Lula Falls, and Brazilian Democracy Looks Shakier

"There seems little doubt that Brazil will be a more divided place after this week. It is certainly a very different nation from what it was when Lula was hailed as the leader of one of the world’s emerging economic powers—known as BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China)—seemingly ready to take its place on the world stage. Many Brazilians recall with pride the moment, in 2009, when Barack Obama, recently sworn in as President, shook Lula’s hand and said, “This is my man, right here. I love this guy.”

But, then, it is a very different world from what it was then. Brazil was the powerhouse in a Latin America that was at the height of the so-called Pink Tide of leftist governments. With Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, Pepe Mujica in Uruguay, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, there was a sense that the region’s leftists had, for better or worse, turned some kind of corner. They were a mixed bag, but, with Lula, a pragmatist, at the helm in Brazil, there was a sense of promise that somehow socialism and capitalism could find functional synergies, and coexist in the region. Today, most of the Pink Tide’s original leaders are either dead or out of power, and, with only a couple of exceptions—including Venezuela, which, under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, is in complete meltdown—the region is now in the hands of political conservatives."

more in the article by JON LEE ANDERSON