International
Tough choices as Brazil’s Lula gets down to business
| By AFP | Marcelo Silva De Sousa
Fresh off a celebratory beach holiday, Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva got down to uglier business Monday: figuring out how to govern with a hostile Congress, nasty budget crunch and impossible-looking to-do list.
The political horse-trading of the transition period now starts in earnest for the veteran leftist, who will be sworn in for a third term on January 1, facing a far tougher outlook than the commodities-fueled boom he presided over in the 2000s.
Lula, 77, celebrated his narrow win over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30 runoff election by escaping last week to the sun-drenched coast of Bahia in northeastern Brazil.
He joked he needed a belated honeymoon with his first-lady-to-be, Rosangela “Janja” da Silva, whom the twice-widowed ex-metalworker married in May.
His other honeymoon — the political one — could be short, analysts say.
Lula is meeting Monday with advisers in Sao Paulo. On Tuesday, he will travel to the capital, Brasilia, to finish assembling his 50-member transition team and start negotiating with members of Congress, two allies told AFP.
He faces a battle to get bills passed in a legislature where conservatives scored big gains in October’s elections.
Lula’s coalition has around 123 votes in the 513-seat Chamber of Deputies, and 27 in the 81-seat Senate, meaning he will have to strike alliances to get anything done — and even just survive, given the threat of impeachment in Brazil, where two presidents have been impeached in the past 30 years.
Into the shark tank
Lula is expected to meet in Brasilia with lower-house speaker Arthur Lira, a key Bolsonaro ally from the loose coalition of parties known as the “Centrao,” a group known for striking alliances with whoever is in power — in exchange for feeding on the federal pork barrel.
Lula will be under pressure from the Centrao not to oppose the so-called “secret budget”: 19.4 billion reais ($3.8 billion) in basically unmonitored federal funding that Bolsonaro agreed to allocate to select lawmakers to boost support for his reelection bid.
Meanwhile, money will be tight for Lula’s campaign promises, including increasing the minimum wage and maintaining a beefed-up 600-reais-per-month welfare program, “Auxilio Brasil.”
Bolsonaro, who introduced the program, did not allocate sufficient funding to continue it in the 2023 budget.
“We can’t start 2023 without the ‘Auxilio’ and a real increase in the minimum wage,” the leader of Lula’s Workers’ Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, said Friday.
“That’s our contract with the Brazilian people.”
Facing the impossible math of funding such pledges without breaking the government spending cap, Lula’s allies are exploring their options, including passing a constitutional amendment allowing exceptional spending next year.
But they are racing the clock: it would have to be approved by December 15.
Markets watching
Lula, who ran on vague promises of restoring Latin America’s biggest economy to the golden times of his first two terms (2003-2010), faces a bleaker picture this time around.
“The challenge is… how to balance fiscal responsibility with a highly anticipated social agenda,” in the face of high inflation and a possible global recession, said political scientist Leandro Consentino of Insper university.
Markets are watching closely — especially his pick for finance minister.
Lula is expected to split Bolsonaro’s economy “super-ministry” into three portfolios: finance, planning, and trade and industry.
Analysts predict a political choice for finance minister, a technocrat for planning and a business executive for trade.
Names floated for the finance job include Lula’s former education minister Fernando Haddad and his campaign coordinator, Aloizio Mercadante.
COP27 stage
Other closely watched portfolios are the environment and a promised new ministry of Indigenous affairs — both sore spots under Bolsonaro, who presided over a surge of destruction in the Amazon rainforest.
The former job could go to Lula’s one-time environment minister Marina Silva, credited with curbing deforestation in the 2000s.
In a key gesture, the president-elect will make his return to the international stage at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, where he will arrive on November 14, advisers said.
Silva, who will travel with him, told newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo: “The climate issue is now a strategic priority at the highest level.”
International
Mexico’s president blasts ‘Inhumane’ U.S. migration law
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on Friday that any Mexican detained in the United States should be “immediately” returned to Mexico. Her remarks come in the wake of the opening of a new migrant detention center in Florida earlier this week.
Speaking during her daily press conference, known as La Mañanera del Pueblo, Sheinbaum emphasized that so far, no Mexican national has been held in the facility, which has already sparked controversy and has been nicknamed “the Alcatraz of the Alligators.”
She also criticized the new fiscal law signed by former U.S. President Donald Trump, passed by Congress just a day earlier. The law, which Trump dubbed the “great and beautiful tax reform,” includes significant tax cuts and sweeping reductions in public policies, reallocating billions toward national security and defense—including $170 billion to enhance border security, deportations, and the expansion of detention centers.
“We do not agree with a punitive approach to migration. Migration must be addressed through its structural causes, with cooperation for development,” Sheinbaum asserted.
The Mexican president labeled the Trump administration’s view of migrants as criminals as “inhumane,” and warned that such policies ultimately harm the U.S. economy. She pointed to the mass deportation of agricultural workers as an example of how these actions are already backfiring.
“These are hardworking people—people of good will—who contribute more to the U.S. economy than they do to Mexico’s,” Sheinbaum said, announcing that her government will strengthen support programs to ensure that affected migrants can return home safely and reintegrate into the workforce.
International
Julio César Chávez Jr. faces charges in Mexico after U.S. arrest
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Friday that the country is expecting the deportation of boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. so he can face legal proceedings in Mexico, following his arrest in the United States and confirmation by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) of an arrest warrant for organized crime and arms trafficking.
“This is an arrest warrant stemming from an investigation that began in 2019 and was granted by a judge in 2023 (…). We are expecting his deportation so he can serve his sentence in Mexico,” Sheinbaum stated during her daily press briefing.
The president said she was unaware of the case until speaking with Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, who confirmed an investigation linked to organized crime. She also noted that authorities had been unable to execute the warrant earlier because Chávez Jr. had spent most of his time in the United States. “His deportation to Mexico is now being pursued,” she added.
Sheinbaum said there is no confirmed date yet for the boxer’s return to the country, as the process involves “specific protocols” that the FGR is currently handling.
Her statement follows the announcement by U.S. authorities on Thursday of Chávez Jr.’s arrest. The boxer, son of Mexican boxing legend Julio César Chávez, is accused of involvement in organized crime and arms trafficking allegedly tied to the Sinaloa Cartel.
“This Sinaloa Cartel affiliate, wanted for trafficking firearms, ammunition, and explosives, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” said Tricia McLaughlin, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in an official statement.
International
Europe faces a summer of heatwaves and wildfires, Red Cross warns
The heatwave sweeping across Europe — accompanied by wildfires in countries such as Greece and Turkey — is “just the beginning” of a summer season expected to see extreme conditions lasting through September, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned.
In a statement, the IFRC stressed the urgent need for governments and communities to shift from a reactive to a preventive approach to safeguard lives.
The organization reported that wildfires in the Turkish region of Izmir, on the country’s western coast, have already claimed at least two lives and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people. Meanwhile, on the Greek island of Crete, around 5,000 residents and tourists have also had to flee due to encroaching fires.
Smaller-scale evacuations and wildfires are also being reported in other countries, including eastern Germany and North Macedonia, with Red Cross volunteers actively involved in firefighting and relief operations.
“Heatwaves and wildfires — increasingly frequent and deadly — are no longer isolated events. They are becoming the new reality for millions,” said Birgitte Bischoff, IFRC’s Regional Director for Europe.
Mexico’s president blasts ‘Inhumane’ U.S. migration law
Julio César Chávez Jr. faces charges in Mexico after U.S. arrest
Europe faces a summer of heatwaves and wildfires, Red Cross warns
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