How true is that? I'm not that familiar with the politics of Brazil, but I was under the impression that Lula was fairly well regarded in leftist spaces. What reasons to people have to call Lula a Neolib? Or did I just run into a pocket of ultra-lefties?
Fair. I don't have as much criticism for soc dems in global south countries though. The primary criticism of social democrats in Western capitalist and imperial core countries is that you still have economies that are fundamentally built on imperial exploitation, so building off of that to fund social spending programs is just a more even distribution of the spoils of imperialism. That critique isn't as relevant in the context of global south countries which are the targets of imperialism.
It doesn't matter, he's a socdem in a country about to become fully fascist, he's the only hope of the socialist project in Brasil
I don't think Lula himself would consider himself a socialist
In part Lula is also liked because the alternative is Operation Condor 2.0, except with evangelical characteristics
I just read that Subcomandante Marcos viewed him as a traitor to the cause, but I can't speak to any of that personally