Buda Mendes via Getty Images
BRAZIL – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 76, is embarking on a new presidential election. The old lion of the Brazilian left launched this Saturday, May 7, his candidacy for the October election to “rebuild” the country, after the “irresponsible and criminal” management of Jair Bolsonaro.
In front of his 4,000 supporters in Sao Paulo, the former Brazilian president said: « We are all ready to work not only for victory, but for the reconstruction and transformation of Brazil, which will be more difficult than the election itself. .”
Twelve years after leaving power with a stratospheric approval rate (87%), the former trade unionist, who still has no successor on the left, will therefore run for a third term. The announcement of this sixth presidential candidate was an open secret.
Bolsonaro left behind in all polls
For lack of a candidate who would make a third way viable, Lula is the only one who can beat Jair Bolsonaro (67) at the polls, whom he distances in all the polls, but who seems ready to do anything to retain power.
“What do we want? The Brazil of democracy or authoritarianism? The choice has never been so simple”, chanted Lula in front of the crowd who cheered him to cries of “Lula, warrior of the Brazilian people”. He spoke for about fifty minutes in front of a giant screen showing the Brazilian flag, a symbol that the bolsonarists had appropriated.
According to Lula, “Brazil is too big to be relegated to pariah status”. He repeated several times that he claimed to “restore the sovereignty” of the country, in the face of “the government’s irresponsible and criminal policy”.
Unlike the big meetings of his heyday, where he showed all his aura as a tribune, Lula, navy suit and open shirt collar, was content to read his speech, looking at the public relatively little and avoiding big flights. His relatives advised him to show a calm and reassuring face, after recent slippages which caused controversy.
During an interview with the magazine Time this week, he created controversy by attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He called the latter a “good humorist […] who puts on a show” and who would be “as responsible” for the war in his country as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The former turner-miller was also singled out for his controversial statements on abortion, the police or the middle classes.
In a bid to show a sacred union to beat Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s running mate Geraldo Alckmin, former center-right governor of Sao Paulo, said in his video conference speech that « no divergence » could prevent it from fulfilling its “mission, the defense of democracy”.
If he does not have the charisma of Lula, Geraldo Alckmin, who was beaten by the left-wing ex-president in the second round of the ballot in 2006, is there to reassure the voter of the center, of the moderate right, and the business community.
Lula’s Revenge
Tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, it was from his home, by videoconference, that he participated in the launch of the campaign. « Lula is today the only one who can forge an alliance for a great democratic front », assures the lawyer Alexandre Pupo, 29, who attended the speeches with enthusiasm.
From next week, Lula will go on campaign and criss-cross the country ―as president-candidate Bolsonaro has been doing for months― starting with the state of Minas Gerais (south-east). “If he really wants to win the election, Lula must go to the streets, like Bolsonaro, be closer to the voters,” Sylvio Costa, founder of the Congresso em foco site, told AFP.
The presidential election of October 2 and 30 will bear witness to the extreme polarization of the immense emerging country of 213 million inhabitants. The former trade unionist believes that his legacy ―reduction of inequalities, social policies, promotion of education― has been “destroyed, dismantled”.
“I believe I can do more and do better than what I have already done,” he told Time. This new candidacy has a taste of revenge for the ex-president, whose banishment from the race in 2018 had allowed the easy election of Jair Bolsonaro.
While imprisoned for a year and a half for corruption until November 2019, the political career of the ex-metalworker seemed to be over. Until the Supreme Court overturned his convictions in March 2021.
See also on The HuffPost: The Rio Carnival is back and with it its glitter and anti-racism messages