The complete speech made in the parliament hall after the presidential sash was conferred by the Brazilian people.
I want to begin by giving a special greeting to each and every one of you. A way to remember and to repay the affection and the strength that I received every day from the Brazilian people – represented by the Free Lula Vigil – in one of the most difficult moments of my life.
Today, on this, one of the happiest days of my life, the greeting I give you could not be any other, so simple and at the same time so full of meaning:
Good afternoon, Brazilian people!
My gratitude to you, who faced political violence before, during and after the electoral campaign. Who took to the social networks, and who took to the streets, under sun and rain, even if it was only to win a single precious vote.
Who had the courage to wear our shirt and, at the same time, wave the Brazilian flag – when a violent and anti-democratic minority tried to censor our colors and appropriate the green-yellow, which belongs to all Brazilian people.
To you, who came from all corners of this country – from near or far away, by plane, by bus, by car, or in the back of a truck. By motorcycle, bicycle, and even on foot, in a true caravan of hope, for this celebration of democracy.
But I also want to address those who opted for other candidates. I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, and not only for those who voted for me.
I will govern for all of them, looking to our bright common future, and not through the rear view mirror of a past of division and intolerance.
Nobody is interested in a country on a permanent war footing, or a family living in disharmony. It is time to reconnect with friends and family, broken by hate speech and the dissemination of so many lies.
The Brazilian people reject the violence of a small radicalized minority that refuses to live in a democratic regime.
Enough of hate, fake news, guns and bombs. Our people want peace to work, study, take care of their families, and be happy.
The electoral dispute is over. I repeat what I said in my statement after the victory on October 30, about the need to unite our country.
“There are not two brasis. We are a single country, a single people, a great nation.”
We are all Brazilians, and we share the same virtue: we never give up.
Even if they pluck all our flowers, one by one, petal by petal, we know that it is always time to replant, and that spring will come. And spring has arrived.
Today, joy takes possession of Brazil, arm in arm with hope.
My dear friends.
I recently reread the speech I gave when I was first sworn in as President in 2003. And what I read made it even more evident how far Brazil has gone backwards.
On January 1st 2003, here in this very square, my dear vice-president José Alencar and I took on the commitment to recover the dignity and self-esteem of the Brazilian people – and we did. Of investing to improve the living conditions of those who need it most – and we did. To take great care of health and education – and we did.
But the main commitment we took on in 2003 was to fight inequality and extreme poverty, and to guarantee every person in this country the right to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day – and we fulfilled this commitment: we put an end to hunger and misery, and strongly reduced inequality.
Unfortunately today, 20 years later, we are returning to a past we thought was buried. Much of what we did was undone in an irresponsible and criminal way.
Inequality and extreme poverty are back on the rise. Hunger is back – and not by force of fate, not by the work of nature, nor by divine will.
The return of hunger is a crime, the most serious of all, committed against the Brazilian people.
Hunger is the daughter of inequality, which is the mother of the great evils that delay the development of Brazil. Inequality belittles this country of ours of continental dimensions, by dividing it into parts that do not recognize each other.
On one side, a small portion of the population that has everything. On the other, a multitude that lacks everything, and a middle class that has been growing poorer year after year.
Together, we are strong. Divided, we will always be the country of the future that never arrives, and that lives in permanent debt with its people.
If we want to build our future today, if we want to live in a fully developed country for everyone, there can be no room for so much inequality.
Brazil is great, but the real greatness of a country lies in the happiness of its people. And nobody is really happy in the midst of so much inequality.
My friends,
When I say “govern”, I mean “take care of”. More than governing, I will take care of this country and the Brazilian people with great affection.
In the last few years, Brazil has once again become one of the most unequal countries in the world. It has been a long time since we have seen such abandonment and discouragement in the streets.
Mothers digging through garbage, in search of food for their children.
Entire families sleeping outdoors, facing the cold, the rain and the fear.
Children selling candy or begging for money, when they should be in school, fully living the childhood to which they have a right.
Unemployed workers displaying, at the traffic lights, cardboard signs with the phrase that embarrasses us all: “Please help me”.
Queues at the door of butcher shops, in search of bones to alleviate hunger. And, at the same time, queues to buy imported cars and private jets.
Such a social abyss is an obstacle to the construction of a truly fair and democratic society, and a modern and prosperous economy.
For this reason, my vice-president Geraldo Alckmin and I assume today, before you and all the Brazilian people, the commitment to fight day and night against all forms of inequality.
Inequality of income, gender, and race. Inequality in the job market, in political representation, in State careers. Inequality in access to health, education, and other public services.
Inequality between the child who goes to the best private school and the child who shines shoes in the bus station, with no school and no future. Between the child who is happy with the toy he just got as a present, and the child who cries of hunger on Christmas Eve.
Inequality between those who throw food away and those who only eat leftovers.
It is unacceptable that the richest 5% of this country have the same share of income as the other 95%.
That six Brazilian billionaires have a wealth equivalent to the assets of the 100 million poorest people in the country.
That a worker who earns a minimum monthly wage takes 19 years to receive the equivalent of what a super rich person receives in a single month.
And there is no point in rolling up the windows of your luxury car to miss our brothers and sisters huddled under the overpasses, lacking everything – the reality is there on every corner.
My friends.
It is unacceptable that we continue to live with prejudice, discrimination, and racism. We are a people of many colors, and all should have the same rights and opportunities.
No one will be a second-class citizen, no one will have more or less support from the State, no one will be obliged to face more or less obstacles just because of the color of their skin.
That is why we are recreating the Ministry of Racial Equality, to bury the tragic legacy of our slaveholding past.
Indigenous peoples need to have their lands demarcated and free from the threats of illegal and predatory economic activities. They need to have their culture preserved, their dignity respected, and their sustainability guaranteed.
They are not obstacles to development – they are guardians of our rivers and forests, and a fundamental part of our greatness as a nation. That is why we are creating the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, to combat 500 years of inequality.
We cannot continue to live with the hateful oppression imposed on women, subjected daily to violence in the streets and in their own homes.
It is unacceptable that they continue to receive lower salaries than men, when performing the same function. Women need to have more and more space in the decision making bodies of this country – in politics, in the economy, in all strategic areas.
Women must be what they want to be, they must be where they want to be. That is why we are bringing back the Ministry of Women.
It was to fight inequality and its sequels that we won the election. And this will be the great mark of our government.
From this fundamental struggle a transformed country will emerge. A great, prosperous, strong, and fair country. A country of all, by all, and for all. A generous and solidary country that will leave no one behind.
My friends,
It is unacceptable that we continue to live with prejudice, discrimination, and racism. We are a people of many colors, and all of us should have the same rights and opportunities.
No one will be a second-class citizen, no one will have more or less support from the State, no one will be obliged to face more or less obstacles just because of the color of their skin.
That is why we are recreating the Ministry of Racial Equality, to bury the tragic legacy of our slaveholding past.
Indigenous peoples need to have their lands demarcated and free from the threats of illegal and predatory economic activities. They need to have their culture preserved, their dignity respected, and their sustainability guaranteed.
They are not obstacles to development – they are guardians of our rivers and forests, and a fundamental part of our greatness as a nation. That is why we are creating the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, to combat 500 years of inequality.
We cannot continue to live with the hateful oppression imposed on women, subjected daily to violence in the streets and in their own homes.
It is unacceptable that they continue to receive lower salaries than men, when performing the same function. Women need to have more and more space in the decision making bodies of this country – in politics, in the economy, in all strategic areas.
Women must be what they want to be, they must be where they want to be. That is why we are bringing back the Ministry of Women.
It was to fight inequality and its sequels that we won the election. And this will be the great mark of our government.
From this fundamental struggle a transformed country will emerge. A great, prosperous, strong, and fair country. A country of all, by all, and for all. A generous and solidary country that will leave no one behind.
My dear comrades, my dear companions.
I reaffirm my commitment to take care of all Brazilians, especially those who need it most. To end hunger in this country again. Of taking the poor out of the bone line to put them back in the Budget.
We have an immense legacy, still alive in the memory of each and every Brazilian, beneficiary or not of the public policies that have revolutionized this country.
But we are not interested in living in the past. Therefore, far from any nostalgia, our legacy will always be the mirror of the future we will build for this country.
Under our governments, Brazil has reconciled record economic growth with the greatest social inclusion in history. It became the sixth largest economy in the world, and at the same time 36 million Brazilians were lifted out of extreme poverty.
We generated more than 20 million jobs with signed work cards and all rights guaranteed. We readjusted the minimum wage always above inflation.
We broke records in investments in education – from kindergarten to university – to make Brazil an exporter of intelligence and knowledge as well, and not only of commodities and raw materials.
We more than doubled the number of students in higher education, and opened the doors of universities to the poor youth of this country. Young whites, blacks, and indigenous people, for whom a university degree was an unattainable dream, became doctors.
We fought one of the great focuses of inequality – access to health. Because the right to life cannot be hostage to the amount of money one has in the bank.
We created the Popular Pharmacy, which provided medicine to those who needed it most, and the More Doctors, which brought care to about 60 million Brazilians in the outskirts of the big cities and in the most remote parts of Brazil.
We created Smiling Brazil, to care for the oral health of all Brazilians.
We have strengthened our Single Health System. And I would like to take this opportunity to give a special thanks to the SUS professionals, for the greatness of their work during the pandemic. They bravely faced, at the same time, a lethal virus and an irresponsible and inhumane government.
In our governments we invested in family agriculture and in small and medium farmers, responsible for 70% of the food that reaches our tables. And we did this without neglecting agribusiness, which obtained investments and record harvests, year after year.
We have taken concrete measures to contain climate change, and we have reduced the deforestation of the Amazon by more than 80%.
Brazil has consolidated itself as a world reference in the fight against inequality and hunger, and has become internationally respected for its active and proud foreign policy.
We were able to accomplish all this while taking care of the country’s finances with total responsibility. We have never been irresponsible with public money.
We made fiscal surplus every year, eliminated the foreign debt, accumulated reserves of around $370 billion, and reduced the internal debt to almost half of what it was before.
In our administration, we invested in family agriculture and in small and medium farmers, who are responsible for 70% of the food that reaches our tables. And we did this without neglecting agribusiness, which obtained investments and record harvests, year after year.
We have taken concrete measures to contain climate change, and we have reduced the deforestation of the Amazon by more than 80%.
Brazil has consolidated itself as a world reference in the fight against inequality and hunger, and has become internationally respected for its active and proud foreign policy.
We were able to accomplish all this while taking care of the country’s finances with total responsibility. We have never been irresponsible with public money.
We made fiscal surplus every year, eliminated the foreign debt, accumulated reserves of around $370 billion, and reduced the internal debt to almost half of what it was before.
In our governments there has never been and never will be any spending. We have always invested, and will invest again, in our most precious asset: the Brazilian people.
Unfortunately, much of what we built in 13 years was destroyed in less than half of that time. First, by the coup of 2016 against President Dilma. And in the sequence, by the four years of a government of national destruction whose legacy History will never forgive:
700,000 Brazilians and Brazilians killed by Covid.
125 million suffering some degree of food insecurity, from moderate to very severe.
33 million going hungry.
These are just a few numbers. Which in fact are not just numbers, statistics, indicators – they are people. Men, women and children, victims of a misgovernment that was finally defeated by the people, on the historic October 30, 2022.
The Technical Groups of the Transition Cabinet, which for two months delved into the bowels of the previous government, have brought to light the real dimension of the tragedy.
What the Brazilian people have suffered in the last few years has been the slow and progressive construction of a genocide.
I want to quote, by way of example, a small excerpt from the 100 pages of this veritable chaos report produced by the Transition Cabinet. The report states:
“Brazil has broken feminicide records, racial equality policies have suffered severe setbacks, a dismantling of youth policies has taken place, and indigenous rights have never been so outraged in the country’s recent history.
The textbooks that will be used in the 2023 school year have not yet begun to be published; there is a shortage of medicine at the Farmácia Popular (Popular Pharmacy); there are no stocks of vaccines to deal with the new variants of COVID-19.
There is a lack of resources for the purchase of school lunches; universities run the risk of not completing the school year; there are no resources for Civil Defense and the prevention of accidents and disasters. Who is paying the bill for this blackout is the Brazilian people.”
My dear friends,
In these last few years we have lived through, without a doubt, one of the worst periods of our history. An era of shadows, uncertainties and much suffering. But this nightmare came to an end, through the sovereign vote, in the most important election since the re-democratization of the country.
An election that demonstrated the commitment of the Brazilian people to democracy and its institutions.
This extraordinary victory for democracy forces us to look forward and to forget our differences, which are much smaller than what unites us forever: the love for Brazil and the unbreakable faith in our people.
Now is the time to rekindle the flame of hope, solidarity, and love for our neighbor.
Now is the time to take care of Brazil and the Brazilian people again. Generate jobs, readjust the minimum wage above inflation, reduce the price of food.
Create even more vacancies in universities, invest heavily in health, education, science and culture.
Resume the infrastructure works and Minha Casa Minha Vida, abandoned by the neglect of the government that is now gone.
It is time to bring in investments and reindustrialize Brazil. Combat climate change again and stop once and for all the devastation of our biomes, especially the Amazon.
To break with international isolation and return to relations with all the countries of the world.
This is not the time for sterile resentments. Now is the time for Brazil to look forward and smile again.
Let us turn this page and write, together, a new and decisive chapter in our history.
Our common challenge is to create a fair, inclusive, sustainable, creative, democratic, and sovereign country for all Brazilians.
I have made a point of saying throughout the campaign: Brazil has ways. And I say it again with all my conviction, even in the face of the destruction revealed by the Transition Cabinet: Brazil is good. It depends on us, all of us.
In my four years in office, we will work every day for Brazil to overcome the backwardness of more than 350 years of slavery. To recover the time and opportunities lost in these last years. To regain its place of prominence in the world. And so that each and every Brazilian has the right to dream again, and the opportunities to realize what they dream of.
We need, all together, to rebuild and transform Brazil.
But we will only really rebuild and transform this country if we fight with all our strength against everything that makes it so unequal.
This task cannot be the responsibility of just one president or even one government. It is urgent and necessary to form a broad front against inequality, involving society as a whole:
workers, entrepreneurs, artists, intellectuals, governors, mayors, deputies, senators, unions, social movements, class associations, public servants, liberal professionals, religious leaders, ordinary citizens.
It is time for unity and reconstruction.
That is why I make this call to all Brazilians who want a more just, solidary, and democratic Brazil: join us in a great collective effort against inequality.
I want to end by asking each and every one of you: that the joy of today be the raw material of the fight of tomorrow and of all the days to come. May today’s hope leaven the bread that will be shared among all.
And may we always be ready to react, in peace and order, to any attacks by extremists who want to sabotage and destroy our democracy.
In the fight for the good of Brazil, we will use the weapons that our adversaries fear the most: truth, which has overcome lies; hope, which has overcome fear; and love, which has defeated hatred.
Long live Brazil. And long live the Brazilian people.
President Lula’s inaugural Address to the National Congress on January 1, 2023
For the third time I appear before this National Congress to thank the Brazilian people for the vote of confidence that we received. I renew my oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the Republic, together with vice-president Geraldo Alckmin and the ministers that will work with us for Brazil.
If we are here today, it is thanks to the political conscience of the Brazilian society and to the democratic front that we formed throughout this historic electoral campaign.
Democracy was the great victor in this election, overcoming the largest mobilization of public and private resources ever seen; the most violent threats to the freedom of the vote, the most abject campaign of lies and hate plotted to manipulate and embarrass the electorate.
Never have the state’s resources been so misappropriated for the benefit of an authoritarian project of power. Never has the public machine been so derailed from republican controls. Never have voters been so constrained by economic power and by lies disseminated on an industrial scale.
In spite of everything, the decision of the ballot box prevailed, thanks to an electoral system internationally recognized for its efficiency in capturing and counting the votes. The courageous attitude of the Judiciary, especially the Superior Electoral Court, was fundamental in making the truth of the ballot box prevail over the violence of its detractors.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
As I return to this plenary of the Chamber of Deputies, where I participated in the Constituent Assembly of 1988, I recall with emotion the struggles we fought here, democratically, to inscribe in the Constitution the broadest set of social, individual, and collective rights, for the benefit of the population and of national sovereignty.
Twenty years ago, when I was elected president for the first time, together with the vice-president José Alencar, I started my inauguration speech with the word “change”. The change we intended was simply to materialize the constitutional precepts. Starting with the right to a dignified life, without hunger, with access to employment, health and education.
I said, on that occasion, that my life’s mission would be accomplished when every Brazilian man and woman could have three meals a day.
To have to repeat this commitment today – in the face of the advance of misery and the return of hunger, which we had overcome – is the most serious symptom of the devastation that has been imposed on the country in recent years.
Today, our message to Brazil is one of hope and reconstruction. The great edifice of rights, sovereignty, and development that this nation has built since 1988 has been systematically demolished in recent years. It is to rebuild this edifice of rights and national values that we will direct all our efforts.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
In 2002 we said that hope had conquered fear, in the sense of overcoming the fears in the face of the unprecedented election of a representative of the working class to preside over the destinies of the country. In eight years of government we made it clear that the fears were unfounded. Otherwise, we would not be here again.
It was shown that a representative of the working class could, yes, dialogue with society to promote economic growth in a sustainable way and to the benefit of all, especially the neediest. It was shown that it was possible, yes, to govern this country with the broadest social participation, including workers and the poorest in the budget and in government decisions.
Throughout this electoral campaign, I saw hope shine in the eyes of a people who had suffered as a result of the destruction of public policies that promoted citizenship, essential rights, health, and education. I saw the dream of a generous Homeland, one that offers opportunities to its sons and daughters, where active solidarity is stronger than blind individualism.
The diagnosis we received from the Government Transition Office is appalling. Health resources have been drained. They have dismantled Education, Culture, Science and Technology. They destroyed the protection of the Environment. They left no resources for school meals, vaccination, public security, forest protection, social assistance.
They disorganized the governance of the economy, of public funding, of support for companies, entrepreneurs and foreign trade. They dilapidated the state-owned companies and the public banks; they handed over the national patrimony. The country’s resources were abducted to satisfy the greed of rent-seekers and private shareholders of public companies.
It is over these terrible ruins that I assume the commitment, together with the Brazilian people, to rebuild the country and make once again a Brazil of all and for all.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
In the face of the budgetary disaster that we have received, I have presented proposals to the National Congress that will allow us to support the immense stratum of the population that needs the state in order to simply survive.
I thank the House and Senate for their sensitivity to the urgent needs of the Brazilian people. I register the extremely responsible attitude of the Federal Supreme Court and the Federal Audit Court when faced with situations that distorted the harmony of powers.
I did so because it would neither be fair nor correct to ask for patience from those who are hungry.
No nation has risen, nor can it rise, on the misery of its people.
The rights and interests of the population, the strengthening of democracy, and the resumption of national sovereignty will be the pillars of our government.
This commitment starts by guaranteeing a renewed, stronger and fairer Bolsa Família Program, to serve those who need it most. Our first actions are aimed at rescuing 33 million people from hunger and rescuing from poverty more than 100 million Brazilians, who have borne the heaviest burden of the project of national destruction that is ending today.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
This electoral process was also characterized by the contrast between different worldviews. Ours, centered on solidarity and political and social participation for the democratic definition of the country’s destiny. The other, individualism, the denial of politics, the destruction of the state in the name of supposed individual freedoms.
The freedom we have always defended is the freedom to live with dignity, with full rights of expression, demonstration and organization.
The freedom they preach is that of oppressing the vulnerable, massacring the opponent, and imposing the law of the strongest above the laws of civilization. The name of this is barbarism.
I understood, from the beginning of my journey, that I had to be a candidate for a broader front than the political camp in which I was formed, keeping a firm commitment to my origins. This front was consolidated to prevent the return of authoritarianism to the country.
As of today, the Access to Information Law will be enforced again, the Transparency Portal will resume its role, republican controls will be exercised to defend the public interest. We have no intention of revenge against those who tried to subjugate the Nation to their personal and ideological designs, but we will guarantee the rule of law. Those who made mistakes will answer for their errors, with the ample right of defense, within the due legal process. The mandate we received, in the face of opponents inspired by fascism, will be defended with the powers that the Constitution confers on democracy.
To hatred we will respond with love. To lies, with truth. To terror and violence we will respond with the Law and its harshest consequences.
Under the winds of redemocratization, we said: no more dictatorship! Today, after the terrible challenge we have overcome, we must say: democracy forever!
To confirm these words, we will have to rebuild democracy in our country on solid bases. Democracy will be defended by the people to the extent that it guarantees everyone the rights written in the Constitution.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
Today I am signing measures to reorganize the structures of the Executive Branch so that they once again allow the government to function in a rational, republican, and democratic manner. To rescue the role of state institutions, public banks and state-owned companies in the development of the country. To plan public and private investments in the direction of environmentally and socially sustainable economic growth.
In dialog with the 27 governors, we will define priorities to restart irresponsibly paralyzed construction projects, of which there are more than 14 thousand in the country. We will resume Minha Casa, Minha Vida and structure a new PAC to generate jobs at the speed that Brazil requires. We will seek financing and cooperation – national and international – for investment, to dynamize and expand the internal consumer market, to develop trade, exports, services, agriculture, and industry.
Public banks, especially the BNDES, and companies that induce growth and innovation, such as Petrobras, will play a fundamental role in this new cycle. At the same time, we will boost small and medium-sized companies, potentially the biggest generators of employment and income, entrepreneurship, cooperativism, and the creative economy.
The economic wheel will start turning again, and popular consumption will play a central role in this process.
We will resume the policy of permanent valuation of the minimum wage. And be sure that we will put an end, once more, to the shameful INSS queue, another injustice reestablished in these times of destruction. We are going to have a dialogue, in a tripartite way – government, union centrals, and business – about a new labor legislation. Guaranteeing freedom to undertake, together with social protection, is a great challenge in these times.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
Brazil is too big to renounce its productive potential. It makes no sense to import fuels, fertilizers, petroleum platforms, microprocessors, aircraft, and satellites. We have the technical capability, the capital, and the market to a sufficient degree to resume industrialization and the supply of services at a competitive level.
Brazil can and should be at the forefront of the global economy.
It will be up to the state to articulate the digital transition and bring Brazilian industry into the 21st century, with an industrial policy that supports innovation, stimulates public-private cooperation, strengthens science and technology, and guarantees access to financing at adequate costs.
The future will belong to those who invest in the knowledge industry, which will be the object of a national strategy, planned in dialogue with the productive sector, research centers, and universities, together with the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, the public and state banks, and research promotion agencies.
No other country has the conditions that Brazil has to become a great environmental power, based on the creativity of the bio-economy and the undertakings of socio-biodiversity. We will start the energy and ecological transition to sustainable farming and mining, stronger family agriculture, and greener industry.
Our goal is to achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon and zero emission of greenhouse gases in the electric matrix, besides stimulating the reuse of degraded pastures. Brazil does not need to deforest in order to maintain and expand its strategic agricultural frontier.
We will encourage prosperity on the land. Freedom and opportunity to create, plant and harvest will continue to be our objective. What we cannot admit is that it will be a lawless land. We will not tolerate violence against the little people, deforestation, and environmental degradation, which have already done so much harm to the country.
This is one of the reasons, but not the only one, for the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. Nobody knows our forests better or is more capable of defending them than those who have been here since time immemorial. Each demarcated land is a new area of environmental protection. To these Brazilians we owe respect and a historical debt.
Let us revoke all injustices committed against the indigenous peoples.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
A nation is not measured only by statistics, however impressive they may be. Just like a human being, a nation is truly expressed by the soul of its people. The soul of Brazil lies in the incomparable diversity of our people and our cultural manifestations.
We are re-founding the Ministry of Culture, with the ambition of resuming more intensively the policies of incentive and access to cultural goods, which have been interrupted by obscurantism in recent years.
A democratic cultural policy cannot fear criticism or elect favorites. Let all the flowers bloom and all the fruits of our creativity be harvested, that everyone can enjoy it, without censorship or discrimination.
It is unacceptable that black and brown people continue to be the poor and oppressed majority in a country built with the sweat and blood of their African ancestors. We have created the Ministry for the Promotion of Racial Equality to expand the policy of quotas in universities and public service, in addition to resuming policies for black and brown people in health, education, and culture.
It is unacceptable that women are paid less than men for the same work. That they are not recognized in a macho political world. That they are harassed with impunity in the streets and at work. That they are victims of violence inside and outside the home. We are also re-founding the Ministry of Women to demolish this centuries-old castle of inequality and prejudice.
There will be no true justice in a country where only one human being is wronged. The Ministry of Human Rights will be responsible for ensuring and acting so that every citizen has his or her rights respected, in the access to public and private services, in the protection from prejudice or from public authority. Citizenship is the other name of democracy.
The Ministry of Justice and Public Safety will act to harmonize the federated powers and entities in order to promote peace where it is most urgent: in poor communities, in the bosom of families vulnerable to organized crime, to militias and to violence, wherever it comes from.
We are revoking the criminal decrees expanding access to weapons and ammunition, which have caused so much insecurity and harm to Brazilian families. Brazil does not want more weapons; it wants peace and security for its people.
Under God’s protection, I inaugurate this mandate reaffirming that in Brazil faith can be present in every home, in the various temples, churches, and services. In this country everyone can freely exercise their religiosity.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
The period that is ending was marked by one of the greatest tragedies in history: the Covid-19 pandemic. In no other country was the number of fatal victims so high in proportion to the population as in Brazil, one of the most prepared countries to face health emergencies, thanks to the competence of our Single Health System.
This paradox can only be explained by the criminal attitude of a denialist government, obscurantist and insensitive to life. Responsibilities for this genocide must be ascertained and must not go unpunished.
What is up to us, at this moment, is to pay solidarity to the relatives, parents, orphans, brothers and sisters of almost 700 thousand victims of the pandemic.
SUS is probably the most democratic of the institutions created by the 1988 Constitution. This is certainly why it has been the most persecuted since then, and it was also the most damaged by a stupid thing called the Expenditure Ceiling, which we will have to revoke.
We are going to restore the Health budgets in order to guarantee basic care, the Popular Pharmacy, and promote access to specialized medicine. We will rebuild the Education budgets, invest in more universities, in technical education, in the universalization of internet access, in the expansion of day-care centers, and in full-time public education. This is the investment that will truly lead to the development of the country.
The model we propose, which was approved at the polls, does require a commitment to responsibility, credibility, and predictability, and we will not give that up. It was with budgetary, fiscal, and monetary realism, seeking stability, controlling inflation, and respecting contracts that we governed this country.
We cannot do it differently. We will have to do better.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
The eyes of the world were on Brazil in these elections. The world expects Brazil to once again become a leader in the fight against the climate crisis and an example of a socially and environmentally responsible country, capable of promoting economic growth with income distribution, fighting hunger and poverty, within the democratic process.
Our protagonism will be materialized through the resumption of South American integration, starting with the Mercosur, the revitalization of Unasur, and other instances of sovereign articulation in the region. On this basis, we will be able to rebuild a proud and active dialogue with the United States, the European Community, China, the countries of the East, and other global players; strengthening the BRICS, cooperation with African countries, and breaking the isolation to which the country has been relegated.
Brazil has to be its own master, the master of its destiny. It has to go back to being a sovereign country. We are responsible for most of the Amazon and for vast biomes, large aquifers, mineral deposits, petroleum and clean energy sources. With sovereignty and responsibility we will be respected to share this greatness with humanity – in solidarity, never in subordination.
The relevance of the election in Brazil refers, finally, to the threats that the democratic model has been facing. Around the planet, a wave of authoritarian extremism is articulating itself, spreading hatred and lies through technological means that are not subject to transparent controls.
We defend the full freedom of expression, aware that it is urgent to create democratic instances of access to reliable information and to hold accountable the means by which the poison of hate and lies is inoculated. This is a challenge for civilization, just like overcoming wars, the climate crisis, hunger, and inequality on the planet.
I reaffirm, for Brazil and for the world, the conviction that Politics, in its highest sense – and despite all its limitations – is the best way for dialogue between diverging interests, for the peaceful construction of consensus. To deny politics, to devalue and criminalize it, is the path of tyrannies.
My most important mission, as of today, will be to honor the trust I have received and to live up to the hopes of a suffering people, who have never lost faith in the future or in their capacity to overcome challenges. With the strength of the people and the blessings of God, we will rebuild this country.
Long live democracy!
Long live the Brazilian people!
Thank you very much.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 