[Photo credit: Pedro Vilela/Getty Images]
By Bernardo Jurema
It’s not an exaggeration to say that, with Lula da Silva's razor-thin victory over incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil dodged a bullet. As it has in other countries like Hungary or India, another term of far-right rule would have meant a more reactionary police and military, accelerated environmental destruction, further evisceration of individual rights, and a serious blow to the prospects for restoring democracy. It’s also fair to say that the world dodged a bullet, given the Bolsonaro government's fervent support for mining and other extractive activities that threaten the Amazon rainforest, a crucial link in the global climate system.
Although the final result was very close, with Lula at 50.9% and Bolsonaro at 49.1%, Lula won by a large margin among the poorest segments of the population. The former president carried 977 of the 1,003 least developed cities. And a poll right before the second round of voting showed Lula winning the lowest income bracket with 61% to Bolsonaro’s 33%.
Lula shied away from presenting a clear economic program during the campaign, explaining that “we don’t discuss economic policies before winning the elections.” He made vague promises to increase public spending, with a focus on infrastructure and social welfare. His main pledges were directed toward the segment of society that supported him most heavily. Lula called for removing Brazil from the Hunger Map, increasing the minimum wage, boosting employment, and improving access to healthcare.
The challenges Lula now faces cannot be overestimated. He will take office on January 1st, 2023 under circumstances remarkably different from those of twenty years ago when he began his first term. With a global recession on the horizon, interest rates are on the rise worldwide and Brazil's largest trading partner, China, has seen its demand for commodities subside. On top of that, the outgoing Bolsonaro leaves in his wake "shaky public finances, with debt projected to reach almost 89 per cent of gross domestic product next year, and an economy forecast to slow sharply."
How will Lula address this poor state of affairs? A cursory look at his economic transition team raises some red flags. The team was led by Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, a former rival of Lula’s Workers' Party, who is socially conservative, economically liberal, pro-police, and anti-labor. He was handpicked by Lula in a clear nod to Faria Lima (Brazil’s Wall Street), signaling to the market and conservative voters that "there would be no radical economic measures." As Glenn Greenwald noted in 2018, "For the powerful, it is impossible to dream of a better guardian of the status quo [than Alckmin].”
Other members of the transition team included André Lara Resende, who headed Brazil's public investment bank under the center-right government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Resende infamously played a key role in repressing the 1995 oil workers' strike. He served on the transition team alongside Pérsio Árida, a longtime economic advisor to Alckmin who, in 2018, supported then-President Michel Temer’s radical neoliberal government. Árida has publicly opposed taxing large fortunes, instead backing privatization and neoliberal reform efforts.
These neoliberals were counterbalanced in the transition team by members of a "developmentalist" profile, who favor state planning and expanding public spending. Guilherme Mello, a professor at the University of Campinas Institute of Economics (known as the main intellectual hub of dissent against neoliberal orthodoxy), was one of them. Mello has since been appointed as the new Secretary of Economic Policy at the Ministry of Finance. Another developmentalist member of the transition team was Nelson Barbosa, who served as Minister of Finance from the end of 2015 into the first months of 2016 under the Rousseff government.
Most members of the transition team will not go on to become ministers or even occupy government posts. But the team nonetheless helped set the terms of political possibility, offering a choice between neoliberalism and developmentalism. While such a choice is hardly auspicious in the face of the climate crisis, Brazilians can at least be cautiously optimistic that developmentalists in the administration will pursue redistributive policies.
Thanks to an historic commodities boom, redistribution efforts during Lula’s first two terms in office passed with relatively little friction. But what if the extractivist pie stops growing? These days, any redistributionist policies will almost certainly require some degree of confrontation. From the transition team, there is no clear vision of what must be done in terms of economic policy. As Roberto Andrés, an urban planner at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, has rightly pointed out:
“There will hardly be a favorable economic scenario for a new stage of inclusion without class struggle. It will be necessary to take from the richest to raise the level of the poorest. A tax reform that corrects the unfair Brazilian taxation may be the first step. To do so, the new government will have to face the dissatisfaction of the privileged classes, who will lose income. If it fails to do so, it runs the risk of not delivering the improvements it promises to the poorest."
On December 9th, Lula announced Fernando Haddad as his finance minister. Haddad previously served as Lula’s Minister of Education from 2005 to 2012. In that role, Haddad’s signature achievement was the PROUNI program, which expanded scholarship opportunities for poor students. This policy is a microcosm of Haddad’s conciliatory politics. While PROUNI helped disadvantaged pupils access higher education, the influx of government money was a major boon to private universities.
For his second stint in a Lula administration, Haddad looks set to continue placating private interests. Recent comments suggest he’s open to privatizing airports and highways, saying that public-private partnerships “have to get on the agenda.” Despite this pro-business rhetoric, the markets reacted negatively to Haddad’s appointment. As one financial analyst explained, worries abound that Haddad will work to expand public spending and increase the national debt. In an attempt to quell these fears, Haddad recounted his time as Mayor of São Paulo, during which he reduced municipal debt and strengthened the bond market.
The new finance minister’s agenda appears syncretic, embracing the full spectrum of beliefs found in the transition team, from mild center-left Keynesianism to hardcore neoliberalism. Similarly mixed are the plans of Bernard Appy, the new special secretary for tax reform. While Appy seeks commonsense adjustments to Brazil’s notoriously anti-poor tax structure, his fixation on taxing consumption promises to preserve substantial regressivity.
There are also concerns to be had about Gabriel Galípolo, who will serve as the executive secretary of Lula’s economic ministry. Previously a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Galípolo is close with corporate interests. In the past year, he has served as a mediator between the Workers’ Party and big business.
Galípolo won’t be alone in representing the financial sector within Lula’s economic ministry. O Globo, a Brazilian daily newspaper, reports that “at least one more member of Faria Lima” will receive an appointment. A countervailing influence, however, takes the form of Aloízio Mercadante. A close Lula ally and noted center-left Keynesian, Mercadante has been nominated to chair the National Bank for Economic and Social Development, a key instrument for long-term financial planning.
In addition to internal ideological disputes, the incoming Lula administration also faces external constraints. As journalist Diego Viana explains, the government will be “under siege by the Right, who are ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness.” This leaves little room for radical experimentation. It is mostly likely, Viana says, that the administration will “insert some distributive policies within an essentially traditional political economy.”
Seeking compromise has been a Lula trademark ever since his days as a union organizer in the 1970s. With Brazil now at a crossroads, it remains to be seen how much longer this balancing act can persist. Given the combination of the climate crisis, the rise of the far Right, and a looming global recession, only bold action is commensurate with the urgency of the moment. But that not only goes against Lula’s realpolitik penchant; it also would not be consonant with the balance of power, whereby the reactionary forces of agribusiness and finance are very strong, while working-class social movements find themselves demobilized, demoralized, and under constant attack.
Such a context calls for measured and realistic goal-setting. According to Viana, “What Lula needs to deliver, first and foremost, is to not be succeeded by another fascist like Bolsonaro. In addition, the coalition that elected Lula expects stability in employment, prices, and exchange rates. That can be achieved. But is it enough to obtain the most important outcome?”
Maybe not. But, to paraphrase Peggy Lee, that's all there is for today.
Bernardo Jurema is a Brazilian political scientist based in Germany. He earned his PhD from the Free University of Berlin and has worked for international organizations and think tanks throughout Latin America and Europe.
