Lula takes over in Brazil, slams Bolsonaro

STORY: Brazilian leftist Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva was sworn into the presidency on Monday, completing a stunning comeback to assume office of a divided country, and delivering a searing indictment of far-right Jair Bolsonaro, the incumbent who lost to Lula in October.

Lula won just three months after he left prison – he had been charged with corruption – and more than a decade after his first two terms in power.

He has vowed a drastic change for a Brazil plagued by hunger, poverty and racism.

In a speech to Congress after he officially took the reins, he made a veiled threat toward his predecessor without mentioning Bolsonaro by name.

“We do not carry any spirit of revenge against those who tried to subjugate the nation to their personal and ideological purposes,” he said, “but we will guarantee the rule of law. Those who made mistakes will answer for their mistakes.”

Bolsonaro rattled Brazil’s young democracy with baseless claims of electoral weakness that spawned a violent movement of election deniers, some of which have camped out in front of army barracks and called for a military coup.

Bolsonaro left for the United States on Friday after refusing to concede defeat.

Without presidential immunity, he now faces mounting legal risks for his anti-democratic rhetoric and handling of the pandemic.

Lula said Bolsonaro committed quote ‘genocide’ by failing to respond to the COVID-19 virus properly.

However, his Florida trip insulates him from any immediate legal peril.

On Monday after Lula’s swearing-in, he drove in a Rolls Royce to the presidential palace, where he walked up the ramp with a diverse group: a Black child, a disabled man, and the chief of the Kayapo tribe.

He was handed the presidential sash by Aline Sousa, a Black garbage collector.

The sash handover is a hugely symbolic act in Brazil – and Bolsonaro said he would never do it for Lula.

Lula wiped away tears during a subsequent speech.

“It's time to reconnect with friends and family, the ties broken by hate speech and the spread of so many lies,” he said.

“No more hate, fake news, guns and bombs. Our people want peace to work, study, take care of the family and be happy.”

In his first decisions as president, Lula restored the power of Brazil’s environmental protection agency to fight illegal deforestation, which had been weakened under Bolsonaro.

He also revoked Bolsonaro’s looser gun policies, which saw gun ownership soar in Brazil.