00:00And to go deep into the relevance of what Brazilians are experiencing and are going
00:05to be experiencing for the upcoming three weeks, we have a special guest, sociologist
00:10Pedro Roberto Jacobi, senior full professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
00:16He also coordinates the Environmental Governance Research Group at USP.
00:21So welcome, Pedro, to From the South.
00:27Good evening to everybody, very pleased to be here with all of you.
00:33Pedro, how would you describe the political landscape in Brazil after the outcome of October
00:394th general elections?
00:44Well, I would say that obviously it is kind of shock, not absolutely predictable, but we
00:59imagine personally that the difference would be between Lula and Flavio.
01:06But definitely we went wrong, and this implies that notwithstanding that the difference
01:14of the votes, 56 million for Bolsonaro and 54 million for the coalition is not a large difference.
01:33Yes.
01:34Yes.
01:35Pedro, how is the behavior of voters after the outcome going to be shaping as well this path
01:46that Brazil is going to undergo in the upcoming three weeks?
01:50We are speaking about a high number of people who abstain in this election.
01:57So how it is going to be shaping as well the voters' intention ahead of October 25th?
02:08Look, definitely there is a need to deal with abstention, but it is also very important to deal with a
02:17collision
02:18between the center-left.
02:19It is essential that we deal with this.
02:22At the same time, it is important to strengthen with the abstentions that the importance of the Lula government,
02:35the third government in terms of social inclusion, improvement of social welfare, the reduction of inflation,
02:44and several other benefits that are linked to health, linked to education, and also very important,
02:55the role of Brazil within the international scenery.
03:00Lula brought Brazil again to the world that was hidden by the mediocrity and incompetence of the father of Flavio
03:15Bolsonaro.
03:16So, in this sense, there is an important need to strengthen the communication,
03:25explaining that voting for Flavio Bolsonaro and his coalition of right and ultra-right is mainly backwards,
03:37going backwards in all the benefits that the population and mainly the poor population got during this year.
03:47And it is important also to say that those who benefit from, for example, the financial sector, the media,
03:59are very responsible for what has been happening.
04:03So, there is a big and enormous need for the coalition of Lula to strengthen and show to the poorest
04:13sector,
04:14so-called to the most vulnerable and non-included sector of the population, that voting for Bolsonaro is voting for
04:25the worst,
04:26and that it is absolutely necessary to vote, to show to the people what this implies in terms of going
04:35back to medieval ages,
04:40because of the cultural aspects of those who voted for Congress and the Senate,
04:47who is very, very strong right and ultra-right, with very, very complicated persons in terms of engagement with a
05:02democratic agenda.
05:04And the Lula government, notwithstanding it as a minority in Congress, was always very democratic in terms of the agenda,
05:14in terms of communications, in terms of the right to be presenting the ideas they never censored, nor the media
05:26and nothing else.
05:27And with Bolsonaro, we are sure, we are very worried that this will be absolutely going backwards,
05:33because they are very right-wing, conservative, authoritarian, and everything that implies and has been seen now recently in Latin
05:46America,
05:46with the elections in Colombia, in Peru, in Ecuador and Bolivia.
05:51Also, there is another growing concern, and that is the sovereignty of Brazil's natural resources, rare earth, also critical minerals.
06:01How do you assess this issue?
06:08Well, if you remember, President Lula was now recently in September in the United Nations,
06:16and he spoke about the need to be sovereign, and not a colony of the United States like other countries
06:22are becoming.
06:24So, we are not favored to be together with MAGA.
06:32And the governor of Sao Paulo used a hat of MAGA when Trump provoked this problem with the terrorists.
06:43So we have to show this, exactly these kind of things.
06:48We have to struggle for sovereignty in all levels, because obviously there is a big conflict in terms of rare
06:58earths between US and China.
07:01And this is a big issue.
07:03When Trump put these terrorists on Brazil, the Brazilian sector, the Brazilian businessmen went to China to see if we're
07:19getting so high terrorists from the US,
07:21let's now move more towards China.
07:24And this is a big issue, because China is growing much more.
07:28China is having a much better understanding of what is globalization.
07:34And when we talk about sovereignty, we have to talk about multilateralism.
07:40And Lula also expressed the importance of multilateralism, which was denied by the government of Flavio Bolsonaro's father.
07:51So, definitely, sovereignty of rare land or rare earth is very relevant for the government.
07:59At the same time, you will have a pressure of all larger countries for this, but you can negotiate differently.
08:11And this is a big issue.
08:12There has to be, and Lula is very clear about it, we have to industrialize more and more the country.
08:18We cannot be just only exporters of cattle, mining, and agriculture.
08:25So, there is a big need to really strengthen the growth of the industrial sector of all what is linked
08:34to the digital economy in Brazil.
08:37And this is something that Lula mentioned.
08:40Also, he mentioned the importance of education and having more and more people that are really better educated
08:47and will be engaged in the new agenda, economic agenda, with artificial intelligence and everything that belongs to a digital
08:58economy, a bioeconomy, and everything that, at the same time,
09:02Lula has been very, had an important role when we come to environmental issues.
09:10Because, as you know, and Venezuela is also part of this, the Amazon region is essential.
09:17It's a lung for, not only for America, but for the world.
09:22And what we are seeing now with climate change is an important issue is now how the lack of rain
09:29has been affecting directly, for example, the Amazon region.
09:33And besides that, when it rains very much, many regions of Brazil have been very affected by floods.
09:41And this also has a lot to do with the need of strengthening environmental issues.
09:47We've had an enormous backwards during the Bolsonaro's government.
09:53So, sovereignty is essential and is part of an agenda because when you look at the agenda of Bolsonaro, it
10:02is an agenda of being a dependency, being colonized by U.S. as it is happening now.
10:08And besides that, an issue linked also to combating trafficking, drug trafficking, trying and saying, and the president, Flávio Bolsonaro,
10:21said,
10:21we will have Bukele's model in El Salvador as a model also with larger prisons, more investment in prisons.
10:31And it's also important to mention that the very conservative Senate was elected and we have an enormous struggle of
10:41this debate within the Congress.
10:43And at the same time, there is an enormous prejudice against everything that is LGBT and all the issues that
10:54lead to a more modern and contemporary approach to culture.
11:02Thank you. Thank you, Pedro, very much for your time hearing from the South and helping us to build a
11:08bigger picture of what is at stake for Brazil and also for the rest of the world.
11:16Thank you very much. And I hope I was able to bring you a short photography of what's taking place
11:24in Brazil.
11:25Indeed you did. Thank you very much.
