On October 30, the Brazilian election results showed that the country is moving in a new direction with the presidential candidate Squid Da Silva at the head. But att change direction for the country after four years under right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaros rule may be more difficult than expected a new economic reality.
There are high hopes for Brazil's new president Lula da Silva to lead the country towards a new reality. His vsellers hope among other things, on a path away from corruption and deforestation of the Amazon.
Lula has previously held the presidency of Brazil. He first won in 2003 with the left-leaning Labor Party which he co-founded in the 80s. However, it was a different reality then than it is today and creating changes can be difficult for the left-wing candidate, according to Stuart Ramsey, correspondent at Sky News. He points out that Brazil is struggling with the deteriorating global economy and the effects of the corona pandemic, and that the country is very divided politically and socially.
- Perhaps his most urgent problem will be dealing with the economic inequalities in the country, he writes.
Lula Da Silva's election promises
Since Bolsonaro's accession to the presidency in 2019 has a rainforest area larger than Taiwan harvested in the Amazon. Deforestation has over the past eight years increased by 86 percent and on average more than one million trees are uprooted per day – something that has met with sharp criticism.
- The death toll during Bolsonaro's term must also include annihilation of non-human life, writes the British journalist Jonathan Watts.
Lula has promised to put an end to the deforestation of the Amazon. Otherwise, he has promised to fight poverty, improve education and health care and start rebuilding the country's infrastructure. However, unlike Lula's previous term in office in the early 2000s, the commodity boom and extensive export of commodities to the world market that contributed to the country's boom and made it possible to finance large social projects. During Bolsonaro's presidency was used The Amazon as a source of funding, but Lula instead plans to stop deforestation.
Replacing Bolsonaro would likely reduce deforestation in the short term, but to truly reverse deforestation, one must change more than just who is in the presidency, say two researchers. They refer to the fact that land grabbing needs to be punished, indigenous peoples need to be given increased protection and the laws regarding land ownership should be reviewed. Large parts of Amazonian land still lack established legal status as public or private land.
- Land grabbers invade these areas, deforest them and claim it as their property, they write.
