Bribes Brazil: Lula, final act – The Daily

São Bernardo do Campo all began, in the late ’70s, when, the big metalworkers’ strikes of the industrial belt of São Paulo , from the darkness of the military dictatorship had emerged the luminous figure of a young worker, stocky, bearded – this Luiz Inacio da Silva, better known like ‘or Lula’ – able to enchant the masses (and shake the power) talking (without microphone, the legend goes) to eighty thousand workers gathered in the Vila Euclides . And all in São Bernardo do Campo is almost certainly ended yesterday when the same ‘or Lula’ – now in the dual guise of former President of one of the largest nations in the world and charged with corruption – was picked up by police for be questioned about at least a couple of colossal scandals (that of the ‘ Lava Jato ‘ and the one that is called ‘ zelotes’ ) for over a year around the government of Dilma Rousseff . The deal – conduct, telling news agencies, at least 200 police officers and at least half a dozen judicial officers who raided the home of Lula every nook and cranny in San Bernardo- had all the showmanship that Becomes a change of epoch . And there is no doubt that – whatever the outcome of judicial investigations – their trial was treated.

Just a few months ago – at the beginning of September, to be precise – Lula had officially announced his return to the political arena. And he had done – once again speaking in the São Bernardo do Campo – with two clear objectives: to defend its past and its future – as well as those of the entire PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores , the political party with which he had, 79-2003, conducted his’ long march ‘to the presidency – the siege of a judicial campaign defined by him (without much imagination, actually) ‘ politically motivated ‘. And this is what Lula has done effects. He put his hands in the pot of the active policy, not only with speeches and analysis, but also marking its renewed and inevitably rather cumbersome presence by imposing some decisive choices to Rousseff’s government. Beginning with the much discussed return to the Ministry of Finance summits, two months ago passed from Joaquim Levy – a very orthodox ‘dour economist’ – Nelson Barbosa , much ‘ Giuliano ‘and inclined to address the economic crisis (perhaps the most serious since the return of democracy) without drastic cuts in public spending.

the Lula that, yesterday, the police have taken in its São Bernardo home, was a leader who was, obviously, preparing his return to Belver Palácio do Planalto in 2019. with results that have already appeared, however, under the implacable eyes of opinion polls, absolutely asphyxiated. IPSOS survey last October revealed that only 25 percent of Brazilians considered Lula ‘an honest person’. And as the 67 per cent it was, on the contrary, inclined to consider it ‘corrupt as everyone else’. A change abysmal compared to Lula, in 2006 – not by chance in a period of great economic vogue – was passed almost undamaged, with a popularity nailed around 80 percent , through the gauntlet d ‘another scandal: that of ‘ mensalão ‘ (buying votes in parliament for which was jailed José Dirceu , one of the most ancient and valid Lula employees).

in this Brazil – a Brazilian angry that Lula, like it or not, it has changed for the better – people seem now, as it did illo tempore in the Italy of ‘clean hands’, reserving his admiration to one man: Sergio Moro , the judge (call it, if you like, the Brazilian Tonino Di Pietro) who now leads the investigation scandals of Petrobras, the state oil company. And the operation yesterday – phase ‘number 24′ of the investigation, according to the judicial jargon – has only added to the relentless fall of the devastating symbologies luliana star. luxurious homes – in the metaphorical shadow of the mythical Vila Euclides stadium, dismantled years ago – have been refurbished in exchange for political favors. Villas with parks in which – it says – can fit 24 of footbal fields … All things – in striking symphony with the press of the PT that define a Lula ‘ political prisoner’ – give a glimpse of forms of corruption staff. Unconfirmed reports, however – true, false or exaggerated that they are – well now blow stronger of Rossini’s ‘breeze’ of slander.

The investigation will tell us in detail, hopefully, what really happened . But in the meantime, to begin to understand the problem you can start with this sentence: ” … I had to deal with many immoral things, with blackmail … but there is no other way to govern Brazil … ‘. This, in March of the year of our Lord 2010, is how much Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva said – ‘in distress’ with a clear ‘guilt’ – José ‘Pepe’ Mujica, newly elected president of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay . Or at least this is that the Andrés Dance and Ernesto Tulbovitz – the two journalists Uruguayans who authored the most recent and the most ‘official’ interview of the many books devoted to the ‘poorest president’ – they say Mujica said that Lula told , during a very informal meeting that five years ago, in that of Montevideo, was consumed on the edge of the ceremonies for his’ toma de posesión ‘. Mujica was noted, in that book, as the ‘ mensalão ‘ (which now looks like a joke than new scandals) was actually ‘ más viejo que el agujero del mate (the straw older with which it sucks mate, as stated in an old Uruguayan maximum) ‘. It stressed that corruption in Brazil other was not – did anything but new in the history of humanity – that ‘ the infamous price for the realization of great works’ , the mud in which, anyone who wanted as Lula, to change the country, necessarily it had to dip their hands.

Perhaps it is really so. But what is certain is that the season of that change – a change made of compromises and that history will judge certainly more kindly of the news these days – it is now definitely closed . As he wrote Manzoni: posterity will judge.