PRESIDENT LULA AND HIS CHALLENGES TO GOVERN.pdf
- 1. 1 PRESIDENT LULA AND HIS CHALLENGES TO GOVERN Fernando Alcoforado* President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces six major challenges: 1) Uniting the deeply divided Brazilian people; 2) Rebuild the country after the devastation produced by the Bolsonaro government; 3) Reactivate the stagnant economy since 2014; 4) Eliminate poverty in Brazil; 5) Preserve the environment devastated during the Bolsonaro government; and, 6) Strengthen democracy threatened by neo-fascism in Brazil. The challenge of uniting the Brazilian people is fundamental because President Lula will only be able to govern the country and strengthen democracy if he puts into practice a government plan that meets the interests of the entire Brazilian population, rebuilds the country, reactivates the economy, assist the socially disinherited and preserve the environment. The government plan necessary for Brazil now should have as its primary objective the elimination of unemployment, poverty and inflation that profoundly affect Brazilian society. The government plan should consider these priorities because they constitute the biggest scourges faced by the Brazilian population whose solution cannot be postponed, that is, it has to happen immediately. Unemployment reached record levels in Brazilian history. The number of Brazilians in extreme poverty increases dramatically in the same way as the unemployment rate. Inflation erodes the income of all Brazilians, but it is crueler to those with less income. President Lula's government plan should therefore prioritize the elimination of unemployment, poverty and inflation in the country. To eliminate unemployment, it is necessary to resume economic growth in Brazil, which would make it possible for unemployed and discouraged workers to return to the labor market and for 34.7 million people in informal work, which corresponds to 40% of the labor market, if become workers with a formal contract. The main reason for the mass unemployment registered in Brazil is the fact that the country was economically stagnant from 2014 to 2022. The current economic stagnation in Brazil will only be overcome with the abandonment of the neoliberal economic model and its replacement by the national developmentalist economic model of openness selective of the Brazilian economy. It should be noted that the Brazilian economy presented the highest economic growth from 1931 to 1980, driven by the actions of the Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek and the military dictatorship governments that adopted national developmental economic policies with the Brazilian government acting as a mentor and inducer of national development, as opposed to the neoliberal economic model in progress in which the market becomes the main economic agent and the government becomes a supporting role, assuming a passive posture, as happened with the governments Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro. With the adoption of the national developmentalist economic model to replace the neoliberal economic model, responsible for the economic and social devastation of the country, the Brazilian government would be able to promote the immediate elimination of unemployment existing in Brazil with the execution of 7 thousand stopped public works, the construction of a large number of new public works, with emphasis on economic infrastructure (energy, transport and communications) and social infrastructure (education, health, housing and basic sanitation), the adoption of the import substitution policy and the use of idle capacity in the industry. With the adoption of the national developmentalist economic model to replace the neoliberal economic model, economic growth in Brazil would result because, in addition to the increase in public and private investment, there would be an increase in household
- 2. 2 consumption, contributing to the increase in GDP. In addition to reactivating the economy to eliminate unemployment, the Lula government should encourage the development of the Social and Solidarity Economy, which is an important alternative for the inclusion of workers in the labor market, giving them a new opportunity to work in a new way of production in which profit is no longer the main objective, but rather the generation of employment, and the development of the Creative Economy, which is one of the most effective ways to generate new jobs linked to the knowledge economy by encouraging jobs based on cultural traditions from each region and credit to creative sectors of the economy such as Fashion, Art, Digital Media, Advertising, Journalism, Photography and Architecture. To eliminate poverty in Brazil, the first action to be implemented by President Lula is the elimination of unemployment with the strategies described above, complemented by the adoption of the basic income transfer strategy or universal minimum income for the poor population, especially those located in extreme poverty and homeless. The strategy of transferring basic income or universal minimum income to the poor population with the strengthening of the Bolsa Família program is absolutely necessary because a large part of that population is unsuitable for incorporation into the labor market. Without the basic income transfer policy or universal minimum income, hunger would be suffered by a large part of the Brazilian population. The adoption of a basic income policy or universal minimum income for the poor population is one of the most effective solutions to alleviate poverty, given that it would make it possible for the poor to have money to meet their basic needs in terms of food, health, housing, etc. The income transfer program of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments in Brazil, Bolsa Família, is a good example of the application of the basic income policy. A basic income policy for the poor would bring numerous advantages such as reducing crime, improving housing conditions for the poor population and increasing consumption of goods and services by the poor population. The government, provider of basic income for the poor population, would have the benefit of lower spending on police repression and the prison structure as a result of the reduction in crime and homeless people and the increase in tax collection resulting from the increase in consumption of the poor population. There will be no social peace in Brazil if unemployment is not eliminated and a basic income policy for the poor is not adopted. To eliminate inflation in Brazil, it is necessary to adopt strategies to eliminate demand inflation and production cost inflation, which are present in the Brazilian economy. The Lula government must plan in advance the level of inventory of agricultural and industrial products, of raw materials and agricultural and industrial inputs and of energy, transport and communications services to avoid their shortage or import them to avoid demand inflation. In order to eliminate production cost inflation, the Brazilian government should monitor the evolution of the prices of wages, raw materials and inputs, as well as federal, state and municipal taxes, in order to adopt measures that contribute to mitigating their increase without the corresponding increase of productivity, encourage increased productivity in agricultural, industrial, trade and services production and adopt measures to promote cost reductions in inefficient electrical energy and petroleum derivatives production systems with their rational planning and cargo transport with its planning oriented primarily to the waterway and rail modes, as well as the reduction of public administration costs to reduce taxes. To preserve the environment devastated during the Bolsonaro government, it is necessary for President Lula to comply with the Paris Agreement against global warming and to
- 3. 3 adopt measures that contribute to stopping the acts carried out by the Bolsonaro government that are harmful to the environment in Brazil. To finance all the actions necessary for the execution of President Lula's government plan, it is necessary to adopt two strategies; 1) suspend for a period of 5 years the payment of interest and amortization of the domestic public debt that corresponds to almost half of the federal government budget or renegotiate with its creditors in order to extend its payment to reduce the burden of paying the public debt so that the government has the necessary resources for public investments; and, 2) use the available international reserves of US$ 362.20 billion, if necessary, to complement the resources destined to public investments aimed at reactivating the economy, combating unemployment and poverty and preserving the environment. * Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022) and a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, United States, 2022).