Opinion – Marcelo Leite: Lula’s past and choices authorize skepticism

Nobody loses much by being pessimistic, particularly in Brazil. Sworn in smoothly, even with terrorists conspiring against it, Lula has a chance to make a good government – but it is recommended to contain enthusiasm.

Since the second round, the president-elect has seen his image subjected to a tug of war between ideological factions (nine out of the coup supporters). On the one hand, the financier right paints him as a spendthrift devil. On the other hand, the forgotten left enthrones him as an unpolluted savior of the homeland.

The first faction will be proven wrong, or not, by the march of the economy in the coming months. If the Armageddon that their prophets trade for does not come, they will again be talking to themselves, with a clean face and the usual gains.

For the other party, it remains to be hoped that they heed lessons from the recent and distant past. As this space is about science and the environment, sometimes racial issues and drug policy, here are some items to remember.

The signals emitted regarding the MMA (Ministry of the Environment) are terrible. As reported, Simone Tebet (MDB) was the favorite, but Marina Silva (Rede) was imposed by gravity, against the unbearable levity of PT members.

Senator Tebet, despite her decent participation in the CPI on Covid and in the electoral campaign, voted for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and supported Jair Bolsonaro’s guidelines in 86% of her votes, according to Agência Pública.

A landowner in Mato Grosso do Sul, where the Guarani-Kaiowá are wasting away, she has always voted with ruralists against indigenous people. Considering it for MMA reveals a disregard for the environment and native peoples that is incompatible with the oaths of adherence to such causes.

Furthermore, nothing indicates that the PT’s thinking matrix has changed, marked by the developmental mold, as suggested by the appointment of Aloizio Mercadante to the BNDES. This Brasil Grande mentality became intoxicated with the fossil elixir of the pre-salt layer and endorsed the crimes of Belo Monte, Santo Antônio and Jirau in the Amazon.

At the MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations), the choice also denotes the lack of importance devoted to the heading. Lula could have chosen a Margareth Dalcolmo, a Ricardo Galvão, but she settled for Luciana Santos (PCdoB).

The party of the vice-governor of Pernambuco has always been close to the military doctrine of international greed over the Amazon. I hope she bury the anti-imperialist paranoia and face the region through the prisms of socio-biodiversity, the climate crisis and the bioeconomy.

Finally, drug policy and the racial issue. Very intertwined issues, given that the failed war on the former continues to fill prisons with young blacks and serves the out-of-control police as a pretext for violence against them.

The smoke signals emitted by the president-elect cause confusion. On the one hand, the choice of lawyer Silvio Almeida, president of the Luiz Gama Institute, for the Human Rights portfolio points to an appreciation of the racial issue.

On the other hand, the slip by the future Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, in nominating a PM colonel for the National Secretariat of Penal Policies, and more, with participation in the Carandiru massacre (even if on the side), allows us to glimpse the left’s fear of be labeled as lax in public safety.

It cannot be forgotten that then-President Dilma removed Pedro Abramovay from the National Secretariat for Drug Policy in 2011, because the young lawyer had advocated no longer punishing small-time drug dealers with imprisonment.

Abramovay, lo and behold, was on the transition team. But Dino’s stumble gives the strongest indication that Lula’s government will falter in the face of the Gordian knot that ties racial violence with drugs, mass incarceration and police lethality.