President’s assessment in 2023 registers tepid water – 12/14/2023 – Marcos Augusto Gonçalves

Was the first year of Lula’s government good? Bad? Not so much?

In view of the disastrous administration of Jair Bolsonaro, an election that would lead to the Presidency of a democratic leadership, free from the captain’s obscurantist, weapons-oriented, denialist and coup-mongering agenda, would already be a notable achievement for Brazil.

It came with Lula, the only politician who was capable of defeating the ultraconservative populist coalition in power. The victory, to be celebrated, was tight, as we know, with important support from sectors of the center and the civilized right.

Faced with the fiscal disarray of the previous administration, despite the liberal sympathies dedicated to the mythical Paulo Guedes (the adjective belongs to the economist Pérsio Arida), the market’s great concern quickly turned to economic policy. The worst of Dilma Rousseff was on the way, that was the revived paranoia.

Realizing the undisguised legacy of astronomical spending, demoralization of the spending ceiling, tax manipulation, artificial price fixing and electoral interventionism, Lula did something unprecedented: before taking office he approved a PEC to avoid the sinking of the Budget, his government and the country.

He appointed Fernando Haddad to the Treasury and approved a new fiscal rule that removed, at least temporarily, fears about a crisis that could increase public debt and deficit to North American levels.

The good results of GDP and inflation, disappointing the expectations of the Focus bulletin (aka Out of Focus), as well as the resumption of social programs and other measures, helped the president to have a cushion, or at least a mat, to overcome your first year.

There were many mistakes and mistakes. Aside from the PT’s anachronistic gleisism, Lula himself, under pressure from all sides, including his own, stumbled in modulating his speech and faltered in decisions.

Known as loose-tongued, the president gave the sensation at times of taking some kind of verbal Viagra. He crossed the score, raised the tone, even when rightly so, and committed gaffes in series.

Seduced by Brazil’s return to the world and by his own return to the club of global leaders, he indulged in red carpet stardom that went beyond a desirable international performance that was more sober and focused on the country’s interests. With the right, remember, to a palace pampering for Maduro, the favorite dictator of the PT, biggest creator of problems in the region.

Well, detailed balance sheets for the government year will come. And the role of the dangerous and resilient far-right circus will have to be taken into account.

What I would like to note here is that in the end the impression of a gentle success seems to have remained in the air, although, for many, that of a gentle failure. With the divisions maintained and a third of the population not leaning towards one side or the other, the thermometers of polls and public opinion in 2023 recorded tepid water.

One of the vital vectors of Lula’s administration was and continues to be the negotiation for governability, the “coalition” agreements with the blackmailing leadership of the Legislature and its hungry benches.

Much of the chances of Minister Haddad erecting a shield against fiscalist firefighting, PT sabotage and the discrediting of the Treasury will depend on the unfolding of this realpolitik.

Let’s hope that 2024, in addition to better mayors, brings us a little less selfish president, sullen PT, profiteering Legislature, vomiting opposition, acrobatic STF and market agents who treat the distinguished audience like fools.

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