A month ago, before Lula’s victory, when reporting his campaign’s resistance to Bolsonaro’s nomination for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, Reuters heard former ministers Celso Amorim and Guido Mantega.
The first advocated postponing the choice for the country to participate with a “legitimate government”. The second agreed, and “a third advisor said that Lula would be inclined to Andre Lara Resende”, who presided over BNDES, another development bank. Already speculated as the name of Bolsonaro, Ilan Goldfajn, who presided over the Central Bank, was appointed days later.
This week, the same Reuters dispatched that “Lula has remained silent”, but “authorized Mantega to write to the US to seek support for the postponement”. Declining, “the Treasury Department said it supports” keeping the choice next Sunday.
Bloomberg then interviewed Goldfajn, noting that he wants to “tighten the policy” at the institution (above). In his words, “the IDB should be less ideological, more technical. Choosing someone like me would send the right signal for the region.”
But he also took care to state his priorities in the campaign, in order: “fighting inequality” and “building countries’ resilience to environmental shocks”. It was not enough and, the following day, Amorim gave an interview to CNN Brasil, returning to the theme:
“The IDB was hurt in the last election, a forced nomination of an American linked to the Cubans in Miami. When it came to postponement, the most important thing was to find a consensus name, without vetoing anyone, but also without… It is natural for Lula to go out to support a candidate in whose nomination he had no participation. There was no attempt to communicate. To demand explicit support now is to expect a little too much. I and the majority have nothing against it, but we also have no reason to hurt the interest of other allies of Brazil.”
The Brazil Journal website, days before, had published that, “if Lula does not explicitly support” Goldfajn, the Joe Biden government “is already working on a plan B: Gerardo Esquivel”, candidate of AMLO Mexico, Lula’s ally.
Immediately, in an interview with the Efe agency, Esquivel did not mention Goldfajn, but said that the IDB must stay “distant from the political ups and downs of each country”. His candidacy is closely followed by Mexicans like El Universal: “All eyes are on the IDB”.
WHERE IS THE MONEY?
According to the Financial Times, “Where’s The Finance”, where is the funding promised by developed countries, “is the big question at COP27” (above).
Also on the subject of pressure for “rich countries to pay part of the climate damage in developing countries”, the Wall Street Journal points out that John Kerry, the US envoy for the climate, warned that “this simply will not happen” —offering the “funds from institutions such as the World Bank” in Washington.
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