LULA. The left-wing candidate hopes to win the presidential election in Brazil on October 30. Lula tries to seduce the abstainers and calls on Bolsonaro to accept the results of the polls when the polls give him the lead.
[Mis à jour le 26 octobre 2022 à 15h29] Lula’s tone becomes urgent a few days before the second round of the presidential election. After saying he was “sure” of winning the ballot last week, the candidate is changing his strategy. At a press conference on October 24 in Sao Paulo, the leftist presented his victory as the only possibility to protect democracy in Brazil: “This election will define whether we want to live in a democracy or under chaos, neo-fascism. That’s what’s at stake. I hope people will choose democracy.”
Of course, Lula also made his victory in the election the most plausible scenario on several occasions and even tried to put up barriers to a possible challenge to the results by Bolsonaro, who said at the start of the campaign that he was ready to deny the outcome of the ballot if it did not suit him. The outgoing president nevertheless rounded the corners as the vote approached and assured that he will accept the result of the presidential election if “nothing abnormal” is spotted in the vote count. To insist on this path Lula went there with his remark in front of the crowds in Sao Paulo: “I hope that if I win the election, he will have a moment of wisdom and will call me to recognize the result”. The Workers’ Party candidate took the opportunity to show himself as an example, he who lost the presidential election three times before being elected for two consecutive terms from 2003 to 2010. “I lost three elections”, said reminded Lula. “Every time I lost I went home. I didn’t swear and didn’t blame anyone but myself,” he said.
But before projecting himself as the winner of the presidential election in Brazil, Lula must gather enough votes. The results of the polls give him the lead but with only 4 to 6 points in advance and the politician would like to widen the gap. Since the second half of the campaign between the two rounds, Lula has been courting the abstainers and the undecided who could tip the balance on one side or the other. Not only to seduce, the candidate wants the vote in his favor to be obvious, according to him it is necessary “to convince the people who did not go to vote in the first round” and “to try to win each vote, to so that it is easy for people to go and vote”.
If Lula was able to have up to 21 points ahead of Bolsonaro in the polls at the very beginning of the presidential campaign, for the intervening rounds the scores are much tighter. The gap between the two candidates is no more than a handful of points according to the latest surveys, including those of PoderData and of Genial/Quaest published on October 26 which credit Lula with 53% of valid voting intentions against 47% for Bolsonaro.
Facing Bolsonaro, what strategy for Lula?
If Bolsonaro has from the start of the campaign adopted an aggressive tone in particular with regard to Lula, the former head of state has decided to play the same game by multiplying the attacks against his opponent. First, the politician mainly attacked Bolsonaro’s poor record, rightly, to defend his candidacy. But the more the campaign advances, the more Lula targets his attacks on the personality of the incumbent president and the criticisms increase, going so far as to become very serious accusations. Lula first called his rival a demon to reach the 80% of Christians of the Brazilian population, without too much success, but it was these last two attacks which occurred a fortnight after the election that caused a lot of ink to flow. . Lula accused Bolosonaro of cannibalism and pedophilia, each time relying on excerpts from an interview with the outgoing president, one dating from 2017 and the other from an interview given on October 14, 2022.
For the accusations of cannibalism, the remarks of the far-right man were hijacked by Lula’s team, as for the other reproach, it is based on the interpretation of the ambiguous speech made by the Head of State in a podcast in line. Addressing the subject of the prostitution of certain young foreign girls in Brazil, Bolsonaro declared that between him and young and pretty Venezuelans of 14 or 15 years “a climate is painted”. The expression could mean that there was a physical attraction between the sexagenarian and the teenage girls. The slippage hurt Bolsonaro but Lula was also sanctioned by the Superior Electoral Tribunal for peddling heavy accusations against his rival without tangible proof.
Although the strategy shows limited effects, Lula should continue to employ it until the end of the campaign and play both on the exacerbated criticism of his rival coupled with speeches praising his previous results. It should be noted that the Brazil of today is radically different from that of the first decade of the 21st century and that Lula will not be able to content himself with the same policy to win or to govern if he is elected.
Biography
Who is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva?
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is known as the first left-wing Brazilian president under the New Republic, a regime in place since 1985. Elected for the first time on October 27, 2002 and reappointed as president in October 2006, the politician was installed in power on January 1, 2003 and remained there until January 1, 2011. Lula is a metalworker by profession and got involved in politics by participating in the founding of the Workers’ Party (PT) inspired by socialism, in 1980 Before which he was an important player in Brazilian trade unionism since 1975 to the point of having been repeatedly confronted with the power of the military dictatorship. He represented the left party in various presidential elections and after three failures in 1989, 1994 and 1998, he was elected on his fourth attempt.
Under Lula’s tenure, Brazil’s economic situation improved, in particular thanks to the austerity policy launched by his predecessors, which achieved its objectives in 2003. On the other hand, it is to Lula da Silva that Brazil owes social progress such as the creation of “Bolsa Familia” family allowances, a pillar of the fight against poverty. He also launched programs to make medicines and basic foodstuffs accessible to the poorest. Several investments to improve living conditions in the favelas and develop housing assistance are also his work.
After his two terms and while he was appointed minister by President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, Lula is suspected of corruption and money laundering. Doubts which lead to the suspension of his mandate as minister by the courts. Two years later, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sentenced to twelve years in prison for corruption in the Petrobras case, named after the oil company involved in the scandal, by judge Sergio Moro. Lula is also stripped of his right of eligibility. In 2021, the Supreme Federal Court annuls the conviction for formal defect and the politician recovers his rights which allows him to return to politics.
Lula, elected president of Brazil for the third time?
Being President of the Federal Republic of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has already experienced. For eight years, from 2003 to 2010, the left-wing man and former metallurgist governed the country and made many happy, as evidenced by his re-election and his popularity rating when he was forced to give way to another. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 limits to two the number of consecutive mandates achievable by a president, on the other hand, once the alternation has been respected, nothing prevents a former head of state from returning to the charge to try to recover the presidency and that did Lula. If he had been able, the politician would have gotten back in the saddle sooner, but in 2014 his successor Dilma Rousseff was still on the trail and in 2018 his conviction and imprisonment for corruption deprived him of the presidential election. Suffice to say that in 2022, Lula is enjoying his return to politics, especially since he does not seem to have lost the sympathy or the vote of his voters.
Lula hopes to finally seize the opportunity to be elected president of the Federative Republic of Brazil for the third time. He would thus become the first politician of the New Republic to have this honor.
Lula has always been loyal to the Workers’ Party (PT) and for good reason, he was one of the initiators of the movement in 1980 when the resistance was set up to put an end to the military dictatorship. It was also through the creation of the PT that the former metallurgist, who was very active in trade unionism, made his entry into the political world. The will of Lula, and many others, behind the creation of the political formation was to offer a new independent and socialist political path in the face of the dictatorial regime and the only tolerated opposition party.
Lula not only to participate in the foundation of the PT was the president of the party for fourteen years from 1980 to 1994. The Workers’ Party which was in power between 2003 and 2018 is accused of having taken part in corruption cases when he was dominant in government. PT politicians were taking bribes from big business against the issuance of government contracts according to the findings of the Carwash investigation. Lula was part of these politicians involved in various cases and it is in particular the scandal with the company Petrobras which will be worth to him to be condemned and imprisoned. The former head of state, for his part, never fully acknowledged the role of the Workers’ Party in these various corruption cases.
Who is Lula’s wife?
These are a name and a face that it is impossible to pass by without noticing them during the Brazilian presidential campaign, those of Lula’s wife: Rosangela “Janja” Silva. The now retired sociologist has been as active as her husband, going on stage on her husband’s arm at each meeting. Lula’s wife plays a central role in the campaign: from the management of her husband’s agency to the defense of certain political messages, in particular with her known commitment to the defense of women.
If Rosangela and Lula are inseparable, their story is still young although passionate. They met in 2017 during a charity football match and immediately had a lot in common, in particular political commitment: Rosangela has been an activist of the Workers’ Party, co-founded by Lula, since she at 17 years old. Since then it is together that they lead the political fight.