Brian Winter on The Lawfare Podcast: "Lula Has [Brought] a Degree of Institutional Calm"
Brian Winter on The Lawfare Podcast: "Lula Has [Brought] a Degree of Institutional Calm"
"It's an open question as to whether he understands how much [Brazil] has changed over the last 20 years," said the AS/COA vice president.
Americas Quarterly Editor-in-Chief and AS/COA Policy Vice President Brian Winter spoke to Saraphin Dhanani on The Lawfare Podcast about Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
"Lula has managed to bring a degree of institutional calm that we really didn't see during the Bolsonaro administration," Winter said. "Some of these worries about Brazil's democracy have been replaced by concerns about the economy under Lula's watch about Brazil's place in the world, particularly, his comments on Ukraine and Russia drew a lot of attention all around the world in recent weeks."
Winter concluded that "Lula believes that a multipolar world would be better for Brazil than the current world order," adding that, "the problem is that he sometimes seems set on tearing down the West, and specifically the United States, in order for that new order to become a reality."
"I think it's an open question as to whether [Lula] understands how much the country has changed over the last 20 years, since he was president the first time," Winter said.
Winter explained that in polling, only 25 to 30 percent of Brazilians have said they strongly oppose what Lula is doing. About another third of society is neither for or against his administration, Winter added.
"We'll see if out of that climate, Lula is able to get the country not only economically back on track but politically back to kind of where it's usually been, which is a country where people would rather focus on other things," Winter said.
