President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is awake and conscious after undergoing an emergency brain surgery that adds to the delicate political moment he faces in Brazil.
Lula will stay in the intensive care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital for 48 hours as a precaution, and should be able to return to Brasilia early next week, Doctor Roberto Kalil told journalists on Tuesday.
The 79-year-old president felt headaches Monday and a brain scan showed an intracranial hemorrhage resulting from an accident he had suffered at home in October, doctors said. He was immediately flown to Sao Paulo for surgery, which went on without complications, according to his medical team.
“He’s now stable, talking normally and eating,” Kalil said at the Sirio-Libanes hospital where Lula is being treated. “He had no brain injury.”
Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who was supposed to attend an event in the state of Sao Paulo, returned to Brasilia to host Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico. He will represent Lula as vice president as no formal power transfer has happened.
Lula’s health has been the subject of speculation since he suffered the fall in October. At that time, his doctor said the president had recovered and at no point had lost consciousness or had become disoriented.
Nevertheless, that accident led to the cancellation of a trip to the BRICS summit in Russia and another to the APEC summit in Peru. It also raised questions of whether he would be fit enough to host the Group of 20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro in November.
In the lead-up to that event, Lula declined to fly by plane — including to meet President Joe Biden in the Amazon — and he also presided over a chaotic summit in Rio where he didn’t hold a habitual news conference at the end.
Mounting Problems
Since returning to Brasilia, Lula has been busy discussing a package of spending cuts needed to appease investors who are worried about the deterioration of the country’s finances. After much resistance by the leftist president, the plan proposed by Finance Minister Fernando Haddad was submitted to Congress, though it failed to boost financial market sentiment.
The Brazilian real recently sold off past the level of 6 per dollar for the first time in history. It’s currently the worst-performing major currency since the beginning of the year, having weakened 20% in the period.
Lula has been directly involved in political negotiations about the fiscal plan, holding a meeting with the heads of the both houses on Congress on Monday to push for the swift approval of the measures.
Fiscal uncertainty may increase in Brazil if he remains hospitalized for too long, according to former central bank director Tony Volpon.
“Without him, nobody decides anything,” Volpon said. “This is a government that heavily relies on Lula’s decision-making process.”
The Brazilian real rallied as much as 1.1% when markets opened in Sao Paulo amid reports that the government is making a push to approve the fiscal measures in congress.
With inflation expectations soaring and the central bank expected to raise interest rates for a third consecutive time on Wednesday, Lula’s challenges seem to be only growing. He’s also expected to host the COP30 climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belem next year, while also dealing with the likely opposition of Donald Trump. The US president-elect has been a strong supporter of Lula’s main political rival, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
