The death of Pelé, one of Brazil’s most famous sons, coincides with the departure from office of the defeated president, Jair Bolsonaro, one of its most internationally reviled. The death of the footballer aged 82 has prompted a global outpouring of love and respect. In contrast, Bolsonaro slipped out of the country last week with a self-justificatory snarl, muttering about a political comeback.
It is difficult to express what Pelé, born Edson Arantes do Nascimento to a provincial working-class family, meant to Brazil as a nation. His skill was breathtaking, his goalscoring ability unsurpassed. Yet his joy in playing and his dazzling artistry appealed to non-football fans, too. He turned the pitch into a stage and the “beautiful game” into a global phenomenon.
Fame brought him many roles. He was a model for black youngsters, like Muhammad Ali. Some even ranked him alongside Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela as an inspirational force. He was the poor boy made good, an always smiling ambassador for good causes and, briefly, Brazil’s apolitical minister of sport. Pelé became the 20th century’s everyman.
The contrast with Bolsonaro could not be more striking. A radical rightwing populist, his surprise election victory in 2018 initiated four years of damaging social divisions and policy disasters. His hate-filled rhetoric, endlessly rehearsing the politics of grievance, appealed to people’s worst instincts. His nickname, Trump of the Tropics, was well deserved.
Bolsonaro’s term will be remembered not for achievements but for the destruction he wreaked, most infamously in the Amazon rainforest. Deforestation increased by 60% as he defied the environmentalist and climate consensus. The pandemic was met by similar bungling and denialism. Up to 700,000 Brazilians died.
For all his misdeeds, Bolsonaro, again like Trump, retains high levels of support. He attracted 49% of the vote in the autumn, losing narrowly to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. With typical ill grace, he is boycotting today’s inauguration of his leftist successor while vowing to make a comeback.
Lula and his new government face a daunting task to put Brazil back together again. They have already chalked up one success: seeing off sporadic but determined attempts by well-armed Bolsonaristas to violently overturn the election result. Far-right Capitol Hill-style coup plots have come to nothing. Nevertheless, security around Lula and the inauguration ceremony will be intense.
The new president is moving quickly. Sônia Guajajara, a celebrated Amazon defender, will lead Brazil’s first-ever ministry for Indigenous peoples – Lula’s response to the waves of violence and land invasions of the Bolsonaro era. Marina Silva returns as environment minister, committed to halting and reversing deforestation. But the bigger picture for Brazil is grim, the outlook problematic.
“After a four-year mandate, we find the government in penury,” Lula said last week. A transition report warned public services were near collapse. It predicted “serious consequences for health, education, environmental preservation, job and income generation and the fight against poverty and hunger” without swift remedial action. Yet as the right awaits its chance, failure is not an option.
On top of all this, Lula has an especially urgent, unifying goal: reclaiming the yellow Brazil football shirt from the Bolsonaristas, who co-opted it as a partisan symbol of rightwing nationalism. Pelé would surely cheer him on.
