Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was invested by the third time president of Brazil

the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was inaugurated this Sunday for the third time president of Brazil, in a ceremony in the Congress of Brasilia marked by the absence of his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

Exactly 20 years after coming to power for the first time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 77, was proclaimed president along with his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, by pronouncing their “constitutional commitment.”

The ceremony began with a minute of silence in memory of the former Brazilian star Skin and of Benedict XVIboth deceased this week.

At the Congress, Lula arrived in the traditional black convertible Rolls Royce together with the first lady “Janja”, to the cheers of his followers, some of them with tears in their eyes, AFP confirmed.

Contrary to tradition, his predecessor was absent. Bolsonaro traveled to the United States on Friday, two days before the end of his government term.

For the first time since 1985, an outgoing president will not pass the presidential sash, an act that will take place later in the Planalto Palace.

The leftist was supported by about twenty heads of state, the largest number for a takeover in Brazil.

Among these are the heads of Argentina, Chile, ColombiaEcuador, Paraguay, Honduras and Uruguay, besides the King of Spain, Felipe VI.

Washington He sent the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the first indigenous person to form a cabinet in the United States and a harsh critic of Bolsonaro, while Vice President Wang Qishan attended from China.

Presidential Sash and Speech

After the ceremony in Congress, the most awaited moment will arrive: Lula will walk down the ramp of the Planalto presidential palace and will receive the sash, a green and yellow silk ribbon, the colors of the national flag, embroidered in gold and diamonds.

Then he will speak before some 30,000 people, around 5 pm local time.

Meanwhile, the streets of the capital were teeming with Lula supporters, dressed mostly in red, the color of his Workers’ Party.

Sapuia Kalapalo, a 32-year-old indigenous man from the state of Mato Grosso (center-west), did not want to miss the ceremony, where he went with his wife and two children.

“The four years of the government that left (Bolsonaro) were bad for us,” explains Sapuia, who has lived in the capital for three months. Lula “is a hope for us, for our rights, and the demarcation of indigenous lands,” he adds.

The ceremony has an unprecedented security device, with up to 8,000 agents mobilized.

The brazilian police arrested a man on Sunday morning who was trying to enter the Esplanade area carrying a knife and fireworks, detected in the security review. The suspect, who arrived in the capital from Rio de Janeiro, was arrested.

Preparations for the inauguration had been shaken after the arrest of a Bolsonaro member who planted an explosive near the airport in Brasilia to “cause chaos”, provoke the declaration of a state of siege and thus avoid the assumption, according to his own confession.

Since the ballot, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters have mobilized in various cities to reject the result at the polls and call for military intervention.

immediate challenges

The leftist president will have greater immediate challenges than he has faced in his other two presidencies, which left him with an unusual popularity rating of 87%.

Some 30 million of the 215 million Brazilians go hungry and the economy is barely able to recover after the pandemic hit.

“In the first 100 days, he must show which direction the government will take. The electoral victory was tight and he will face a divided country with a fierce opposition. He needs to lead a government of pacification and national unity,” explained Leandro Consentino, a political scientist at the Insper institute in Sao Paul.

Lula prevailed over Bolsonaro in the run-off on October 30 by 50.9% of the votes compared to 49.1%, a result that revealed a deeply polarized society.

The ex-unionist must gain “credibility” regarding the management of public accounts in the face of a delicate fiscal situation, despite the fact that his campaign promises require an increase in spending to finance social programs, according to Consentino.

According to a survey by the Datafolha institute on Saturday, only 51% of Brazilians believe that Lula will govern better than Bolsonaro, the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported.

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