Lula’s speeches generate wear and tear from the political area to the economy – 04/22/2023 – Politics

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) accumulates in the first four months of his new term a series of controversial and, in some cases, confrontational declarations. These speeches by the representative have already caused wear and tear for him in the political world, with the market and in the international sphere.

Lula also made gaffes. He was even accused of fatphobia, racism and even gained the enmity of gamers, by associating cases of violence in schools with video games. At the age of 77, the Chief Executive is in his third term at the Planalto Palace.

Such as Sheet As shown, communication is one of the main concerns of the Planalto Palace during the Lula 3 administration. There is an understanding among his assistants that greater exposure of the president could lead him to make mistakes. Among other reasons, this is due to the fact that the representative likes to speak impromptu.

One of Planalto’s strategies was to try to reduce the number of agendas and ceremonies with speeches at the beginning of his term, which opened the way for improvisations and speeches outside the central theme.

Lula’s most recent controversial speech put Brazil on a collision course with European powers and the United States, two months after the president was received by Joe Biden at the White House.

Lula had already said that Russia and Ukraine were responsible for the war. In recent weeks, he has made a string of statements that have troubled Washington and European countries.

He suggested that Ukraine would be forced to cede part of its territory in an eventual peace negotiation and said that both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin were responsible for starting the conflict.

“Putin cannot keep land in Ukraine. Perhaps Crimea will not even be discussed. But what he invaded again, he will have to rethink,” he said, during breakfast with journalists. “Zelenskiy can’t have everything he thinks he’s going to want either.”

A week later, on an official trip to China, he attacked the United States and said that Americans need to stop encouraging conflict.

“In other words, the United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace, so that we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace matters to everyone, and war is only interesting, for now, both.”

Lula’s series of speeches on the subject led him to be criticized in the US and Europe for being aligned with the vision of China and Russia on the conflict — therefore far from the position of neutrality that he claims to have. A spokesman for the Biden government even said that Lula was repeating Russian propaganda.

This Saturday (22), in an interview in Portugal, now he said that he never equaled the responsibility of Ukraine and Russia in the war. “I have not been to Russia and I am not going to Ukraine. I will only go when there is a possibility of effectively having a peacebuilding climate. I have always been a person who wants territorial integrity,” he said.

In domestic politics, Lula also provoked a strong reaction by shooting twice at Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR), who sentenced him to prison when he was the judge responsible for the actions of the Lava Jato operation in Curitiba.

The representative said in a live interview that he would “fuck this Moro”, when recalling the period in which he was arrested, when he used to respond to visitors: “It will only be okay when I fuck this Moro”.

The following day, the Federal Police carried out an operation after discovering a PCC plan to attack Moro and his family members, but Lula suggested that it was a “framework” by the former judge.

Lula’s team evaluated behind the scenes that the attack on Moro ended up having bad repercussions. At that moment, there was even consideration of reducing the number of the president’s agendas, in order to reduce his exposure.

But no one was more criticized by Lula during those four months than the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto. In addition to the figure of the leader, Lula and many of his allies often attack interest rates and the market, causing noise in the economic scenario.

At a time when Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) is articulating the fiscal framework, Lula caused a stir in the market by suggesting a change in the inflation target.

Even the president’s relatives came to criticize him because of his statements.

During an event with governors and heads of Powers, to discuss safety in schools, the representative made a list of recent cases of attacks with video games, which according to him would stimulate violence.

“There’s no game, there’s no game talking about love, there’s no game talking about education. It’s a game teaching kids how to kill. And more and more deaths than in World War II. Just get the game for these kids,” he said. .

The speech caused a backlash on social media. One of Lula’s sons, Luis Cláudio, published a message defending games as entertainment.

“My father saw his children and grandchildren grow up playing video games, he knows that this didn’t make us violent, he made a statement about a controversial subject live and ended up generalizing. Video games are much more than violence, they are art, they are leisure, they are entertainment”, he published.

Lula also managed to generate another controversy at the same event, when he sought to link the perpetrators of attacks with “mental disabilities” and people “with a screw imbalance problem”.

In addition to mental health, other issues considered important for the progressive electorate have been the target of the president’s slips in recent months.

During the 52nd General Assembly of Indigenous Peoples in March, Lula classified the slavery of the black population as a “disgrace”, but said that it caused “a good thing, which was the mixture, the miscegenation”.

The statement led to criticism from activists, who said that there was no positive result from slavery and that the idea of ​​praising the miscegenation of races generated by this process is linked to the myth of racial democracy —used in Brazilian history to deny the existence of racism.

Days before, he had made a joking comment about the fact that the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino (PSB), was overweight. Lula was the target of criticism from opponents on social networks after the speech, being accused of fatphobia.

The Chief Executive classified obesity as a disease that causes as much harm as hunger, requiring State care for this problem, and said that Dino would now be exercising, riding a bicycle, for being overweight.