RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – He had already warned, contrary to his usual practice, when he had finished reading a meticulously prepared speech. “They don’t know what it’s like to face a 74-year-old man in love,” former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proclaimed in front of an audience on a stage where he was flanked by the ruling Workers’ Party and his girlfriend, a PT militant.
Contrary to those who hoped for a conciliatory tone towards the center, the newly freed Lula, at the Workers’ Party (PT) convention, invested this weekend in strengthening ahard left profile to oppose the government of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula reinvigorated the Brazilian opposition, which had barely been able to raise its head since the retired military officer won the elections. “To those who criticize or fear division, we must have the courage to tell them: yes, we are the opposite of Bolsonaro. We can’t remain on top of the wall or halfway along the road,” he proclaimed at the opening of the party’s event this weekend in São Paulo.
It was his first eminently political speech after the emotional mass gatherings that he led since he regained his freedom two weeks ago, after 580 days in prison for corruption. In São Paulo, the event took place in a closed auditorium.
Lula announced the ground on which he intends to fight alongside his successor, Dilma Rousseff, and Fernando Haddad, whom he appointed as a candidate when Justice vetoed his presidential candidacy in 2018. “We are and will be opposed to a government that tears up workers’ rights, destroys the environment and attacks the LGBT population,” he said. He also reacted to those who label a politician as radical, who ruled with a much more pragmatic program than any of his critics feared: “Yes, we are radicals in the defense of sovereignty, the free public university, and the Unified Health System”.
Lula’s release – a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision that convicts can only be imprisoned when all appeals have been exhausted, which also benefited 5,000 prisoners – represented a significant power boost for a left-wing that is clearly confused, while Bolsonaro and his ministers monopolize public debate with their decisions and pronouncements.
Although the two convictions against him prevent him from being a candidate, the PT is confident that the Supreme Court will overturn both cases for lack of impartiality by then-Judge Sérgio Moro, who doffed his judicial toga to become Bolsonaro’s minister of justice. “We are very much alive, with our heads held high. We are willing to fight,” also emphasized Deputy Gleisi Hoffman, re-elected PT president.
Presence in the municipal campaign
The left-wing and Lula have several major obstacles ahead of them: the ingrained anti-leftism that catalyzed Bolsonaro after four PT governments, Lula’s pending court cases, and his age. Although the PT has the largest parliamentary group, with ten percent of seats in Congress, it needs allies to win an election. Lula has already said this in his speech on Friday: “Saving the country from destruction is not a task for a single party,” he said before the leaders of PCdoB and PSOL, the party of murdered city councilor Marielle Franco, left-wing leaders alongside the much-loved and much-hated Lula.
The crucial question will be whether the PT will look only towards the left or also towards the center in search of allies for next year’s municipal elections, before the 2022 presidential elections. Internally, Lula has been advocating for isolated party candidacies, but his presence as head of election campaigns is an asset being disputed by allies. Lula’s presence on the stage may be decisive, particularly in Brazil’s Northeast.
On Monday, he welcomed Deputy Marcelo Freixo (PSOL), a pre-candidate for the mayoralty of Rio de Janeiro. An alliance with the leftists is expected by Freixo, because the PT has not had a competitive candidate in the second-largest city in the country for years. The communists expect the same gesture in cities like São Luís, under the influence of Governor Flavio Din, and in Porto Alegre, Manuela D’ Ávila’s territory.
President Bolsonaro’s decision to abandon his party, the PSL, could favor the opposition in the coming months, as it is unclear that the party Bolsonaro has just formed, the Alliance for Brazil, which focuses a far-right profile, will be able to follow the requisite procedures to be officialized in time to wage the battle for government and municipal elections in October.
Although Lula is confident he will be acquitted in the two cases for which he has been sentenced to a total of 20 years imprisonment, he faces at least six more lawsuits. “As I believe in God and in the justice of this country, we will defeat this farce,” he said in his speech. “It is a matter of patience,” he said.
Lula, who in the next presidential elections will be 77 years old, has yet to clarify whether he would be a candidate if he were able to enter the dispute. He is aware that age is an obstacle. That is why he coined a phrase that he has been repeating since he left his cell in the Curitiba police station: “I have the experience of 70 years, the energy of 30 and the eagerness of 20”. He needed four attempts to become the first worker president in 2003 in a country as unequal and classed as Brazil.
The leader of the PT endlessly thanked his militants and followers who supported him during his 19-month prison term, but he also looked abroad at the changing scenario in the region. He thanked President-elect Alberto Fernández for his support, congratulated Chileans who are protesting against Piñera, praised the support of Cuban Raúl Castro and remembered the Bolivians, but also sent a message to those who want to hold on to power. “Every time a political leader begins to believe himself to be indispensable, a dictator begins to grow within him.”
Source: El País