Lula da Silva

Lula da Silva is a candidate for the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Election, taking place today. He previously served as President of Brazil between 2003 and 2010. On the face of it, his achievements as President are hard to criticise, whatever your political leanings. On the one hand, he oversaw a massive increase in the Brazilian median income. On the other, he slowed the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. By 2010, many saw Brazil as one of the 21st century’s foremost rising stars. 

However, the decade after Lula left office, the 2010s, was a disaster for Brazil. The commodity boom that underpinned Brazil’s economic expansion under Lula turned to bust after the 2008 financial crisis, and Lula’s chosen successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached and removed from office in 2016. The decade closed with the election of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, who has accelerated the Amazon’s decline, and talks sympathetically of the country’s military dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s. How much was Lula to blame for this unravelling? The answer: it’s complicated. 

My guest today is the Brazilian journalist Adriana Carranca, who writes for various publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic and Foreign Policy. Much of Adriana’s work centres on the Middle East, but she also keeps a keen eye on the politics of her own country and has a nuanced view of this election.