Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected on October 30 and has pledged to undo much of the environmental damage wrought by outgoing far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. But Lula’s decision to fly to Egypt in a Gulfstream G600 owned by a health industry magnate was criticized by opponents and supporters alike. “If he really travels [a] private jet is a careless mistake he should have avoided,” said a former minister. “There are things you can’t do as president, even before you’re sworn in.” Lula’s spokesman said he would not comment on the matter, but the vice president-elect said the plane’s owner, Jose Seripieri Jr., was accompanying Lula to Egypt instead of lending him the plane. Lula’s transition coordinator maintained that he had committed no crime. “Lula is not yet the president of the republic, he does not use government aircraft,” Wellington Dias said on the interview show Roda Viva. “So there’s no rule preventing him from getting a lift.” Dias pointed out that Lula cannot travel on commercial airlines because of the significant possibility of harassment or attack by far-right radicals, some of whom have openly expressed a desire to see him dead. But the controversy, which comes just two weeks after Lula beat Bolsonaro in the second round of elections since Brazil’s military dictators left power in 1985, was evidence that he will enjoy little or no honeymoon period. Lula does not take office until Jan. 1, but last week the Brazilian real lost value against the dollar and the stock market posted its biggest daily drop in nearly a year after he gave a speech saying he would rule for the poor, not financial markets. Both recovered much of their value the next day, but it was a stark warning that the leftist leader will have little room to manoeuvre, especially with Bolsonaro forces strong in Congress and hardliners still in denial about the election result. Lula served as president between 2003 and 2011 before giving way to Labor Party colleague Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff was impeached and a corruption scandal engulfed the party, leading to Lula’s imprisonment in 2018. He was released almost two years later and the charges were dropped on a technicality, but many voters never forgave him. The furor over his trip to Egypt added to the sense of foreboding after the owner of the private jet was identified as Seripieri Junior, founder of Qualicorp, one of Brazil’s best-known private health plans. Seripiero founded Qualicorp in 1997, but left the company in 2019 and now runs another health plan called Qsaúde. He was briefly arrested in 2020 as part of an illegal campaign finance investigation. He was also an early supporter of Lula’s presidential bid, hosting dinners with other business leaders who had shown reluctance to meet with the leftist challenger.
