Summary:
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In his first speech as president of Brazil on Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attacked Jair Bolsonaro’s administration harshly. She stressed the need to “rebuild” the biggest country in Latin America.
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Police caught a man with a knife and fireworks early Sunday morning when tensions were high, and security measures were stepped up.
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In his speech to Congress, Lula said his “message to Brazil is one of hope and rebuilding.
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Lula also promised to eliminate Bolsonaro’s gun law changes and praised Brazilians for their commitment to democracy.
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After being found guilty of graft, Lula was imprisoned for 580 days before being released in November 2019.
In his first speech as president of Brazil on Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attacked Jair Bolsonaro’s administration harshly. She stressed the need to “rebuild” the biggest country in Latin America.
Contrary to what most people thought, Lula criticized Bolsonaro for handling the coronavirus pandemic and for his economic and social policies, which he said had led to “national devastation.”
“The perpetrators of this [the COVID] genocide must be identified and held accountable.” “It is now up to us to support the families of the nearly 700,000 victims,” he stated.
While the new president was being sworn in for a historic third term, cheers and chants of Lula’s name were often heard from the crowd.
The 77-year-old former union activist’s first term as president of the South American nation began precisely 20 years before the occasion.
After the tense election in October, in which Lula barely beat the populist Bolsonaro, it will be hard for the left-wing leader to bring peace to the country’s political scene.
Police caught a man with a knife and fireworks early Sunday morning, when tensions were high and security measures were stepped up. He had tried to sneak into the busy crowds at the inauguration on Brasilia’s central esplanade.
It happened after a second man was taken into custody on Christmas Eve after an explosive device was found in a fuel tanker near the airport in the nation’s capital. According to the suspect, the intention was to “sow havoc” and bring on a state of emergency.
Since the election results, hundreds of Bolsonaro’s most devoted supporters have shown up at military bases around Brazil to demand that Lula’s win be overturned, even though they have no proof that the vote was rigged.
But they were shocked when the former army captain took a secret flight to Florida on Friday to miss Lula’s inauguration.
At the same time, tens of thousands of people who supported Lula’s Workers’ Party went to Brasilia. On Sunday, they gathered in large groups on the city’s central esplanade while wearing the party’s signature red clothes.
Fans called the event “Lulapalooza” because it was a mix of political ceremony and pomp with a festival-style party with live music.
When Lula, who was born in the impoverished northeast of Brazil before migrating to the industrial center of So Paulo, made an afternoon appearance in an open-top Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith from the 1950s with his wife, the vice president Geraldo Alckmin, and their companion, cheers broke out.
In his speech to Congress, Lula said his “message to Brazil is one of hope and rebuilding.”
The new president spoke while wearing a formal blue suit and tie. He stressed the need to deal with the country’s extreme poverty and said, “No nation has or can rise on the agony of its people.”
Our first step will be to save 33 million people from famine and the 100 million people living in poverty who have borne the brunt of [Bolsonaro’s] plan to destroy the country, which ends today.
Lula also said he would get rid of Bolsonaro’s changes to gun laws and praised the Brazilian people for their dedication to democracy.
The biggest winner in this election was democracy, which survived the largest-ever combination of public and private resources, the most violent threats to the right to vote, and the most disgusting campaign of lies and hatred.
Dorjivan Santos, a 52-year-old logistics manager from the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, said he went to Brasilia for the event because it meant “good won over evil.”
“Lula unites people; he unites the Brazilian ethnic groups and regions.” The future president’s biggest challenge will be to “stop the radicalism of the right,” he added, adding that he had never seen such a gathering of people.
During his first two terms as president, from 2003 to 2010, Lula oversaw a time of strong economic growth, rising living standards, and Brazil’s rise to international prominence.
But when he chose Dilma Rousseff as his successor, accusations of corruption and bad economic management hurt his reputation.
After being found guilty of graft, Lula was imprisoned for 580 days before being released in November 2019. The convictions were overturned by the top court last year.
Many Brazilians still have misgivings about the seasoned politician and his Workers’ Party, which ruled the country for 13 years before Rousseff was removed from office in 2016.
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
