that there are a lot of people that think that the election was not legitimate.

Now, not that those denialists aren’t a story, but what the heck?

BM: Yeah. It kind of plays into the entire “Stop the steal,” which American business elites, and the people like Steve Bannon and other far-right actors, Jason Miller, are trying to export to Brazil, have been exporting.

I mean, Bolsonaro started announcing preemptively that there was going to be fraud a year and a half ago. He set up a military commission with cronies in the army to try and do a parallel audit of the election to the work being done by the Brazilian electoral court system, which has been around since 1932.

Even though their job was to find fraud, they found no fraud. And then when they finally released the report after the second-round election, after a couple days of protests on the street that were financed by wealthy truck company owners and things like that, their report also said there was no evidence of fraud, but there could be in the future, maybe, but there wasn’t in this election.

So that’s all. It’s a non-story, as you say. So why do they keep talking about it?
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Today (10/31/22)
JJ: Yeah. And keep it in front of people.

Let’s talk about another thing that is very much hidden in plain sight. This is NBC‘s Today show talking about a “stunning political comeback in Brazil”:

Da Silva was Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010. He is credited with building an extensive social welfare program and helped lift tens of millions into the middle class. But in 2017, he was convicted of corruption and money-laundering charges. He spent 19 months in prison.

The next thing from NBC‘s Today show is “back here to the NFL.”

The New York Times called him “once-imprisoned former President Lula,” just matter of factly, a person whose “history of scandals has divided voters.”
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(New York Times, 10/30/22)
And at their most expansive discussion of this, the New York Times said:

Years after he left office, the authorities revealed a vast government kickback scheme that had flourished during his administration. He was convicted on corruption charges and spent 580 days in prison. Last year, the Supreme Court threw out those convictions, ruling that the judge in his cases was biased, though he was never cleared of any wrongdoing.

And they went on to say that the “scandal” made Lula “a flawed candidate.”

So, I would refer listeners, for the long version, to previous interviews we’ve done on Lava Jato, but for the short version, when I read “Lula was in prison and he was never cleared,” what do I need to know?

BM: That they’re just lying. That’s what you need to know. He was cleared.

And the thing that he was imprisoned over didn’t happen while he was president. It was a trumped-up, fake charge that he had received a free upgrade to a slightly nicer apartment in a building that his wife had been paying installments for for years; it was her purchase. He’d never actually visited the apartment in question. They never came up with any paper trail showing he’d ever received this apartment.

But even so, if it had happened, which there’s no evidence that it did, it was after he left office, so it was impossible to prove conflict of interest.

Money laundering was not a charge that he was ever convicted of. That’s just total disinformation.

Now what happened is that, over the course of the time he was in jail, it was revealed that the prosecution team had been illegally collaborating with agents of a foreign government, the US Department of Justice, using informal communications, bypassing Brazil’s sovereignty laws, in which low-level public prosecutors were supposed to channel all of their communications with foreign governments through the Justice Ministry, but they were just talking one on one.

They had a group of 18 FBI agents meeting with them every 15 days for years, coaching them through how to use different media tactics, and things like that, to smear Lula. What the Supreme Court ruled was that the case had been illegally forum-shopped to a friendly jurisdiction in a state where the alleged crime did not take place. So it was just out of jurisdiction.

The courts also ruled that the evidence that they had presented was tarnished through judicial bias. The only evidence they actually had on Lula to arrest him was one coerced plea bargain testimony from a corrupt businessman who had massive sentence reduction, and was allowed to retain millions of dollars in illicit assets, in exchange for the story he gave. He changed the story three times before he got out of jail. And the court ruled that that was invalid.

And so what it then ruled was that any Lava Jato conviction of Lula would have to be reopened, any charges would have to be reopened, in the proper jurisdiction in Brasilia.

What the New York Times and these other papers are not mentioning is that when all of those charges were attempted to be filed against Lula in the Brasilia court, they were immediately dismissed by the judge, because there was no evidence, and ruled that they could never be opened again.
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(Intercept, 6/9/19)
So he wasn’t just released on a technicality. He has been fully exonerated from every charge related to the Lava Jato operation. And we know subsequently from the leaked Telegram conversations that Glenn Greenwald initially revealed in the Intercept, a small portion of them, we know that the judge [Sergio Moro] was bizarrely allowed to oversee the investigation and the trial.

He rejected over a hundred defense witnesses for Lula during the trial. He had been collaborating illegally with the prosecutors, coaching them on how to smear Lula and his family, how to deal with the media, and all of these things, the entire time.

And then immediately after the 2018 presidential election—he illegally leaked information smearing Lula’s replacement candidate, Fernando Haddad, on the eve of the election—immediately after that election, he was awarded a ministry in Jair Bolsanaro’s government. There’s leaked conversations of the prosecuting team from Lava Jato, saying they were “praying to Jesus” that the Workers’ Party would lose that election and that Bolsonaro would be elected.

He’s under investigation for a series of crimes right now, including conflict of interest, accepting a cabinet ministry in a government that he helped put in power using illegal tactics.

So it’s really slanderous to pretend that Lula was convicted and that he just got out on a technicality. That’s slander. If someone said that during the election in Brazil, they would be guilty of electoral crime.

Even the most hostile media groups like Global TV, which cheerled for Lava Jato for years, they had to announce on the air that Lula was totally innocent, there was no charges against him, everything that he’d been accused of was fraudulent, and he was completely free of any kind of involvement in corruption.

So the fact that American papers are still repeating this bogus narrative, with all kinds of disinformation inserted into it, like money laundering? He was never charged with money laundering, or convicted of money laundering, or anything.

What happened was during the week that they launched the charges against Lula, in order to justify transferring the case out of its proper jurisdiction into this friendly court, run by US Department of Justice asset Sergio Moro, in Curitiba, they invented a charge of money laundering, related to Petrobras petroleum company.
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(ABC World News Tonight, 10/30/22)
One week after the case was transferred in 2016, they removed it from the charges. And in Lula’s actual conviction, the judge specifically states that there was no money laundering.

So they’re still repeating this fake narrative from 2016 that was used to justify the illegal forum-shopping of the case. It’s irresponsible, because it’s a way of undermining Lula’s victory, which is one of the most impressive political comebacks, I think maybe rivaled only by Nelson Mandela, of the last hundred years.

JJ: Let’s start right there, because we have seen matter-of-fact references to an amazing political comeback from Lula, but somehow it’s still not, yet anyway, the center of the story, that comeback, in the way that one can’t help but imagine that it would be, if Lula were someone that US elites liked.

So we read frequent references to “fifth-grade education,” or in the New York Times, Lula is described as a “former shoeshine boy,” and that all lands very different when we know that they’re talking about somebody that they don’t like, you know?

I mean, ABC News had “Bolsonaro Loses Brazilian Election, Leftist Former President Wins by Narrow Margin.” He doesn’t even have a name.

And I have to wonder why it’s so much more interesting for US corporate media to talk about a monster, you know, than it is for them to explore coalitional, bottom-up work of marginalized people, even when that work is remarkably, historically successful.

BM: First of all, it’s because none of them would ever want a former labor union leader to become president of the US. That’s pretty obvious, right? I mean, they really downplay the labor union angle here.

Not only did [Lula] lead wildcat strikes in the late ’70s that helped bring down the US-backed neofascist military dictatorship, that was so beloved to Jair Bolsanaro, but he and the people he was working with in the unions, they created a new kind of labor organization, which academics have created a term to describe it, “social movement unionism.”

The other big union federation they used, besides the CUT, which Lula founded, to describe this phenomenon is COSATU in South Africa during the ’80s and ’90s. It’s a concept of labor unionism in which the union doesn’t just fight for wage increases and benefits for its workers, it fights for the betterment of society as a whole, for ending economic injustice as a whole.

So they’ll fight for raising the minimum wage, they’ll go on strike for raising the minimum salary for everyone. That always gets left out of the picture.

He’s one of the greatest union organizers, anywhere in the world, of the last 50 or a hundred years, and he’s a legendary union organizer, but it’s better for them to say he’s a former shoeshine boy, because that makes it easier for them to label him as a “populist,” and not a social democrat, or democratic socialist, who’s read thousands of books, he has this incredible ability to explain concepts from, like, Marx’s Capital in everyday language that poor, illiterate people can understand, concepts like alienation, exploitation and things like that.

They leave that out to make it look like he’s just this ignorant person with a lot of charisma.

JJ: Yeah. And also that he was simply a backlash candidate. You know, the references that I saw to Lula being able to build a broad coalition, the New York Times, I guess it was, said, “The strong opposition to Mr. Bolsonaro and his far-right movement was enough to carry Mr. da Silva back to the presidency.”
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PBS NewsHour (10/27/22)
So it’s only being defined negatively and not positively, in terms of people voting for something.

Now, there was one exception to that in terms of US news media coverage, and that was climate. That was one area where media carved out some space to say, you know, “Hey, in terms of humanity, Lula is obviously better.”

And that spurred some of the more humane and better journalism; Jane Ferguson at PBS NewsHour, for example, was one of the few places where you heard actual Indigenous people talk about the meaning of the election for them. Hey, Indigenous people have voices—you wouldn’t know it from US elite media, but NewsHour had some things.

CNN turned the importance of the votes of poor people, the importance of the votes for poor people, and particularly Indigenous people, into the idea that—this just killed me—“the poor and destitute could become Brazil’s kingmakers.”

BM: Great.

JJ: I don’t even know what to say to that, but it’s bizarre, the idea that because people get a vote, and that because there are a lot of poor people, somehow poor people are running the show? To me, that’s just reporters engaging the shadows on the cave wall, just talking about demographics and not talking about human beings.
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Reuters (11/16/22)
Finally, on climate, before I ask you, I’m already worried when I see things like Reuters from yesterday, November 16, saying, at COP27, Lula was “greeted like a rock star.”

To me, that’s already the beginning of a kind of diminishment. He’s just about “popularity.” He can’t really do anything. People think of him as a “celebrity” and not quite a politician. And yet, the point is, climate is one area where media seem willing to acknowledge that Bolsonaro was a problem, and Lula is better.

BM: At some point, even the elites have to realize that if they burn down the entire Amazon forest, everyone’s going to die, you know? That’s like 20% of the world’s oxygen supply.

I think FAIR’s pointed this out in the past in multiple articles, like, the one area that the flack machine, or whatever Chomsky and Herman would call it, the manufactured consensus, allows some kind of breathing room for left opinion is in the environment these days.

And you see newspapers like Guardian, which is now more popular in the US than it is in England I think, they’re economically 100% neoliberal. They ran like 35 articles normalizing Jair Bolsonaro in October 2018, between the first and second round elections. They gave him headline space to compare himself to Winston Churchill, and say that the real fascists were the leftists.

They’re not progressive at all economically, but the thing that makes their reputation as being progressive is that they have this emphasis on environmentalism, you know? So you see that in the US as well.

But I think what really happens here, Janine, is that having a clown in power isn’t good for anybody, really, not even for elites. At some point, even US business interests get disturbed by instability generated by this kind of clown in power.

And the idea that there could be this Bill Clinton-style neoliberal candidate that had a chance of taking power from Bolsonaro was just laughable. I mean, the neoliberal parties ended up with 1% and 0% in the first-round elections.

Nobody in Brazil buys that “we need more austerity and privatization” line anymore; it’s dead. So the only person capable of beating Bolsonaro at this time was Lula.

So they begrudgingly accept Lula’s victory, and they have to celebrate his environmental stance, like promising to stop cutting down trees and all of that, which he had a good record on the first time around.

But they’re going to do everything they can, I think—I mean elites, but through the media—to try and undermine and belittle his presidency, so that nobody like him can ever come to power again in the future.

Because in his acceptance speech, the first thing he said is that, “I’m going to eliminate hunger. My No. 1 goal of this administration is that every child, every person in Brazil can eat three meals a day again, because there’s 30 million people passing in hunger right now.”

And imagine any precedents around the world of this: He’s not even in power yet, he’s taking power on January 1. He’s already pushing through a constitutional amendment to remove the neoliberal spending caps on health and education that were pushed through after the coup against Dilma Rousseff in 2017, with a lot of support from the US at that time.

I’ve seen left analysts in the US media saying, “Well, how is he going to govern? How could he possibly govern?”

He’s already almost got a majority in Congress. He’s not even in office yet.

All the stuff they’ve talked about in BBC and in other places about the power of the evangelicals, how the evangelical Christians were going to keep Lula out of office—Bolsonaro’s biggest evangelical supporters are now lining up to align with Lula. The leaders of the biggest evangelical churches, they’re all switching their game. They’re going to end up siding with him.

One thing that people don’t understand in the US about countries that have lots of different political parties and things; there’s 23 parties represented in congress. Imagine if, like in the US, let’s say Biden wins the election, and 50% of the Republican senators and congressmen switch parties to the Democrats.

This is what happens every time someone takes power in Brazil. Half of the opposition politicians switch parties and join up with the person who just took office, because they know that the president is charged with the budget, and they all want more money for their jurisdictions, for their districts, and stuff like that.

So it is always like this. This idea that there would be these huge problems for Lula to govern because the country’s so polarized and blah, blah, blah, it’s all just melting away now.
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(France 24, 10/31/22)
JJ: Yeah. The “razor thin” margin of victory, right?

BM: Yeah. Razor thin. It was the first time in history, since the end of the US-backed military dictatorship, that an incumbent has lost reelection. Bolsonaro outspent Lula. In personal donations, he had over 30 times more.

There’s no corporate donations in Brazil, which really helps the elections stay a lot fairer, you know? But from rich individuals, Bolsanaro got 30 times more campaign donations than Lula, mostly from a handful of these big right-wing truck-company owners, and agri-business people who are making money cutting down the Amazon.

And according to Reuters, which is hardly a sympathetic voice to the Latin American left, even Reuters noted that Bolsonaro had channeled 273 billion reais, that’s about $53 billion, of federal funding into strengthening his reelection campaign.

He did that by artificially lowering gasoline and food prices, by lowering that tax; he rerouted money from cancer prevention and treatment into lowering gasoline prices. Fifty percent increase on welfare checks that kicked in two months before the elections, which, cynically, a lot of people thought that was going to throw the election to Bolsonaro, and as it turns out, the poor people didn’t change their votes because of that.

JJ: I think we are going to see US media compartmentalize Lula’s climate efforts, and, given their economic views, say, “Oh, isn’t that a pretty idea? Too bad he’s not going to be able to do it.” That feeds into this whole thing that you’re talking about, about, isn’t it going to be really tough for him to govern?

BM: They’re going to say it’s bad for the economy, probably.
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(New York Times, 10/30/22)
JJ: Yeah. Well, let me just say, the more honest talk about what Lula “means” for the US and Latin America, that’s probably going to come later. But there is some writing on the wall.

There was a New York Times piece titled, “What Does Brazil’s Election Mean for the United States?” And it started with, Bolsonaro made baseless claims about the election. But while Bolsanaro’s whole anti-democracy thing was a snag:

Still, the two countries have found common ground in trade policy, with Washington pushing to accelerate Brazil’s bid for membership in the OECD, a 38-member bloc that includes some of the world’s largest economies.

“This process will continue if Bolsonaro is re-elected,” said this source, a professor at a Brazilian university, “But it’s not clear if it will be a priority for Lula.”

I think this is starting to tell us what we can maybe expect to hear more from as Lula’s presidency goes forward, that, “umm, you know, ultimately Bolsonaro was a bad egg, but he did have some geopolitical ideas that align more closely with the US.”

BM: In fact, he was the biggest bootlicker to the United States government of any president in Brazilian history. So there’s a lot of ways they’re going to reframe that, I’m sure.

There is the new Cold War starting up, already in full swing, obviously, and the fact that Lula is going to refuse to take sides on the Ukraine/Russia conflict, and he’s going to maintain good ties with China and refuse to demonize Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, that’s going to annoy a lot of people in Washington.

But I think, for now, the Democrats are just happy that Bolsonaro is gone, because of his relationship with Steve Bannon. I think they’re going to put up with some of Lula’s insistence on maintaining sovereignty, and linking up with other Southern Hemisphere governments, South/South collaboration and things like that, because they’re just so happy that Steve Bannon and his movement have lost a toehold in the Americas.

And I think that US Democrats should study how the Brazilian electoral court system worked and how they defeated these kinds of tactics, because it will help them defeat the right—I’m not saying that Democrats aren’t right, but, you know, to defeat fascists in the upcoming presidential election in two years.

I think they could learn from that, instead of just labeling people and labeling things and saying what went wrong, what Lula’s doing wrong and stuff, why not stop and look and see, what were the tactics that were employed that worked? How is the Lula administration now going to systematically dismantle this fascism? Because it’s already crumbling.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Brian Mier. He’s co-editor at BrasilWire, correspondent for TeleSur’s From the South, author/co-editor of the book Year of Lead. He’s been speaking with us from Recife. Thank you so much, Brian Mier for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

BM: Thanks for having me.

https://fair.org/home/lulas-victory-is- ... 100-years/

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João Pedro Stedile: The Left and Lula
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 21, 2022



In part two of our conversation with João Pedro Stedile, he discusses the governability and decision-making capacity of the Lula government in the face of a conservative senate and chamber of deputies.

João Pedro Stedile of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement and the International Peoples’ Assembly, discusses the prospects of the Lula government as well as the proposals that the MST will present to the government.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... -and-lula/

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March in Brazil in defense of democracy and anti-racial struggle

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The protesters demanded a country with democracy and without racism, as well as the end of the genocide against the black people. | Photo: @Photography1975
Published 20 November 2022

They carry out the Black Awareness Day March in the context of the transition to the Government of President-elect Lula.

Collectives, associations and other groups that make up the Black Movement in Brazil took to the streets of the main cities this Sunday and carried out the Black Awareness Day March, which this time took place in the context of the transition to the government of the president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Carrying national banners and flags of the black movement, the demonstrators demanded a country with democracy and without racism, the end of the genocide against the black people and the death of black people in the poorest sectors of the cities as a result of police operations.

According to the press, they also demanded that Lula put into practice during his coming term the ideas that he promoted throughout his campaign, the recreation of the Ministry of Racial Equality and greater diversity in other areas of the Government.


In this regard, a member of the Unified Black Movement, in São Paulo (SP), Dennis Oliveira, expressed that “there is an expectation that the new Lula government will have a greater participation of the people of the black movement and the resumption of affirmative policies ”.

A member of the Black Coalition for Rights and the transition team's working group on racial equality, Douglas Belchior, asserted that "the government must be supported so that Lula can achieve what he has been saying, which is to do more than what he has done in other governments” when it comes to the racial agenda.


Through his social networks, Lula expressed that this date marks a sad page in the history of Brazil. She added that "there is still a silent and complicit racism, which is expressed in the opportunities denied to most people because of the color of their skin."

He stressed that "if the country wants a future with justice and democracy, it will have to be anti-racist," with a society that "cultivates love and respect, with equal rights and opportunities."


In parallel with the street events, this Sunday the thematic group on racial equality of the transition government asked the other groups to incorporate the dimension of the anti-racist fight into the suggestions for the action plan of the new Government.

The working group on racial equality emphasized the need to consider racism as a structural phenomenon, the consequences of which have been increasing in the country.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/brasil-m ... -0030.html

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Lula Calls for the Defeat of the Extreme Right in Brazil

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The meeting takes place after the leader's visit to the COP27 Summit held in Egypt, being his first trip to Lisbon after his election as president. Nov. 19, 2022. | Photo: Twitter: @JornalOGlobo

Published 19 November 2022

Regardless of the victory in the presidential elections, the extreme right-wing ideology is still very much alive in the country, said Lula.


The president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, warned that despite his victory in the last elections in the South American country, the extreme right that supports the outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro, is still present and must be defeated through peace.

Lula da Silva held a meeting at the University Institute of Lisbon with the Brazilian community in an event organized by the core of the Workers' Party (PT).

The president-elect, who takes office on January 1, 2023, said that bolsonarismo is still alive and we have to defeat it (...) We do not want persecution (...) violence. We want a country that lives in peace".


He urged to "defeat" Bolsonarismo "without using against them the methods they used" against the left.

In the meeting, the president-elect stressed his commitment to Brazilian education in the face of the disaster in the matter in Bolsonaro's administration.

In addition to referring to the situation of millions of Brazilians who go hungry, a situation that should not happen because the South American nation is the "third largest food producer in the world", Lula expressed that he will reverse the situation and blamed the outgoing president for not guaranteeing access to food.

The meeting takes place after the leader's visit to the COP27 Summit held in Egypt, being his first trip to Lisbon after his election as president.

The head of state-elect was received by the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and by the Prime Minister, António Costa, as a symbol of the resumption of relations weakened during Bolsonaro's mandate.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Lul ... -0005.html

Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Party’s Appeal to Void Elections Rejected

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Published 23 November 2022

On Wednesday, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) rejected an appeal filed by President Jair Bolsonaro's party to invalidate the result of the recent national elections in which the head of state lost his bid for a second term, local media reported.


"The president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, denied the request for extraordinary verification of the result of the second round of elections. The request was filed on Tuesday (22) by the Liberal Party, the party of President Jair Bolsonaro," advanced the portal G1.

The magistrate considered that the party did not present evidence of fraud to justify the requested votes' reevaluation.

De Moraes also imposed a fine of almost R$23 million (US$4.27 million) for bad faith litigation when Justice is irresponsibly activated, reported G1.

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday asked to "invalidate" the results of electronic ballot boxes of pre-EU2020 manufacturing models, namely the UE2009, UE2010, UE2011, UE2013 and UE2015 models, which are more than half.

The party argues an "irreparable malfunction" in these models, detected by the technical audit conducted by the Instituto Voto Legal, hired by the PL.

According to that audit, Bolsonaro was the most voted in the newer model ballot boxes with 51.05 percent of the votes.

On October 30, two-time president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the second round of the presidential elections with 50.90 percent of the votes, against Bolsonaro's 49.10 percent.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bra ... -0020.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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