On the first day of 2023, at about 5 pm Brasilia time, before a crowd numbering in hundreds of thousands enduring a scorching sun for hours, Lula received the presidential sash after being sworn as Brazil’s president.
The moment Sunday completed one of the most stunning and extraordinary comebacks in politics and in life.
In 2019, less than 12 people struggled to hold a 'Lula Livre' — Free Lula — banner across an area used as stops for demonstrators along the important Avenida Ipiranga in Sao Paulo’s Republica district.
The Lula rally failed that night four years ago as Jair Bolsonaro followers, flying flags and in yellow shirts, shamed, insulted and drowned them with their horns as they literally drove through without slowing down. Bolsonaro was the country’s new president promising to remake Brazil away from everything Lula had stood for Lula's future looked bleak. He was in prison serving a 12-year sentence.
Sunday’s third Lula Inaugural to a job he first held 20 years ago also set up a course correction in the world’s sixth-largest economy and Latin America’s largest and most populous country.
"Good afternoon people," Lula began his speech to the multitude, repaying the people of Brazil for organizing daily gatherings outside the federal prison in Curitiba to shout, "Good morning, President Lula" and "Good afternoon, President Lula," so that hearing them would keep him strong.
The message in his first words to them: He heard them and he did not forget.
He promised to roll back the Bolsonaro policies that hurt many sectors of Brazilian society and to strengthen the people and protections of the Amazon. "The public machine was used by an authoritarian project of power," said Lula, and vowed to respond to hatred with love, lies with truth, and to terror and violence "with the law and its toughest consequences."
The audience of half of Brazilians, who earlier felt browbeaten and intimidated by Bolsonaro and his supporters, exploded in cheers.
Lula, the centre-left standard bearer, won the October 30 runoff election by 50.9% against 49.1% for the far right-wing Bolsonaro.
In his October victory speech, Lula promised, "As of January 1, 2023, I will govern for 215 million Brazilians and not just for those who voted for me...here are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, and one great nation."
But as he gave his acceptance speech Sunday, he inherited a nation divided. Fueled largely by pre-election comments by Bolsonaro that a loss could only occur if there was fraud in the elections, and then coy silence that did not acknowledge the election results, his supporters expected a Trump-like challenge to the results.
Many imagined many Machiavellian next moves from him; believing that he was a master strategist playing 11th-dimensional chess, every non-move by the defeated Bolsonaro was seen as a signal to continue to fight.
And fight they did, laying siege to military installations, demanding an intervention to give him cover to remain in office, and continuing to expect a "brilliantly strategic move" by Bolsonaro until the last seconds before Lula took office. The speculation and hope in forums did not stop, but many shared their disappointment.
"The coward has abandoned us, but our struggle to save our country continues," said a post on a right-wing Whatsapp group alluding to Bolsonaro’s flight to Florida on the penultimate day of his presidency, effectively abandoning his duties and skipping the expected last presidential act of placing the presidential sash on his successor, a move that implies his continued and definite refusal to accept the election results.
The atmosphere created by Bolsonaro’s actions and non-actions created talk and danger of violence, leading to what was termed by local media as the largest security operation in the country’s history.
There was a good reason. Bombs were found near the airport and near the hotel district where Lula was expected to stay before taking office. Investigations led to caches of arms and ammunition.
Even as Lula was completing his speech to legislators after taking office, police around the Supreme Court building were frantically searching for a potential bomb in the city’s Three Power’s Plaza, where the multitudes of people concentrated to witness Lula’s ascent into the Planalto Presidential Palace.
The plaza is buttressed by the presidential, judicial, and legislative powers buildings.
Helicopters hovered overhead; sharpshooters mulled atop every building within visible distance, closed access. Long and difficult pathways and a heavy military presence did not keep the crowds from filling the city’s grand Monumental Axis for nearly six kilometres en route to the plaza.
Overnight, the dominant colour of fashion for political expression went from the canary yellow jersey of Brazil’s national football team, to red, the colour of Lula’s PT socialist party, despite Lula’s call to reclaim the team’s colour and the flag as the national symbols instead of political tools.
Groups and peoples verbally and policywise targeted by Bolsonaro like indigenous peoples and the LGBT+ community celebrated what they called his escape and the return of Lula to charge. "Papa is back," read red shirts worn by hundreds of people.
Others just danced in celebration of feeling their country going in a direction that would improve their lives and prospects. Indigenous peoples in full native garb, gay men and women with rainbow flags, union groups, environmental groups, Amazon protectors and others shared their joy in the street party concert dubbed 'Lulapalooza.'
Various groups of indigenous peoples, some in traditional garb and body paint, others painted and wearing feather headdresses danced, sang and played the drums. "Like will get better with Lula as president," they chanted over and over.
Bolsonaro made inflammatory and offensive comments about indigenous people and their culture which led to accusations that he promoted violence against them and advocated for the exploitation of indigenous reservations through mining; he presided over a dramatic increase in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
His efforts to weaken protections for indigenous lands and the rights of indigenous communities in Brazil began early in his presidency. In 2019, he signed a decree that reduced the size of the Renca reserve, which is home to many indigenous communities, and opened it up for mining and other development.
During Lula’s two terms as president, Brazil enjoyed a period of economic growth and prosperity, a boom supported by high demand for its raw materials. Statistics show that government initiatives aimed at social mobility allowed over 30 million individuals to ascend into the middle class.
In contrast, Brazil suffered through an economic crisis in recent times, resulting in widespread poverty and hardship. But people unified in fear of a communist turn under Lula and disdain for gays, the poor, indigenous peoples and Lula and his supporters in general. "I am feeling hate for every petista [member of Lula’s PT party], real hate," read a post in a right-wing forum the day before the inauguration.
The turnout showed the other side of the country that had been largely absent in demonstrations during the Bolsonaro years. "Fugio! Fugio!” he escaped! he escaped! said various placards dancing in the hands of happy Lula supporters, even as some feared the oft-made promise of Bolsonario supporters that Lula would never be allowed to make the traditional walk up the ramp of Planalto Palace that presidents make on the day of their swearing-in.
The actual inaugural began at the city’s iconic Oscar Neimeyer-designed cathedral, where the presidential and vice-presidential parties gathered. From there, Lula, his vice-president former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin and their wives rode a black open-top presidential Rolls Royce; the traditional 1952 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith reserved for inaugurals was announced after the election to be in need of repairs.
Standing side by side, they caused an uproar of cheers in the crowds that could be heard in the distance like a coming tornado.
The carefully choreographed motorcade came in the shape of a V that opened the way and led to the presidential car. Cheers got louder as they made the way down the nearly two miles to the legislative towers, the clamorous ramble of the people was compounded by the cumulative effect of more cheers as people got a glimpse of Lula.
"Only when I see it, will I know that is real," had said a woman from the state of Alagoas who jumped up and down and cheered loudly when she caught the caravan within sight.
At the legislative plaza, the returning president crossed the moat onto a red carpet lined with a colour guard in Imperial-inspired uniforms and made his way into the hall of the National Congress where the actual ceremony took place.
After a speech to legislators, the new president rode the black Rolls Royce to Planalto Palace where he prepared to walk up the ramp along with his vice president and their wives.
A three-meter-tall "boneco", a giant doll, of Lula, danced among the crowds in the tradition of the northeastern state of Penambuco wearing the presidential sash that Bolsonaro would not be passing to Lula.
In Brazil, the transfer of the presidential sash is an important part of the inauguration ceremony and is a symbolic moment that signifies the peaceful transition of power from one president to the next.
With Bolsonaro in Florida, Lula chose to have "the people" place the sash on him, a moment full of symbolism came together at the bottom of the ramp over the moat to Planalto.
A 10-year-old boy from Sao Paulo named Francisco, Aline Sousa, 33, Weslley Viesva Rodrigues Rocha, 36, and a metallurgist joined 90-year-old indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire to take Lula’s hand in an emotional moment and led the man who would save the indigenous people from the ravages of Bolsonaro's policies up the ramp.
It was powerful and emotional symbolism. It continued when Ailine Sousa, a trash collector, placed the presidential sash on Lula on behalf of the people with Metuktire in a blue robe and yellow headdress looked on and applauded. It was a moment designed to show the new priorities of Lula for the indigenous peoples, and for "the people," of Brazil.
Becoming emotional and breaking into tears during his address to the multitude outside the palace, the 77-year-old Lula promised equal wages for women with men, the right of people in Brazil to three meals a day, protection of the Amazon and a vision of an education system and society able to make Brazil an exporter of intelligent knowledge and not just of raw materials.
He promised access to higher education to the indigenous, blacks, whites and all Brazilians and, markedly vowed to strengthen the country’s health system which Bolsonaro had targeted for privatization, "because the right to life cannot depend on the amount of money you have in your pockets."
He reminded people of his previous successes as president as an indication that his words were not just what he intended to do but what he had experience in delivering to Brazilians.
"Join us," he said to the nation the man who promised he would work to deliver for all Brazilians, marking yet another distinction with his predecessor.
"I want to ask you that the joy of today be the prime component of the struggles of tomorrow," said Lula closing his address.
As that happened, Bolsonaro supporters who had been camping in front of military installations demanding intervention and waiting for a master move from Bolsonaro since their election loss began to quietly dismantle their camps.
Lula’s presidency reflects a significant shift in the political direction of Brazil and the solidification of a second Pink Wave that has pushed out the political right in surprising victories in Chile and Colombia. It also means the revival of the dream of a politically unified continent integrating the cultural, social, economic, and political affairs among its member states.
Whatever shape or success of the international initiative, Brazil for its size, population, and the economy will play a leading political and leadership role in the region.
Demonstrating support for the new leader, once one of the most popular politicians, 17 heads of state and over 60 foreign delegations attended the inauguration. Among the attendees were several African and Latin American heads of state and the King of Spain, signalling the importance of Brazil to their countries and their willingness to work with the man who now becomes the region's elder statesman.
