Lula reactivates a nightmare – 03/12/2024 – Elio Gaspari

It feels like a nightmare coming back. After a clumsy cavalry charge on Vale, Lula advanced on Petrobras and dropped its market value by R$55 billion. Faced with the bad news, reporter Malu Gaspar revealed that the president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, has an ace up his sleeve: the announcement of a “Sea of ​​Opportunities”, with an investment program of up to R$80 billion in platforms, drill ships and support boats.

All of this has already happened. It resulted in Operation Lava Jato, with confessed robberies, dozens of arrests, the deposition of President Dilma Rousseff and a climate of disbelief that resulted in the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018.

Back then, things seemed simple and easy, a refinery was bought in the United States, virtual shipyards were created and, in the darkness of the Planalto, “creative accounting” was adopted, later called “pedaling”. The rest is history. The nightmare returned weeks after the bankruptcy of Sete Brasil, the crown jewel that would produce 28 drillships for Petrobras.

Senator Rodrigo Pacheco has been a calm ally of the government. In view of the advances made by Planalto, he said a valuable truism: “If the Union is an interested party as a shareholder, in theory it is legitimate for the government to take a position, but it must understand its limits of action considering the governance of companies and their independence. I am not saying that the government has exceeded them because I don’t know the situation. I’m just saying that they need to be observed.”

Pacheco did not speak about the attempt to push the former Finance Minister down the throat of Vale’s board to preside over the company. He also did not want to be specific with the case of Petrobras dividends.

Lula entered the field with two statements. In one, he repeated that Petrobras must serve Brazil. Nothing is more certain and, since its founding, it has been doing just that. The crisis that the company experienced ten years ago was produced by the thieves who took control of it.

In the other, he judged his government’s performance, said it was “far short” of what it promised and elaborated: “So far, we have prepared the land, plowed, fertilized and planted the seed. We have covered the seed. This is the year in which we will begin to reap what we sow.”

Lula promised to return a climate of normality to Brazilian politics and he delivered. It has been more than a year since the President of the Republic has cursed an opposition governor or Supreme Court minister. This is no small thing.

All the speed bumps that appeared during his government left the Planalto. To make matters worse, almost all of them were useless: Mantega in Vale, Hitler in Gaza and Nicolás Maduro in Caracas created crises without any greater purpose. This in a government that managed to increase Brazilians’ income by 11.7%. This result was achieved by the good administration of existing instruments.

It’s as if there was a lost soul on the Plateau. Today, 60 years ago, she told João Goulart to go to the Central do Brasil rally, then, she breathed the idea of ​​the Nuclear Agreement with Germany to General Ernesto Geisel, the Collor Plan to the aforementioned gentleman and the “national champions” to Dilma Rousseff.

Lula said it is time for sowing. Along the way of the carriage, she sows the weed that has already destroyed her crops.

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