Lula came to power because the Brazilian Right lost its
capacity to deceive the voters and because the Left
discovered the way to correct its own illusions. Lula won
to break with cronyism and create a common sense
of nation and a belief system for our future.

Cristovam Buarque

Why, after experiencing 500 years of elitist power, disdain for the people, aristocratic arrogance and social perversity, did Brazil elect a president who is a son of the people, a migrant from the drought-ridden Brazilian North East, a metal worker, a labor leader, and a militant of the Left?

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected because the Left is repenting its mistakes and the Right is ashamed of its successes. The Left repents past mistakes that caused it to lose the power won in some countries, like Chile; the poor administration of power in some regions, like Eastern Europe; and the string of defeats in so many frustrated attempts at revolutions and elections.

The Right is experiencing remorse for its conquests: a world that is rich, yet divided by economic apartheid and degraded by the ecological crisis, one that shamefully observes the genocide in Africa, the visible poverty on the street corners of its cities, the drugs consuming its children. And the Right is unable to hide the fact that the destruction of Communism threw the former USSR into crime and poverty. Lula came to power because the Brazilian Right lost its capacity to deceive the voters and because the Left discovered the way to correct its own illusions.

In 1822, the Brazilian elite deceived the people by promising Independence through an emperor who was the son of the king of Portugal, the colonial power. In 1888, Princess Isabel signed the law abolishing slavery, but the elite did not grant either schools or land to the newly emancipated slaves; yet the misled black population of Brazil gave their thanks. A year later, the elite proclaimed the Republic, replacing the counts and countesses with the upper class and the commoners with “the people”; still the Brazilian people believed that they were electing “their” president.

In the twentieth century, the elite developed the economy, promising that everyone would become wealthy after production grew. Poverty persisted but the people expected, and were thankful for, crumbs. In recent times, the elite promised that free markets and privatization would transport all Brazilians into the paradise of consumerism. And for some years Brazilians continued to believe this. But the illusions are gone. The lies of the elite have created a monstrous society; its supply of social illusions has been exhausted.

The first reason for the victory of a leftist metal worker in the presidential race stems from the Brazilian elite’s inability to continue offering the Brazilian people illusions. Even the candidate of the elite was a militant from the leftist tradition.

The second reason for Lula’s victory was the reinvention of the Left. Despite the Right’s dearth of illusory proposals, Lula would never had been elected had today’s Workers Party not spread throughout the country, gaining administrative experience in state and municipal governments and becoming a political party that was realistic and credible. Lula would never have won had the Left’s discourse remained trapped in its own illusions and perceptions that, in the name of impossible utopias, have led to the failures of the past.

The victorious Workers Party today represents the continuation of its past idealistic tradition. But it is also a break with the past as it faces the future in the real world. The end of the Right’s illusions and the Left’s errors would not, however, be sufficient to elect a president if we did not have a charismatic leader capable of inspiring credibility and competence. Lula exceeds these expectations: the Brazilian people, including the elite, respect him and trust him.

Together, an exhausted Right, a renovated Left, and a well-prepared leader will create the conditions so that, for the first time, Brazil will have a people’s president, with an origin, appearance and name that come from the Brazilian people, and with proposals that will be directed towards these people.

But for what purpose will Lula’s victory serve, if he will not carry out the revolution that the traditional Left formerly advocated and if he does not have the right to merely administer the crisis as if he were a recently accepted member of the elite?

Lula won to invent sovereignty compatible with globalization, to recover economic growth, to establish forms of income distribution, and to restore the infrastructure. He won to break with cronyism and create a common sense of nation and a belief system for our future. Above all, he won to complete the process of Independence and the creation of the Republic. He won to achieve the true Abolition, that of poverty.

Lula won to become the president who will carry out the second and true abolition, the one who will immediately take action guaranteeing that, within a few years, Brazil will be a country without social exclusion, a country where everyone will have access to essential goods and services. On the day he was elected, Lula became the first president to assume the responsibility for eradicating poverty from the country, poverty of food, but also of education, of culture, of honesty, of sovereignty, of housing, of healthcare, of ecological equilibrium, of self-esteem.

To accomplish this, he must do with the common family name of Silva and the hands of the people that which a princess with the Portuguese royal family name of Bragança did not do: he must complete the Abolition.

Cristovam Buarque, ex-governor of the Federal District of Brasília, is a professor at the University of Brasília Center for Sustainable Development and the author of the book Admirável Mundo Atual (Brave real world). You can get in touch with him writing to cristovambuarque@uol.com.br 

Translated by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com

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