Madrid, 21 Feb. São Paulo’s secretary for international relations, Marta Suplicy, celebrates the arrival of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in the government of Brazil and that with this the country has ceased to be “a pariah” at the international level, although it recognizes that the Brazilian population is “polarized” and “will remain so” in the future.
In an interview with EFE in Madrid, where Suplicy is taking part in the XVIII Meeting of Directors of International Relations and Coordinators of the Union of Ibero-American Capitals (UCCI), the former mayor of São Paulo believes that cities “can very work well with each other.” because they “share problems and solutions”.
“The biggest challenge for cities is to find resources to do what they have to do well, for example to build social housing, this is something that all cities must do and it makes me very sad when I go there and that it is under construction like in the 20th century and not for the 21st”, he explains.
Aware of the importance of Brazil for the rest of the world in the fight against climate change, the Brazilian celebrates that President Lula da Silva’s “priority” is the environment, as well as his first actions since taking office in January direction.
“Brazil has the lungs of the planet, the Amazon, which has suffered enormous losses in the past four years with a Holocaust-denying government (that of former President Jair Bolsonaro), which has caused great damage to the country and even in the world because it takes time to recover and there are parts that are not recoverable,” he said.
The federal government, he says, has already tackled the problem of illegal mining, persecuting the action of the “garimpeiros”, as the workers of this large company are called in Brazil, which leaves great problems for the environment.
A COUNTRY IMMEDIATELY IN POLARIZATION
Suplicy recalls the assault on the headquarters of the three powers on January 8 in Brasilia (the country’s capital) and assures that Brazil “had never had such a dark experience”.
Thousands of people took part in the coup attempt who share the “conservative thinking” of Bolsonaro (who left for the United States a few days before the end of his mandate) and who “after having had experience with the power, now they are not satisfied” with the electoral result that placed Lula in the presidency.
A population that in Brazil could reach “15 or 20%” of the total, according to estimates, which will continue to push the country towards polarization.
“The polarization continues and will continue because it is not the figure of Bolsonaro, it is what he thinks, which is worse, Lula has the challenge of widening his support because he has won very little “, he believes.
THE STRENGTH OF INSTITUTIONS
The former mayor reveals that currently ‘there is no calm situation in the country’ and that Lula’s current term will be ‘more difficult’ than the two he faced between 2003 and 2011.
“It will be more difficult, but the good thing is that the Supreme Court is very strong, very present and very rigid, the participants of January 8 are in prison with severe sentences, it was a good thing, they are not going to be allowed to perform in the country, you cannot stop it, but the consequences are very serious”, he underlines.
He is optimistic and underlines the “strength of Brazilian institutions”: “fortunately the President of the Court (Alexandre de Moraes) is a calm, but very firm person, with strong convictions and courage in such a situation”.
Suplicy does not hide its criticism of Bolsonaro and defends that Lula is an “extremely competent and highly respected international person” who can bring positions closer in the country.
“It promotes the return of Brazil to the international scene with more calm, justice works in Brazil, there is legal certainty, I think the polarization will not decrease because it is part of the world and there may be another January 8, but that is part of our decade in this century,” he concludes.
Macarena Soto