Favorite of the presidential election next October, adored abroad, does Lula have all the rights, including to insult the women and children who die in Mariupol? On the strength of his status as an opponent, which releases him from all responsibility, the former (and perhaps future) Brazilian president in any case pays himself the luxury of expounding on Ukraine from his country, 8000 kilometers from the place where the Russian bombs fall. In a river interview with the magazine Time published on May 4, the former Head of State (2003-2010) sends Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Poutine back to back in mind-blowing terms. The Ukrainian president, he asserts, is “as responsible” as his Russian counterpart. “I see the Ukrainian president being applauded by all the European parliamentarians. A war never has a single culprit, he declares outright. This guy wanted war. If he didn’t want it, he would have negotiated a bit more.”
The American magazine Time of May 4, 2022
time magazine
In addition, Lula considers Zelensky’s behavior “weird”: “It looks like he is part of a show. He is on TV morning, noon and night. He is in the British parliament, in the French parliament, in the German parliament , in the Italian parliament, as if he were leading a political campaign. He should be at the negotiating table.” A bit condescending, the champion of the Brazilian left continues: “In fact, we should say seriously to Zelensky: “You are a good comedian, but we are not going to make a war so that you can put on a show.
Former President Lula supports Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Fortunately, to put an end to the war, Lula, 76, has the solution, which comes under counter talk: “We should say to Putin: ‘You have plenty of weapons, but you don’t need to use them. against Ukraine. Let’s talk!'” Then, the former head of state, advises the Western powers to put a little water in their caipirinha. It is they, he says, who “incite hatred against Putin”… Finally, Lula admonishes Biden: “The United States has a very important political weight and could have avoided the conflict. Biden could have participated more, he could have flown to Moscow and talked to Putin. That’s the kind of attitude you expect from a leader.”
Since its publication on May 4, this copy-paste of Kremlin thought has mobilized exegetes. Of course, one must above all see in it a clumsy anti-Americanism – a posture that always pays off in Latin America – but also the reactivation of an ideological alliance between the protagonists of the Cold War: Russia, Cuba and the Latin American left, to which one can add Jean-Luc Mélenchon who received the support of Lula during the French presidential election, as well as Iran, given the affinities with Ahmadinejad at the turn of the 2010s. “It is a mistake to believe that Cuba, Venezuela and Lula’s Brazil fully belong to the Western world”, considers the Franco-Venezuelan historian Elizabeth Burgos, specialist in Latin American lefts. “Today, adds a French diplomat, Lula is not part of a democratic dynamic that values progress in the field of human rights.”
The statements of the latter also respond to political considerations. “After having dubbed the ex-governor of the State of Sao Paulo Geraldo Alckmin to constitute a presidential “ticket” with this figure of the right close to Opus Dei, explains a political adviser in Brasília, on condition of anonymity , the candidate Lula must give pledges to the Brazilian left which supported him when he was in prison from 2018 to 2019. However, the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B) and the Workers’ Party (PT) all think, like Putin, that Ukraine is populated by Nazis.”
Finally, the ex-president has a message for the world. If he is elected in October, it will be necessary to reckon with his thundering voice. There is a place to be taken as the leader of the non-aligned countries among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Knowing that it can be neither Xi (too dominating), nor Putin (too warlike), nor Modi (too nationalist), nor Ramaphosa (too provincial), Lula could become that one. Unless Bolsonaro, who is also pro-Putin, wins in October. What should not be excluded.