Jair Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative era comes to an end with the return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Sunday, January 1st, to Brazil's presidency, and the South American country can smile again after four years marked by permanent controversy: when it wasn't his management of Covid-19 and the opposition to vaccines, it was his dismal performance in economic matters or his responsibility in environmental matters allowing the increase of the Amazon deforestation. Or his sympathies for the military regime that ruled his country for two decades.
All this already gives an idea of the country Lula inherits, marked by a difficult economic situation and high social tension as result of the fracture caused by Bolsonaro, who on Friday, without waiting for Lula's arrival, already travelled to the USA, a country in which he will surely set his exile in the state of Florida. A former president who has not yet acknowledged his defeat in the second round of the elections held at the end of last October, nor has he congratulated Lula, and who we will surely see, sooner rather than later, next to one of his supporters, former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Lula begins his third term —the previous two were between 2003 and 2010— with a broad government with 37 ministers, some of them very far away from his left-wing ideology, and considered liberal. As was the case the first time he became president, the country is facing urgent issues that will undoubtedly mark his new term. The most important of these is the hunger plaguing Brazil, where, according to a study published last June, 33 million Brazilians do not have enough to eat. But also the recovery of his program from the previous presidency, Bolsa Familia, which consists in transferring money to the poor.
The fact that one of his first initiatives is the repeal of all decrees promoted by Bolsonaro which made access to arms more flexible will cause a clash with the legion of Bolsonaro's radicalism, spread throughout a country which is practically divided in two halves. As stated by Lula in his inauguration, Brazil does not need weapons, it needs books, security, education, and culture. The fifth-largest country in the world, with 8.5 million square kilometres, behind Russia, Canada, the United States and China, begins a new era not without risks. But Lula is a breath of fresh air after four years which are best forgotten.