Re-election: A Look Back at Lula and Brazil’s Former Presidents
By: Haley Cook
Jan 27, 2023
President Lula took office (again) in Brazil on 1st January 2023. Lula was previously president between 2003 and 2011 in two consecutive terms. In between, Bolsonaro was president from 2019 to 2022. This week’s graph shows that while liberal democracy improved and was then maintained between 2004 and 2015, an accented trend away from democracy took place after 2015.
Under Lula, Brazil moved closer to achieving liberal democracy than his predecessors.
He accomplished this through strengthening the judiciary and its oversight through legislation and new ministry positions. Other examples include social initiatives aimed at reducing inequality and increasing minority rights. However, shortly after Lula retired, Brazil’s score began to decrease. From 2016 to 2018, President Temer cut cabinet positions and amended the Brazilian Constitution to place limits on public spending. From 2019 to 2021, the new President Bolsonaro repeatedly threatened the Brazilian Supreme Court and labeled elections as fraudulent. On October 30, 2022, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the next president of Brazil. Recent storming of the Congress indicate that democrats need to remain vigilant.
