Brazil’s new president has promised to end what he described as “national destruction” under his predecessor, making it clear that he intends to govern at a frenetic pace.
On his first day in office Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held 17 meetings with representatives from various foreign delegations who attended Sunday’s inauguration, including the king of Spain, the presidents of Argentina and Colombia and the vice-president of China — after which he was due to attend the funeral of the footballer Pelé. “Let’s work for Brazil to have the role it deserves in the world,” he tweeted.
The left-wing president has repeatedly pledged to transform Brazil over the next four years, reversing many of the policies of Jair Bolsonaro, his conservative predecessor.
Within hours of taking office his administration announced a clampdown on sales of military-grade firearms and a freeze on permits for gun clubs that had expanded significantly under Bolsonaro, a former soldier. Another early focus for Lula, as the president is commonly known, is the environment, with a promise to increase protection and turn the country into a “green superpower”.
Reducing hunger and poverty, Lula, 77, said, would also be a priority. “No nation has or ever will rise on the back of the poverty of its people,” he said in his inaugural address to Congress on Sunday, to cheers from the crowd of nearly 200,000 outside.
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During his previous years in office, from 2003 to 2013, Lula became a hero of the global left as he used a commodities boom to lift millions from poverty, notably via a project involving cash handouts to families in need as long as their children attended school.
This time, analysts warn, his promises may be harder to fulfil, with Brazil’s economy close to stagnant and growth of only 1 per cent expected this year. Lula’s political clout will also be limited by the fact that his Workers’ Party has only 12 per cent of the seats in Congress.
“A lot is expected of Lula,” Creomar de Souza, of Dharma Political Risk consultancy in Brasilia, told Reuters. “He’ll have the difficult mission to restore normality and predictability in Brazil, and above all to rapidly deliver results.”
Others fear that the size and cost of the government under the socialist leader will rise sharply. The new administration will have a record 37 ministries, 14 more than its predecessor did.
Aware of the risk of profligate spending, Lula’s economics minister, Fernando Haddad, gave a speech yesterday in which he stressed that the government intended to act responsibly with the state’s finances. “We are not here for adventures. We are here to ensure that the country grows again,” he said.
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In one early sign of future tension inside the government, he did not mention that on Sunday Lula announced he would extend a government tax relief on fuel, an initiative from the Bolsonaro administration that Haddad had opposed.
Brazilian markets delivered a negative verdict on Lula’s first full day in office. The real lost 1.5 per cent in value against the US dollar in morning trading, while the benchmark Sao Paulo stock market index fell 3.24 per cent before midday. The price of shares in Petrobras, the state-run oil company, fell by 6 per cent.
Yesterday Lula instructed ministers to revoke steps towards privatising state companies that were taken by the previous administration, including studies for the sale of Petrobras, the postal service and the state broadcasting company EBC.
