President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces six major challenges: 1) Uniting the deeply divided Brazilian people; 2) Rebuild the country after the devastation produced by the Bolsonaro government; 3) Reactivate the stagnant economy since 2014; 4) Eliminate poverty in Brazil; 5) Preserve the environment devastated during the Bolsonaro government; and, 6) Strengthen democracy threatened by neo-fascism in Brazil. The challenge of uniting the Brazilian people is fundamental because President Lula will only be able to govern the country and strengthen democracy if he puts into practice a government plan that meets the interests of the entire Brazilian population, rebuilds the country, reactivates the economy, assist the socially disinherited and preserve the environment.

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PRESIDENT LULA AND HIS CHALLENGES TO GOVERN
Fernando Alcoforado*
President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces six major challenges: 1) Uniting the deeply
divided Brazilian people; 2) Rebuild the country after the devastation produced by the
Bolsonaro government; 3) Reactivate the stagnant economy since 2014; 4) Eliminate
poverty in Brazil; 5) Preserve the environment devastated during the Bolsonaro
government; and, 6) Strengthen democracy threatened by neo-fascism in Brazil. The
challenge of uniting the Brazilian people is fundamental because President Lula will only
be able to govern the country and strengthen democracy if he puts into practice a
government plan that meets the interests of the entire Brazilian population, rebuilds the
country, reactivates the economy, assist the socially disinherited and preserve the
environment.
The government plan necessary for Brazil now should have as its primary objective the
elimination of unemployment, poverty and inflation that profoundly affect Brazilian
society. The government plan should consider these priorities because they constitute the
biggest scourges faced by the Brazilian population whose solution cannot be postponed,
that is, it has to happen immediately. Unemployment reached record levels in Brazilian
history. The number of Brazilians in extreme poverty increases dramatically in the same
way as the unemployment rate. Inflation erodes the income of all Brazilians, but it is
crueler to those with less income. President Lula's government plan should therefore
prioritize the elimination of unemployment, poverty and inflation in the country.
To eliminate unemployment, it is necessary to resume economic growth in Brazil, which
would make it possible for unemployed and discouraged workers to return to the labor
market and for 34.7 million people in informal work, which corresponds to 40% of the
labor market, if become workers with a formal contract. The main reason for the mass
unemployment registered in Brazil is the fact that the country was economically stagnant
from 2014 to 2022. The current economic stagnation in Brazil will only be overcome with
the abandonment of the neoliberal economic model and its replacement by the national
developmentalist economic model of openness selective of the Brazilian economy.
It should be noted that the Brazilian economy presented the highest economic growth
from 1931 to 1980, driven by the actions of the Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek and
the military dictatorship governments that adopted national developmental economic
policies with the Brazilian government acting as a mentor and inducer of national
development, as opposed to the neoliberal economic model in progress in which the
market becomes the main economic agent and the government becomes a supporting role,
assuming a passive posture, as happened with the governments Michel Temer and Jair
Bolsonaro. With the adoption of the national developmentalist economic model to replace
the neoliberal economic model, responsible for the economic and social devastation of
the country, the Brazilian government would be able to promote the immediate
elimination of unemployment existing in Brazil with the execution of 7 thousand stopped
public works, the construction of a large number of new public works, with emphasis on
economic infrastructure (energy, transport and communications) and social infrastructure
(education, health, housing and basic sanitation), the adoption of the import substitution
policy and the use of idle capacity in the industry.
With the adoption of the national developmentalist economic model to replace the
neoliberal economic model, economic growth in Brazil would result because, in addition
to the increase in public and private investment, there would be an increase in household

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consumption, contributing to the increase in GDP. In addition to reactivating the economy
to eliminate unemployment, the Lula government should encourage the development of
the Social and Solidarity Economy, which is an important alternative for the inclusion of
workers in the labor market, giving them a new opportunity to work in a new way of
production in which profit is no longer the main objective, but rather the generation of
employment, and the development of the Creative Economy, which is one of the most
effective ways to generate new jobs linked to the knowledge economy by encouraging
jobs based on cultural traditions from each region and credit to creative sectors of the
economy such as Fashion, Art, Digital Media, Advertising, Journalism, Photography and
Architecture.
To eliminate poverty in Brazil, the first action to be implemented by President Lula is the
elimination of unemployment with the strategies described above, complemented by the
adoption of the basic income transfer strategy or universal minimum income for the poor
population, especially those located in extreme poverty and homeless. The strategy of
transferring basic income or universal minimum income to the poor population with the
strengthening of the Bolsa Família program is absolutely necessary because a large part
of that population is unsuitable for incorporation into the labor market. Without the basic
income transfer policy or universal minimum income, hunger would be suffered by a
large part of the Brazilian population. The adoption of a basic income policy or universal
minimum income for the poor population is one of the most effective solutions to alleviate
poverty, given that it would make it possible for the poor to have money to meet their
basic needs in terms of food, health, housing, etc.
The income transfer program of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments in Brazil,
Bolsa Família, is a good example of the application of the basic income policy. A basic
income policy for the poor would bring numerous advantages such as reducing crime,
improving housing conditions for the poor population and increasing consumption of
goods and services by the poor population. The government, provider of basic income for
the poor population, would have the benefit of lower spending on police repression and
the prison structure as a result of the reduction in crime and homeless people and the
increase in tax collection resulting from the increase in consumption of the poor
population. There will be no social peace in Brazil if unemployment is not eliminated and
a basic income policy for the poor is not adopted.
To eliminate inflation in Brazil, it is necessary to adopt strategies to eliminate demand
inflation and production cost inflation, which are present in the Brazilian economy. The
Lula government must plan in advance the level of inventory of agricultural and industrial
products, of raw materials and agricultural and industrial inputs and of energy, transport
and communications services to avoid their shortage or import them to avoid demand
inflation. In order to eliminate production cost inflation, the Brazilian government should
monitor the evolution of the prices of wages, raw materials and inputs, as well as federal,
state and municipal taxes, in order to adopt measures that contribute to mitigating their
increase without the corresponding increase of productivity, encourage increased
productivity in agricultural, industrial, trade and services production and adopt measures
to promote cost reductions in inefficient electrical energy and petroleum derivatives
production systems with their rational planning and cargo transport with its planning
oriented primarily to the waterway and rail modes, as well as the reduction of public
administration costs to reduce taxes.
To preserve the environment devastated during the Bolsonaro government, it is necessary
for President Lula to comply with the Paris Agreement against global warming and to

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adopt measures that contribute to stopping the acts carried out by the Bolsonaro
government that are harmful to the environment in Brazil. To finance all the actions
necessary for the execution of President Lula's government plan, it is necessary to adopt
two strategies; 1) suspend for a period of 5 years the payment of interest and amortization
of the domestic public debt that corresponds to almost half of the federal government
budget or renegotiate with its creditors in order to extend its payment to reduce the burden
of paying the public debt so that the government has the necessary resources for public
investments; and, 2) use the available international reserves of US$ 362.20 billion, if
necessary, to complement the resources destined to public investments aimed at
reactivating the economy, combating unemployment and poverty and preserving the
environment.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member
of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of
IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development
from the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning,
business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice
President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de
Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center,
Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the
books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem
Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os
condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de
Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora
Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos
na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica,
Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate
ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores
Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no
Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua
convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o
mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência
(Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso
e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022) and a chapter in the book Flood Handbook
(CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, United States, 2022).