Lula’s first day in power: brake on access to weapons, privatizations and protection of the Amazon

The President of Brazil, Lula da Silvarevoked regulations that facilitated access to weapons during the administration of Jair Bolsonarohalted privatization processes and reestablished measures to combat deforestation in the Amazon, among his first government measures.

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In the first 24 hours after the inauguration ceremony on Sunday in Brasilia, the leftist president began to fulfill some of his main electoral promises, after defeating the far-right Bolsonaro.

Weapons

Lula decided, through a decree, to suspend for the next 60 days the granting of new licenses for civilian hunters, shooters and collectors (CACs), a category that multiplied its members with Bolsonaro’s easing and last July brought together an arsenal of more than one million weapons, almost triple the 350,600 registered in December 2018, according to the Sou da Paz Institute.

The decree also reduced the limits for the purchase of weapons and ammunition and temporarily suspended the registration of new shooting clubs and schools, which have also proliferated in the last four years.

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In the decision, Lula created a working group to prepare new regulations for the Disarmament Statute, a law promoted by his first government in 2003 to disarm the civilian population.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrives at the Planalto Palace with a group representing various segments of Brazilian society after being sworn in as the new president. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres).

The new measure “seeks to close the irresponsible period of ‘anything goes’, incompatible with the Constitution,” Flávio Dino, Lula’s Minister of Justice and Public Security, celebrated on Twitter.

amazon

The leftist signed a series of decrees that try to strengthen the protection of the Amazon, whose average annual destruction grew 75% compared to the previous decade during the Bolsonaro administration, and other biomes.

Lula instituted a “permanent inter-ministerial commission for the prevention and control of deforestation”, at the same time that he ordered the reactivation of the Amazon Fund, created in 2008 to attract donations for investments in forest preservation.

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The Amazon Fund had been frozen since 2019 due to differences between the governments of Norway and Germany, the main donors, with the Bolsonaro administration over the management of the funds.

Norway announced in November that it will resume contributions and on the eve of Lula’s inauguration in Brasilia, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told his country’s media that he will release 35 million euros for the fund.

Lula also revoked a decree that allowed mining in indigenous and environmental protection areas.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his wife Rosangela Silva, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and his wife María Lucía Ribeiro drive in a convertible car towards Congress, on Jan. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/André Penner).

Family Bag

The new president signed a resolution to maintain the Bolsa Familia social assistance program at 600 reais – about 113 dollars – a promise achieved after a laborious negotiation with Congress in December to guarantee exceptional resources.

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In addition, he signed a readjustment of the minimum wage with an increase of 1,212 reais to 1,320 -249 dollars-, a decision that had not yet been published on Monday.

privatizations

Lula revoked the privatization processes of eight state companies, including Petrobras and Correos, initiated during the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

During the campaign, the leftist criticized the privatizations and warned that no new state-owned companies would be sold during his administration.

confidentiality

The president determined that the numerous decisions by Bolsonaro that imposed confidentiality on public administration information and documents be reviewed within 30 days, described as a “regression on the policy of public transparency.”

The far-right ex-president declared the confidentiality of public documents for 100 years on several occasions as a strategy to deny access to information, for example about his vaccination card or visits to the former first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro.

Source: Elcomercio