UNHAPPY HOSTS

Behind the spectacle of the Olympic Games in Brazil lies a battered and demoralized population.

Three billion people worldwide were expected to watch Friday night’s opening ceremony at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games. In addition, more than 80,000 Brazilians, visitors and athletes were there in person in Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Maracana Stadium.

But expected to be missing in action was the man who almost single-handedly won the Olympics for Brazil — former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, once regarded as the saviour of his country.

Now facing potential corruption charges, he announced last week that he would boycott the opening ceremony. And so did his successor and ally, suspended president Dilma Rousseff.

Their announcement came as no surprise to most Brazilians. The euphoria of winning the 2016 Games seven years ago has long vanished.

For the most part, polls suggest that Brazilians are unhappy hosts. Beyond the athletic exuberance of these Olympic Games lies a battered and demoralized country.

Although still South America’s most influential country and one of the world biggest democracies, Brazil is undergoing a profound economic and political crisis. And it is the rise and fall of Lula, as he is known, that embodies the depth of that crisis.

Lula came to office in 2002 as the first leftist leader in Brazil in decades. He remained as president for eight years with remarkably high popularity ratings. Barred from running for a third term, Lula left the presidency in 2010.

During his time in office, his government pumped billions of dollars into social programs that benefited tens of millions of Brazilians. He raised Brazil’s international profile and oversaw the longest period of growth in decades.

It was the euphoria of these reforms that persuaded Lula to go to London in 2009 and lobby the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro. When the announcement was made, reporters described how he ran around the room bestowing hugs and kisses on everyone, with a Brazilian flag draped over his shoulders.

At the time, Brazil was regarded as one of the world’s most important emerging economies, and Lula was well loved in the developing world. In 2010, shortly after winning the 2016 Games, he visited the Gulf region and came to Qatar. He toured the Al Jazeera news headquarters in Doha while I was working there, and told us the 2016 Olympics in Rio would be seen as a “crowning achievement” in Brazil’s rise to global power.

Still revered by most Brazilians, Lula had a spectacular political rise. In the 1970s, while the country was in the grips of a military dictatorship, he was the brash, outspoken leader of Brazil’s large Mineworkers’ Union. Without apparent fear, he kept challenging the country’s military rulers.

During Lula’s visit to Al Jazeera in 2010, I reminded him of an incident involving him in the city of Sao Paulo in 1979. CBC correspondent Brian Stewart and I were in Brazil at the time preparing a profile of Lula.

At a huge, high-profile rally of mineworkers, his microphone suddenly broke down and he turned to us for help. We provided him with the only microphone we had, emblazoned with a bright red “CBC News” logo on it. It must have mystified his Brazilian audience.

Since Lula left office, Brazil’s economy has crashed and some analysts partly blame the large public spending during his tenure as president. Widespread corruption involving Brazil’s oil giant Petrobras is also cited as a key reason for the country’s state of crisis.

Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s hand-picked successor, was suspended in April by Brazil’s House of Representatives. She faces an impeachment trial in the weeks following the end of the Olympic Games. Rousseff is not accused of corruption herself, but of allowing it to happen.

For his part, Lula has just been ordered by a federal court to stand trial for obstruction of justice. He is separately under investigation for possibly receiving favours from companies linked to the corruption at Petrobras.

That is the Brazilian backdrop to this year’s Rio Olympics. An economy in free fall. A suspended president undergoing impeachment. And Brazil’s most popular politician, Lula, facing criminal prosecution.

Among Brazilians, support for the Rio Olympic Games has dropped from 92 per cent in 2009 to less than 50 per cent now.

Regardless of how many wonderful athletic achievements we will witness in the next 16 days, that mood will likely only get worse. Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, teaches journalism at Ryerson University. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com.