Jan 10 2025| Nº. 149

Editorial

On January 8, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva marked the two-year anniversary of the far-right insurrection in Brasília with a speech emphasizing his personal commitment to democracy and the resilience of Brazilian institutions. Referencing the celebrated film I'm Still Here, recognized last Sunday with a Golden Globe win for its star, Fernanda Torres, Lula asserted that democracy had survived a coup attempt in the early days of his unprecedented third term. Lula stressed that those responsible, including those who allegedly planned to assassinate him and other high-profile targets, would face justice, ensuring fair trials but also firm punishment. He positioned himself as a “lover of democracy,” using a metaphor about infidelity to explain his passion for democracy (the comparison incurred some criticism). The ceremony also underscored the importance of remembering history to prevent similar actions in the future.

Such rhetoric seems aimed not only at a domestic audience but a foreign one as well. This week, the Brazilian government received an invitation to the inauguration of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, scheduled for January 12. While the final decision on Brazil’s representation is pending, it is expected that Ambassador Glivânia Oliveira will attend in Lula’s place. Maduro’s re-election remains contentious, with accusations of election fraud, as the opposition, backed by Argentina, Peru, and other important regional players, claims that challenger Edmundo González was the rightful winner. Officially, Brazil, along with Mexico and Colombia, is waiting for official documentation to validate Maduro’s victory, indicating that it so far does not recognize the legitimacy of Maduro’s self-proclaimed victory. In a Folha de São Paulo op-ed on Thursday, January 9, WBO Executive Director Paulo Abrão commended Lula for not sending his foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, or his international policy advisor, Celso Amorim, to the inauguration, noting that “the merely procedural presence of ambassador Glivânia Maria de Oliveira is a diplomatic formality that the Brazilian state extends to non-democratic countries around the world. Therefore, it cannot be confused with any kind of support for Maduro.”

Also this week, in an interview with GloboNews, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad acknowledged government communication issues on fiscal matters and stressed the need for better dialogue with market actors. While discussing ongoing reforms, Haddad admitted that combining income tax changes with spending cuts created some confusion about the government’s priorities and raised undue expectations. He insisted that the new fiscal framework would stabilize public debt and allow for a more flexible budget, ensuring long-term fiscal health and a stronger outlook by 2026. In the meantime, he said, the Lula administration must be more attuned to market sensitivities, which are on a knife’s edge worldwide and not just in Brazil

Highlights

• Social networks. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said that no social network will operate in Brazil if it does not comply with local legislation. Moraes' statement was a response to the announcement made the day before by Mark Zuckerberg that networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp will relax the rules for moderating their users' posts. Moraes is responsible for conducting a comprehensive investigation at the Supreme Court, which was initiated precisely to combat the dissemination of false information on social networks by far-right activists. The clash of views between Moraes and Zuckerberg is likely to open a new chapter in the tensions between the Brazilian judiciary and the American mega-corporations that manage these networks against the backdrop of pressure from Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro to spread a distorted idea of ​​unlimited freedom of expression.

• Presidential race. Two very popular reactionary figures in Brazil, linked to pop culture and the world of social media, have announced that they intend to run for President of the Republic in 2026. The first of them is the singer Gusttavo Lima, an exponent of the agricultural and conservative world of southwestern rural Brazil. His announcement caused surprise and is still viewed with suspicion. The second is Pablo Marçal, a businessman who became known as an influencer on the internet. Marçal ran for mayor of São Paulo last year. One of the most unusual episodes involving the candidate was when an opponent threw a chair at him during a debate that was broadcast live on TV. To run for President, Marçal will first have to resolve his legal issues. The businessman may become ineligible if he is convicted in a series of lawsuits filed against him in the Electoral Court. Both announcements drew attention to the conservative camp's movements.

• New communication. This week, President Lula made a change in the Presidency's Communications Secretariat as Paulo Pimenta left and Sidônio Palmeira took over. Lula had been publicly criticizing Pimenta's performance as head of the secretariat since December. The change signals the adoption of a more aggressive stance, especially in communication in digital spaces. Government members have said that the second half of Lula's term must be marked by positive results of the government’s policies, with a view to the 2026 presidential race. Sidônio is an advertising professional who began his career in the state of Bahia and has been working on electoral campaigns ever since.

• Memory and Justice. A cultural event had major political repercussions this week in Brazil: actress Fernanda Torres became the first Brazilian actor to receive the Golden Globe for Best Actress, for her performance in the film “I’m Still Here,” directed by Walter Salles. The film tells the true story of the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of former federal congressman Rubens Paiva by agents of the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Torres plays the widow Eunice Paiva, who experiences the drama of searching for her husband’s whereabouts and for justice while trying to remain strong as the head of a traumatized family. The film gave unprecedented scope to a persistent debate in Brazil about amnesty for crimes committed by agents of the dictatorship. Former President Bolsonaro once spat on a monument erected in honor of Rubens Paiva in the congressional halls of Brasília. The award has recognized the dignity of the family’s pursuit of justice and re-ignited the debate in Brazil about the fact that the extreme right is nostalgic about the dictatorship.

News from ABO and social organizations and movements:

Annual report 2024. At the turn of the year, the Aliança Brazil Office published an institutional report with a summary of all activities carried out in 2024. To access the document, simply click on the link.

Impunity and coup d'état. Flávia Pellegrino, the executive director of the Pact for Democracy, published an article in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper in which she advocates holding all those involved in the failed coup attempt in Brazil accountable. She believes that the impunity of those involved in 1964 coup d’état and twenty-one-year-long dictatorship is directly related to the fact that the far right linked to Bolsonaro tried to prevent Lula from assuming the presidency for a third term. Click on the link to read the article.

Fellows. WBO research fellow Guilherme Casarões spoke to journalist Natuza Nery's podcast O Assunto about the prospects of a new Trump administration in the United States. André Pagliarini, editorialist for the Brazil Office newsletter and research fellow for the organization, spoke to journalist Ishaan Tharoor's column in the Washington Post about parallels between the attacks on democracy that have occurred in Brazil and the United States.

Feature Article

The G-20 and Inequalities

By Viviana Santiago*

The G-20 is one of the main spaces for global governance. In this space, which brings together the main economies based on a logic of strengthening cooperation between countries, it is possible to address the main issues of our era.

In leading this space, Brazil has prioritized the reform of international governance, sustainability dimensions, and the fight against hunger and poverty, but the question we ask ourselves here is: Has that been enough?

Thinking about international governance is urgent, but from a perspective of inclusion. The question that arises is, therefore, how can we build dynamics of cooperation and promotion of development without there being adequate representation of the different contexts? What metrics do we use when we bring up ideas such as development, cooperation, and sustainability?

To have a development model that leaves no one behind, it is necessary to decolonize the idea of ​​development, understand the impacts of coloniality on the formation of contexts, and be able to identify the resistance strategies constructed by each of them.

In this sense, by opening up space for intense social participation, the G-20 summit held in Brazil points to the following path: it is through dialogue and the construction of a governance structure that brings civil society closer to the States that a new grammar for development will be constructed. Addressing this, considering that population demands are not the same, but recognizing the different groups that make up society, was key to the demands of women, the Black population, and the favelas, as well as to formulating paths from which responses will emerge. The intense exchange with South Africa, which allows us to think about the African context beyond tokenism and stereotypes, worked to point out paths for transformation.

All the social participation and formulations present in the Sherpa Track functioned as a space for articulation and regrouping of civil society around an agenda and a space that are not usually intended for these audiences and these themes.

But we have challenges: how can we make the Finance Track more open to contributions from civil society? How can we ensure that a Eurocentric and colonial vision, according to which only a few enlightened individuals, mostly men, mostly white, would be able to understand the meaning of the discussions, is not enough? Everyone has the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives, and in this sense, it is necessary to guarantee everyone the full conditions for participation. Under the presidency of Brazil, the G-20 built a powerful space for civil society participation, but in all its diversity, civil society representatives did not feel sufficiently in dialogue with the Finance Track. Presenting proposals is not dialogue. Dialogue is meeting, sharing, having one's considerations answered.

Let us also move forward in the consideration that a diverse society needs to have the demands of all groups addressed in the construction of spaces and demands. How can we be sure that the G-20 agenda builds this dialogue?

At the end of Brazil's presidency of the G-20, we need to look for lessons learned. After all, to what extent were all the working groups able to build an intersectional approach that would allow their proposals to neither maintain nor reproduce inequalities? For whom did we pressure global leaders? Whom did we leave behind?

More than just having a group of women, a group of favelas, a group of Black people, we need to think about how we will move forward in analyses and proposals that perceive the populations in their entirety and, above all, develop the capacity to include those who are systematically left behind, rendered invisible because their lives can be left to die.

May South Africa move forward, may this path be strengthened, may no one be left behind.

*Viviana Santiago is executive director of Oxfam Brazil.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.