Gerard Di Trolio asks why commentators keep casting Canadian prime minister Mark Carney as the democratic world’s standard-bearer. His alternative is Brazil’s Lula: a former union leader who treats social equality and international solidarity as part of democracy itself.
The comparison turns on more than biography:
- After the 2023 attack on Brazil’s government buildings, Lula’s government pursued accountability and created a body to monitor threats to democracy.
- Lula argues that hunger and poverty weaken citizenship; voting rights alone cannot make an unequal society democratic.
- The essay contrasts Lula’s preference for diplomacy and opposition to the blockade of Cuba with Carney’s equivocation on the Iran war and Canada’s limited response to Gaza.
This isn’t a blank check for Lula. Di Trolio questions his restrictive fiscal framework, the Brazilian left’s succession problem, and threats to free expression in anti-disinformation policy.
The useful challenge is to judge democratic leadership by what it does for ordinary people and for peace, not by how comfortably it reassures the global establishment.