Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the Brazilian presidential election against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. 12 years after leaving power, his election will allow the resumption of ties with Africa, at their lowest under Bolsonaro. In a column published in the French newspaper the world Friday, three days before his victory, Lula said his government’s priority will be to ” restore the relationship with the African continent », in particular on ecology.
I have r Bolsonaro has yet to concede defeatbut Lula has already been congratulated by several of his counterparts on the African continent, notably Macky Sall in Senegal, Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa or Umaro Sissoco Embalo in Guinea-Bissau.
With Lula back, Brazil-Africa ties are set to warm up after they had become almost non-existent under Jair Bolsonaro. Economically first, in 2019, a year after the far-right president came to power, trade between Africa and Brazil has fallen to its lowest level. The outgoing president did not travel once to the continent, preferring to deal with the countries of the North.
Lula, on the contrary, had opened 30 embassies when he was in office between 2003 and 2011. The icon of the left had visited 29 African countries, and that, without confining himself to only Portuguese-speaking countries: he had gone to Algeria, in Benin and Ghana, in particular.
For the next four years, observers anticipate the return of Brazilian companies to Africa, a cooperation on environmental issues or on health issues.
” The DRC as a possible partner »
The response to the climate emergency is one of Lula da Silva’s campaign promises. Good news for Africa, one of the continents hardest hit by global warming. It should allow several African officials to cooperate with Brazil. This is explained by Gaspard Estrada, researcher specializing in Latin America and executive director of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean at Sciences Po.
Gaspard Estrada: “Lula explicitly mentioned the DRC as a possible partner for climate initiatives”,
► To read also: Victory of Lula in Brazil: “The protection of the Amazon was not a campaign priority”