Brazil’s Lula wins 4th term

Durable leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil — known as “Lula” — has won an unprecedented fourth term. He secured 51.8 percent in Sunday’s runoff election, compared with 48.2 percent for opponent Flávio Bolsonaro.

Lula’s Workers’ Party secured a judicial extension of voting by two hours because of transportation problems affecting some areas. Bolsonaro initially vowed to challenge the election, though later his Liberal Party accepted defeat.

Serious controversy predates this election. In 2022, President Jair Bolsonaro, the father of Lula’s opponent in this year’s race, was accused of plotting with military leaders to stage a coup.

Allegedly, the scheme developed between 2019 and 2022 during Bolsonaro’s far-right administration. A principal focus was trying to influence voting. The 2022 election, in fact, was won by Lula.

Lula accrued great credit for economic growth during his earlier time as president, from 2003 to 2011. After leading the Workers’ Party to victory, he proved remarkably adept at courting capital investment, building on the market reforms of his two immediate predecessors.

But during his tenure as chief executive and afterwards, he and successor President Dilma Rousseff were involved in scandal and prosecution regarding alleged corruption.

At the end of July 2016, Lula was formally charged with corruption by a federal judge, accused of obstruction of justice regarding the national oil company, Petrobras. Charges against Lula and others alleged diversion of billions of dollars for political and personal uses.

In 2017, he was convicted of money laundering and corruption, and sentenced to a harsh prison term. Then, in a turnaround, the Supreme Court ordered his release, and eventually nullified all charges, citing judicial irregularities. This cleared away obstacles for him to run for president again.

The legal challenges unfolded during a severe economic recession. This followed the impressive growth during his presidency, a notably nonsocialist, nonideological regime.

Politically motivated media harassment is a continuing problem. In 2012, the Brazilian National Newspaper Association announced that member papers were advised to ban Google from using their content. The head of Google in Brazil, Fabio Jose Silva Coelho, was arrested. There was a similar event in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Several years after this, Facebook experienced judicial pressure. Diego Dzodan, vice president for Latin America, was imprisoned for 24 hours.

Companies have succeeded in mitigating and deflecting some of this sort of punitive harassment, but problems continue. In early 2023, mobs of Bolsonaro supporters angry at losing the election targeted and attacked journalists.

From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was under military rule. Laws dating from that era facilitate more recent government interference, fitful but persistent, with the media.

Military rule took place during the Cold War. Armed forces leaders, alarmed by policies perceived as radical, ended representative government. Officers overthrew the democratically elected administration of President João Goulart, whose radicalism fed fears of a communist takeover of Brazil.

The U.S. administration of President Lyndon Johnson encouraged this coup. As is generally known, there is a long history of such interference in the domestic affairs of Latin American nations. The end of the Cold War has not ended intervention in Latin American affairs.

Current developments should be viewed in this context. The latest political campaigns and elections are reconfirming that established political democracy, orderly due process and the rule of law so far are being respected.

This represents great progress from the state of affairs even relatively recently in Brazil.

Arthur I. Cyr (acyr@carthage.edu ) is the author of “After the Cold War – American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan).