Lula could be the new Getúlio, says historian.

247 - Historian Heloisa Starling states that if Lula's candidacy is disqualified, the former president could be compared to Getúlio Vargas in terms of his ability to mobilize the public, transferring a large number of votes to his running mate Fernando Haddad. In an interview with the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Starling also says that Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) and Ciro Gomes (PDT) do not present themselves as leaders who think about the country, but as managers. 

In the article by journalist Naief HaddadStarling says that Brazil seemed to have a consolidated democracy in 2015, but that the republic was still incipient as an institutional value in the Brazilian landscape. The historian says that, for this reason, she re-edited her 2015 book in partnership with Lilia Schwarcz, 'Brazil: A Biography'. There was a need to rectify the term 'consolidated democracy'. 

Starling also speaks of the Brazilian power structure, which remains unbalanced and which made possible the devastating scene we all witnessed: "the The second point is the imbalance in the distribution of powers. There is a significant decline in the Executive branch. The Legislative branch, due to corruption, patronage, and incompetence, has also declined. Montesquieu [the French philosopher who lived between 1689 and 1755] was right: power is intrusive. If it has no limits, it grows and invades other areas. This is the case with the Judiciary. Democratic balance presupposes that the Judiciary, Legislative, and Executive branches check each other. When two of them become too weak, power is lost. This is a problem for democracy because it undermines freedom and the Constitution.

Continuing the reflection on power, Starling speaks of a psychology of political actors and of Bolsonaro: "hThere is yet another element, which is the spread in sectors of society of the conviction that politics is not worthwhile and that people should turn to themselves, demanding that their personal interests be guaranteed. This is a path to authoritarian governments (...) I don't believe Bolsonaro defends military values, which are of a different nature, such as courage linked to the defense of the homeland against external enemies and compassion that leads to humanitarian campaigns. What he defends are authoritarian principles.

The historian emphasizes that there is not necessarily a tendency towards militarism in the Brazilian imagination embodied by conservative candidates, but rather an authoritarian leaning: "the What is happening is a dangerous deviation. Throughout our republican history, and from the moment the Armed Forces came to understand themselves as a legitimate entity, there has been a persistent trait: military interventionism. Leaving their specific professional field to meddle in politics. There is an immediate consequence of this interventionism in national public life: the military is trained for war. So when it transfers to politics, it's difficult to find a military officer who acts in a non-authoritarian way because if you are trained for the conflict of war, you use violence and you cannot disagree with orders, you have to obey. After all, your life is at risk."

Regarding military interventions, she says: "aThe Armed Forces intervene in Brazilian political history in two ways: either through coups or through candidacies. Remember the candidacies of Eurico Gaspar Dutra, a general, or Henrique Teixeira Lott, a brigadier general, also a general officer rank, but in the Air Force. Bolsonaro doesn't fit that profile; he's a novelty.