Brazil Feels Almost Normal Again

BY BRIAN WINTER
AUGUST 29, 2023

After January’s chaos, Brazil’s economy and politics seem to have returned to a more solid footing, writes AQ’s editor-in-chief.


SÃO PAULO — When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on New Year’s Day, one of his trickiest problems was what to do about Brazil’s military. Many members of the 350,000-strong force not only supported Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election but flirted with numerous plots to overturn the result. They stood by for a suspiciously long time when rioters stormed Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court in a failed insurrection attempt on January 8. Two weeks later, Lula fired the head of the Army.

Faced with the specter of permanent instability, Lula reacted as he often has throughout his storied career: By showering potential adversaries with money. When he unveiled his government’s landmark four-year, $75 billion “PAC” infrastructure program this month, a whopping $10 billion was earmarked for defense projects, including a nuclear submarine and next-generation Air Force jets. Lula has taken a similar approach to managing the powerful Centrão bloc in Congress, spending $2.4 billion in July alone on emendas parlamentares, legislators’ pet projects, an amount Estado de S.Paulo said was a new monthly record for any government.

Cynical? Perhaps. But everything seems to be working, at least for now. Lula’s approval rating stands at 60%, up nine points from April, according to a recent Quaest poll. A similar percentage of Brazilians expect the economy to continue improving in the next year. Economists tend to agree, with an average forecast of 2.2% growth for this year–not great, but still triple their expectations when the year began. Meanwhile, Brazil’s democracy, which seemed so fragile just six months ago, prompting dire warnings from many observers, including this author, may now be enjoying its best moment of institutional stability since street protests in 2013 plunged the country into its long crisis. Lula’s generosity with the purse strings has helped, but it’s not the entire story.



Bolsonaro’s abrupt fall from grace has been a major factor. After barely losing last October with 49% of the vote, some expected him to lead a strong opposition in a country that remains much more conservative than during Lula’s first presidency 20 years ago. But several scandals, especially Bolsonaro’s alleged plot to illegally sell jewelry gifted by foreign governments and pocket the cash, have left the former president and his movement stunned into near silence. Bolsonaro, who denies wrongdoing, has already been disqualified from running for office again until 2030 because of a separate case. According to allies, Bolsonaro believes he and his family can still avoid jail if they refrain from attacking Brazil’s courts and other institutions. His criticism of Lula has been infrequent and muted, at least by his standards. Many believe his imprisonment is imminent anyway.

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