Brazilian President Lula da Silva had an awkward moment when he inaugurated an unfinished university on Friday and a student asked him if he would finish the job and when. The incident angered Lula, who did not even respond, but student Jamil Fernandes, a third-year law student, said that the project Lula was inaugurating, the new campus of Unifesp, the Federal University of the State of São Paulo in Osasco, next to São Paulo, was still only half finished, and, undaunted by the reaction of ministers and other members of the presidential delegation, he expressed his displeasure to the press.
“The work is not finished. What is being opened today is only half of the planned work. Among other things, there is a lack of student housing, restaurants, classrooms. And the university has only 8% black students, we must tell the truth,” said Jamil, dissatisfied with the pomp and circumstance in which the project was opened, which, in fact, will not be truly ready for several years, as well as Lula’s speech about young black people now having the opportunity to receive higher education in a quality public school.
As with the new Unifesp campus, Lula has spent the last few weeks traveling around Brazil inaugurating works with allies running in October’s local elections, some of which were similarly unfinished, while others were already in operation and were simply being reopened to gain popularity for Lula’s party and the candidates he supports. After the embarrassment and irritation of Lula’s intolerance for criticism, current Finance Minister and former Education Minister Fernando Haddad responded, looking directly at Jamil, that a university, one way or another, is always unfinished, it is never really ready because it grows every year