 Hi, my name is Sandy Baird, and I'm here with our monthly current events show called What's Going On? In this month, we are here with Kurt Mehta, often here, to comment on the current situation in the world. And today, we're going to be talking about the other election, Brazil, 2022, because as important as our midterm elections were and are, and still playing out, there was another very important election, which took place in Latin America's biggest country, and that was Brazil. So I'm here today with Kurt to discuss that election, the results, and the significance for the world, and particularly for the Americas. So Kurt, what's going on? Okay, Sandy. Good to see you again. So we have a, or we should have a map of South America right behind us. I'm just going to briefly point out, in case folks don't know, Brazil here, by far the largest country in South America, Latin America, and the fifth largest country in the world, population-wise, and the sixth largest economy in the world. It's a member of BRICS, which is an acronym for Britain, I mean, I'm sorry, Britain. No. Okay, but not by far. That was so far. Brazil, the first country, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Right, right. And maybe now Argentina is here. There is a rumor going around, Sandy's told us about it. But we'll talk about BRICS in a minute. First of all, I want to sort of distinguish what we mean when we're talking about Latin America in the first place. Yeah. Okay. What I mean, I think when I'm talking about Latin America, is really the other part of the Americas that speak a romance language rather than English. Right. And in Brazil, the language is Portuguese. Portuguese, right. Not Spanish. Not Spanish. The rest of the South America is Spanish-speaking, except for those places up there, Suriname, French Quiana, but... And Guyana itself. And Guyana. Yeah. But in general, that is Latin America, speaking a romance language, and also, I think, being Catholic, the two marks of Latin America, including, interestingly enough, in my mind, Quebec as opposed to the rest of Canada, which is Anglophone. Right. Right. And Louisiana a little bit historically. And Louisiana. Well, a lot of parts of the United States are Spanish-speaking, but those are all kind of eliminated. Right. With the Mexican War, I believe in 1847, when the Anglophone versions of the United States pushed out the Spanish Empire. Right. That's correct. That's correct. Okay. So, in other words, but this remains Latin America quite different than what is the United States. Right. Right. North America, more, you know, British-influenced. North America, United States and Canada. And Canada. But not Mexico. Right. Right. So, but that's what we mean. So, this is part of Brazil, the biggest country in South America. Yeah. And maybe, and you said the fifth largest in the world. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Portuguese-speaking Roman Catholic and containing the Amazon. Correct. Correct. That's an important feature of this election, right? Yeah. Right. So, speaking of areas that are not Portuguese-speaking, yeah, the Amazon, where there are a number of indigenous tribes that live there. They don't speak, and they don't speak Spanish. No, they don't speak Portuguese or Spanish. They speak their indigenous languages, and some of which have absolutely no contact with the outside world. Yeah. At all. And there's still a belief that there have been tribes that have never even been contacted yet. At all. There are so many of them or what? That there are so many of them. Or they're so secluded. But, so secluded, so many of them, but vastly, unfortunately, disappearing because of deforestation issues in the Amazon. So, let's talk about the election. Let's get back to the election. Yeah. So, the country of Brazil, aside from our midterms, the country of Brazil had a very big election, which was... So, Brazil is a republic, also. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah. But they have a presidential system, not unlike ours, and a vice president, that has... The election system is essentially every four years. They have national elections, like ours. The president and vice president can be up for two terms. Only. Only. Like ours. However, if there is a separation after the two terms have been served of an intervening president. One. Right? Or two. Mm-hmm. That person who won the election the first time, the first two times, they can actually run again. Uh-huh. Unlike ours. Unlike ours. Yeah. Right. Essentially, in Brazil, you can run a number of times. And there have been, in Brazil, in many parts of South America, dictatorships, correct? Brazil had one right up until the 1980s. Which means, what exactly? That this dictator had total control? Essentially, it was a military dictatorship, so the military called the shots on everything. Uh-huh. They put up civilian leaders, but they were under the guise and approval of the military. Okay. And that ended, however. That did end in the 1980s. Okay. So, and let's talk now about the current election. Right. The current, the sitting president at the time was Bolsonaro. Yeah. Haier, but Bolsonaro. Mm-hmm. A very popular and very controversial leader. He won by a lot, though, correct? He lost. Bolsonaro lost this time. No, not in his election, the first time. Correct. In 2000, I believe it was 13, he ran. And he did win. He was, it was a different type of leadership that he demonstrated during his rule, his administration. It was a conservative right-leaning. Conservative right-leaning, right. Yeah. So, his political party was known as the Social Liberals. Mm-hmm. He was anything but. Mm-hmm. He, his interest in the foreign policy realm was to develop a stronger relationship with the United States and to institute pro-market reforms. Pro-capitalist. Pro-capitalist, yeah, reforms. He was criticized the world around in terms of his efforts and his lack of effort on some, in some respect, to protect the Amazon jungle, which is. He was perceived as a Trumpist, too, wasn't he? Close ally of Donald Trump. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. He was a strong, and within the realm of a democracy, I'm using the term authoritarian, but I mean it was. But he was elected. But he was elected as a Democrat. But regardless of that, he strongly favored central power, increasing powers of the presidency. So you know, the international press often refer to him as an authoritarian type leader, but I don't want to confuse anyone. Brazil is a democracy. And he was elected. And he was elected. Just like Trump was elected. And he, and it appears that he's handing over power to Lula da Silva, the one who prevailed in this last election, and who was president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. Okay, so Bolsonaro was a strong nationalist. That is correct. Very pro-U.S. Very pro-U.S., which is very different from prior administrations in Brazil. Okay, we'll explain that a bit, because that seems to be a big division in Latin American politics between those parties which favor more trade and so forth, and more pro-U.S. policies. Correct? That's correct. But I mean, I want to unpack the statement that you made to Silva, the new president and who was Lula da Silva and who also was president between 2003 and 2010. He brought up the economy between 2003 and 2010 significantly through trade. Through trade. Through trade, yeah. At that time, China had an inexhaustible appetite for iron ore, for Brazilian soybeans, for oil that had just been found in Brazil, and for meat. The Chinese diet is changing a little bit. It seems so. Yeah. And during that timeframe, Brazil had all of these. And in Brazil, during Lula's administration, Lula the new president also now, between 2003 and 2010, the economy of Brazil shot up from being 14th ranked in the world in terms of GDP to 6th, which is substantial. And in the process, Lula was able to institute a number of social welfare programs that brought about 30 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty, which was a major undertaking. Sure. So he was then a true leftist. He was a true leftist. He was interested in social welfare, interested in economic programs to aid, to lift people out of poverty. Right. And at the same simultaneously, lifting Brazil's own economy and its standing in the international arena. All right. So then he's defeated then by Bolsonaro. No. He wasn't defeated. So he served out. Right, right, right. Yeah. Brazilian constitution served out his two terms. He left with an 80% approval rating, which is quite high in anywhere in the developing world. Anywhere in the developing world. Anywhere. Actually, these days, anywhere. Anywhere. Right, right. So he left with an 80% approval rating. He was succeeded by a cabinet minister named Dilma Rousseff. Yes, right. Right, right. She was essentially hand-picked. Also, she was the first female president of Brazil. That's important to note. So she ran. And she was a leftist, too. She was a leftist. She was hand-picked by Dilma. Right. By Lula Dilma. Lula is the name that you'll hear in the press more common than his last name. And she did not enjoy the same level of adulation that Lula enjoyed. The economy started slowing down as China's economy started slowing down a little bit. And therefore, the need for some of the items that Brazil had for trade purposes, China was able to further diversify their economy and get these items from different sources, different places in the world. So Brazil took a little bit of a hit during that time frame. And then Dilma Rousseff was succeeded by higher Bolsonaro, who we're talking about as being a little bit more right-leaning and pro-U.S. She was hand-pitched, wasn't she? I'm not certain. I think it was accused somehow of corruption. But anyway... Well, there was a lot of corruption alleged during Dilma Rousseff's administration, which actually, unfortunately for Lula, led back to Lula de Silva. And Lula de Silva was actually imprisoned for 17 months under corruption charges. The allegations were that he got a condo and some big renovations in his beach home for companies that, in exchange, got government contracts. So those were the allegations. He was actually incarcerated for 17 months. It was a 22-year sentence. But then he was able to appeal in a judge throughout the original sentence, so he was released from prison. And then ran. And he was essentially... The initial charges were also dismissed, otherwise he would have been unable to run for president again. Right. Right. I wonder who dismissed that. It was a... They were able to demonstrate that the initial judge had some political biases that were against Lula's interests. So he then runs again? He runs again and, lo and behold, there was essentially... He prevailed by about two percentage points in the first round of elections. There's only supposed to be one round, but when the difference between the winner and the loser is so minute, as in this case, they had a second round of elections in Brazil for president, for specifically a president. And he geeked out another victory, again, under two percentage points. Very small. Now, the kicker is that the Congress of Brazil, so this leftist is coming back to become president. However, the Congress is largely made up of ball scenarios. So we're going to have classic gridlock, as we know in the US, in Brazil, where you have one party controlling the legislature and then you have a leftist president, a rightist legislature with a leftist president. So Lula's going to have a great deal of difficulty governing and instituting a lot of the programs that he wants to institute because Brazil has actually gone back in terms of its poverty-lifting program that he instituted between 2003 and 2002. In other words, it's poor, err. A lot of people have, COVID had a devastating impact on Brazil, not only on its population, but in terms of its economy. So the platform that Lula ran on wasn't to take Brazil to the next step from where he left off in 2010, which is maybe going from the sixth largest economy to the fifth to the fourth. But he's promising three meals a day. And that's not occurring in Brazil at this moment, I guess, huh? Pardon me? It's not occurring. People are not eating three meals a day. Well, he did eke out a victory, so I guess there is a little bit of that chicken in any pot, every pot like Roosevelt promised in the 30s. So things are rough in Brazil. This scenario instituted a lot of reforms, pro-market reforms. What do you mean by that? Free trade? Yeah. Free trade, also lessening the social welfare programs that were put into place by Lula between 2003 and 2010. And if you combine that with COVID and some of the changes in China's raw material needs, Brazil took a hit. At the last moment prior to the election, and they consider this largely trying to appeal to the masses, Bolsonaro tried to institute a number of pro-poverty reforms. It should be noted. So he was promising $115 a month for every low-income family in the country. Well, remember. I know the difference in economic standards. Yeah, it's different in economic standards. You can't compare that to the U.S. But now Lula was also running on not only three meals a day, but also increasing that $115 a month supplement with $30 per child. Now, in order to accomplish that, he's going to have to increase the federal spending cap that exists in Brazil. As people may know, in our country, that becomes a contentious time. American politics, when we want to raise federal spending limits. And the assertion is that Brazil doesn't have that money. It would cost about $13 billion to accomplish that. And that will be a real challenge. But I want to talk, you know, I think we wanted to talk a little bit more about the external impact of what this means. Well, I wanted to talk too about the impact on the United States and on the world. This is a very big country. And at first I would guess that liberals, at least in the United States, would welcome Lula and maybe President Biden. But it's a mixed bag, isn't it? It is a mixed bag. OK, so I want to talk a little bit about that mixed bag. Yeah. Like bricks. What is bricks and what is that significance of this election for the United States and for foreign policy in particular? Right, right. From the economy. Yeah. So I mean, you know, the contrast, the prior President Bolsonaro's viewpoints, which were much more aligned with the United States, forget about Democrat or Republican. Right, exactly. Yeah, but you know, but American foreign policy objectives. The it's it would be a poor assumption on any fan of international politics to assume that because Bolsonaro because Lula prevailed that he's automatically going to run with the Democratic Party. Exactly. Because our foreign policy objectives have not changed much. Which is. Which is by hour you mean US. Of course, the US. The in terms of our animosity towards the the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in terms of our even attempts at combating the drug war in South America, as well as our views regarding China and other power bases around the world. Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. Let's start on that. Yeah. So Lula is a Latin American leftist. Correct. Correct. He's not like a moderate Democrat like in our country. Right. He is a leftist. That is correct. All right. Yeah. Which means he's been influenced by the socialist revolutions in Cuba, in Russia and in China. I would guess. Yeah, and doesn't and doesn't assume that the way out of trouble for his country is capitalism and more notably the United States. Right, exactly. In fact, I would guess that he regards the United States probably as too hegemonic. He hegemonic and maybe perhaps through its corporate involvement in a resource rich area like Latin America problematic. Yes, okay. If anything. Right, exactly. If anything. Yeah. I mean I think he said so, hasn't he? Right, right. So it'll be interesting to see what his views are with respect to Cuba. Yeah, right. I think they're better than Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro. Cuba's for a long time, they've had a medical doctor exchange program with a number of developing countries around the world where the Cubans provide high technical expertise in medicine, in medicine and form of doctors, as Sandy said. And they in exchange for often money sometimes or natural resources. In the case of Venezuela it was oil, but in the case of Brazil it was often money. So underserved areas in Brazil like the Amazon had a number of Cuban doctors serving there in areas where honestly, you know, they're they just simply didn't have medical help those, you know, the indigenous populations that lived in the Amazon, many of whom, mostly of whom are quite poor, they simply didn't have doctors in Bolsonaro canceled the Cuban program and essentially just kicked out all the doctors without replacing them with Brazilian doctors and doctors from other countries. Okay, so Lula will probably be more pro-Cuba. Pro-Cuba? And it's important to note they're calling this a pink tide in Latin America because for the first time in a long time, you know, we there's a leftist leader now in Brazil, there's a leftist one in Ecuador, in Mexico, in Venezuela, and notably in Colombia, you know, because Colombia is one of US strongest allies. Strongest allies, a big ally on the drug war, and during that time the US was able to enjoy right-wing leadership that it was easily able to align with with respect to, you know, prosecuting the drug war and on a number of other issues, including social issues. Okay, so that's interesting though. So this pink tide is not going to be perceived as terribly friendly to the United States. It will not be, no. Right, by our president, nor, I mean, that seems to be the wishes of the Latin American people, though, because these were elections. They were placed into power by the military, anything like that. These were, as far as anybody knows, free and fair elections. Correct. I mean, they're right, right, sure. I mean, there's always going to be allegations and there were allegations in this election in Brazil that Lula stole the election. Because of the time that he was incarcerated, Brazil, not unlike the United States, is a 50-50 country. A 50% of the population think he's an absolute crook, and 50% of the population remember the boom time between 2003 and 2010, where 20-30 million people were lifted out of poverty, and they think he's, you know, he's a messiah. So, some... Castro. Right, yeah, right. So it's a 50-50 split in Brazil. With a legislature that is right-wing. Wow. Okay, so let's get back to this idea. So one of the things that interests me is this growing block of seemingly non-aligned countries again, called BRICS. These are very powerful countries, but they're in the developing world. Largely in the developing world. They're called BRICS. Okay, so explain what's happening in terms of Brazil and BRICS. Well, I think Brazil, with the election of Lula, reelection of Lula, I think it's probably going to firmly take its place on the international stage and in BRICS as being more aligned with the other countries that are in BRICS, rather than, you know, really making a strong attempt to garner the attention and the affection of the United States. Or Western Europe. Or Western Europe, which will probably create an interesting situation in terms of the Russia-Ukraine War, and as well as on a lot of important votes in the United Nations. And also in the economy. Of course. I mean, this is going to be kind of an alternate economic block too. Okay, so that's Brazil. As you said, sixth largest country in the world. Correct. Russia is in that. Right. India. Right. China. Right. South Africa. Right. And perhaps now Argentina. Perhaps even Argentina. And I thought even that Saudi Arabia is thinking of it. Okay, okay. So this is a strong economic block of the developing world. Right. Kind of versus Western capitalism. Yeah. Is that right or not? That is, yeah. Now, again, I mean, there are tensions between some of those countries too. India and China, for example. Right, of course. So it's not a politically ideological block. But economically, you know, it certainly is Sandy. And I think even in terms of political ideology, I think there's going to be times where they can actually work together on specific issues. Sure. Yeah. Which they'll align with. And they are ideologically committed together on one thing. Let's add. To oppose the hegemony. Right. Of the United States and the other catalysts. And Western Europe largely. Which is really, really interesting. Yeah. To me. Right. Because that seems to be the world that's on the rise. Is the bricks, the brown, and the black world. Think about that. They are all countries that are dominantly black and brown populations, aren't they? Right, with the exception of Russia. Yeah, I mean. Well, no, no, no. Russia is also Asia. Russia includes a lot of Asian people. Sure, sure. Mongols, Ohio's. Russia is not really a white country. Not really. Well, yeah. I mean, it depends on parts of the country. But yeah. I mean, the, what a lot of these countries. India is India. Yeah. I mean, a lot of these countries, these countries were formally, Russia being an exception, were dominated by imperial powers of Western Europe. And that's right. Okay. That is so interesting to me, too. Because if anybody would dare to read Putin's one of his last speeches. Yeah. Of course, nobody ever reads Putin, because he supposedly would quote crazy. So who America? But I read it. Yeah. And if he. What does that make you? What do I mean? I'm just joking. It makes me a historian. Right, okay. Right, right. So if you read it, he is, he defends Russia as if Russia is a colony. Correct. As if, because he perceives the, the historic attacks on Russia from Napoleon on. Yeah. As an attempt of the West to conquer Russia for its resources. I'm not saying he's right or wrong. Right. I mean, he, he, in his last speech, he was claiming that, you know, Russia historically was a hedge against the imperial powers. Exactly. But I, I think some would maybe question whether or not Russia in its own unique way was in a, a imperial power with respect to Ukraine as well as some other, you know, countries, the Central Asian countries. But without getting into that argument, which is an important argument. I'm not denying that. But if you look at it from his point of view and from many Russian points of view and from the third world point of view, Russia, the West has always tried from that point of view or the West has always tried to colonize Russia, to get after Russia's resources, which are vast. Right. Okay. Right. Or to eliminate it. Okay. And Russia never, yeah, sure. But why do they want to eliminate it is because of its resources. Yeah. And as a competitor. That's the way they view it, the Russians. I'm not saying how I view it. Right. Okay. Secondly, that's, I think the way the third world views Russia also. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's not something that's taught in history here in schools. But when a lot of people that are firmly supporting Ukraine and its struggle with Russia, they've often been very surprised by the responses from many developing countries in terms of the fact that they just assume that, okay, invasion, large country, small country, obviously all these countries are going to line up in favor of Ukraine. And then they're surprised. Right. But they did not. Because they don't know the level of assistance technical behind the scenes, as well as out in the open that Russia did provide or the Soviet Union did provide during the Cold War. Right. And it's important to note some of these things to get a true understanding of history. I agree. I'm always so surprised that Americans seem to ignore history willfully. I don't think it's taught. I don't think these things are taught. So I don't blame the American people. I believe what's being that it's certain things aren't taught in a balanced way. And I get it. It's to kind of increase the sense of patriotism and exceptionalism. But certain things, certain important facts are ignored. And therefore people are surprised that the BRICS countries in many cases align themselves the way they do. I think it's surprising with all of our talk about racism in this country, some of it right on, of course, that people are not ignoring that it's the white nations right now of Western Europe that are defending Ukraine. If you look at the black and brown world, they're not defending Ukraine. They are either neutral and are not implementing sanctions against Russia. I think that's true of India or actively pro-Russia. Again, it's complicated because Russia is a major provider of energy. So some of the reasons are certainly because there's a certain nostalgia for the support that they got from the former Soviet Union between 1945 to 1990. Hey, the Russians during World War II are pretty handy. Yeah. But then the other part of it is also Russia is trying to negotiate cheap oil contracts and cheap energy. So a lot of the quote unquote black and brown countries you're referring to, they're keeping their mouths shut because they could possibly get some cheap oil. They're not just keeping their mouths shut. As a friend of mine told me when he went to Africa recently, his home country of Cote d'Ivoire, that they're actively pro-Putin. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that does exist also. Two things, because Russia didn't do the slave trade. Correct. Okay, Russia did not colonialize Africa or Latin America. Or Asia. Southern part of Asia. And they also during the Cold War gave assistance a lot. And a lot of unfortunate, a lot of Americans that are interested in foreign policy issues and world discussions about the world, they don't know that because it's not taught. And it's not reported on. No, I know, but I bet you that Lula will be in the same kind of neutral camp on that war. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, he may even surprise us and come out completely in favor of Russia. Or? Doubt it. I doubt it. But I bet you he won't take a stand against Russia. That remains to be seen. But I have a suspicion that you're right. Because Russia also is very aligned with China and in the third world, China is also perceived as a help rather than a privilege. Absolutely, absolutely. China's not viewed the way they're viewed here in the developing world. Yeah, yeah. I think that this is as least as interesting an election as what's happened here in the past few days. And thank you very much for commenting on it with me, Kurt. Thank you, Sandy, for hosting. We'll see you in a month, right?