Lula’s breathless victory in the Brazilian presidential election on Sunday October 30 prompted me to return to the notion of worlds used by Hubert Védrine in his account of the Mitterrand years. In The worlds of François Mitterrand (Fayard), he describes this notion as the clash “between a powerful individual will and a formidable reality”. From 1981 to 1996, the world of two decades of French leftist reconstruction and an agenda for change collided with the reality of a world at the dawn of neoliberalism. Although French, this narrative relates to the nature of politics as it is done within the institutions of government.
With 50.9% of the vote, Lula was elected President of Brazil for a third time. From 1er January 2023 to December 31, 2026, this third term will undoubtedly be marked by the hand-to-hand combat of the world of President Lula’s will with the worlds he will have to face.
The victory speech revealed his ambitions: the elected president underlined the challenge of restoring social peace damaged by a particularly heartbreaking electoral campaign. This is to show that there is only one country, despite the deep divisions that this referendum-like vote has revealed. Lula promised to make the fight against hunger and poverty his priority. He wants to put an end to deforestation in the Amazon region. He intends to rebuild Brazil’s image internationally and resume the campaign for the reform of the United Nations, where he hopes to make Brazil a permanent member of the Security Council. Here it is for the world of Lula’s will. What about the world of reality, where his ambitions will have to be realized?
A country divided in a new world
In a country plagued by deep social inequalities, the finding of division can hardly surprise us. Bolsonaro’s rise has transformed the fault lines, however. Carrying what has been called a “morals program”, the hero of a right that has reached extremism has given meaning to religion in public debate. From the outset, the left was taken aback by the emergence of issues such as the defense of the traditional family (read: a heterosexual marriage), anti-abortion (even in situations where the law allows it), freedom expression in universities, “gender ideology” and alignment with the State of Israel.
Accustomed to a discourse focused on the fight against poverty and on human rights, the left has been destabilized by the new divisions consolidated by the Bolsonarist right. Showing pragmatism, Lula prepared a “Letter to Evangelicals” and declared his opposition to abortion. But how far will the support of the left for a formula of compromise go after the wounds of the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff in 2016?
More than the minimal gap between the two candidates, it is the ideological division between an extreme right and a left in search of identity that poses challenges for the country and for the success of Lula’s third term.
However, the international scene that the new president will find has also been completely transformed. On this subject, his first challenge will be to restore the image of Brazil, too linked to the explosive style and the disastrous environmental record of Bolsonaro. This is a major challenge. In a world polarized by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lula will no longer be able to play the axis of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as in the past. Especially since the conclusion of the free trade agreement between Mercosul and the European Union is part of its electoral platform.
worlds of the past
Of all the worlds that can upset that of his personal will, Lula will have to deal with the incessant comparison with his previous record. This ambiguous shadow of the past projects both the memory of a president acclaimed by an 80% satisfaction rate at the end of his first two terms and the liability of corruption, which has forever stained the image of the Party of workers.
The challenge for Lula is not to allow himself to be imprisoned in this reference to the past. The success of his third term will require finding new ways of doing politics. Once again, the challenge is major. Already, during the campaign, Lula has come under fire for his difficulty in embodying a political offer that goes beyond the image that it was better before.
These worlds of the past are also part of the gravity effect of history. The dispute between Lula and Bolsonaro was the culmination of fifty years of struggles for democracy and its consolidation as opposed to the authoritarian temptation to hold window dressing elections. Even during the twenty-five years of military dictatorship (1964-1989), Brazilians voted.
By declaring that his victory was that of the broadest conception of democracy, Lula made his return an ultimate gesture for it. Despite the clashes that will arise between this ambition and the reality it will face, we can only wish the best possible world to the Brazilians and their new president.