Brazil elections 2022: Lula da Silva closes alliance and expands it to eight parties

The former Brazilian president and candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, formalized a broad alliance of eight parties to dispute the October elections, although he did not resolve a political crisis in Rio de Janeiro; while the president Jair Bolsonaro will seek reelection with the support of a coalition of three groups.

Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro appear first and second in polls that place Ciro Gomes in third place, who today presented as his vice-presidential candidate the Afro-descendant lawyer Ana Paula Matos.

“More than 33 million people go hungry every day; the sacred three meals that we guaranteed in our governments no longer reach the homes of 125 million people,” said da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT, left).

“The irresponsibility of this government has no limits; the current president dealt with the pandemic criminally; he is directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. A part of those deaths are on the president’s back because of his denialist behavior”, said Lula da Silva, convicted of one of the biggest corruption scandals in Brazil, in São Paulo this Friday.

The national leadership of the PT confirmed yesterday in São Paulo the incorporation to the electoral front of the center-right party Avante, whose presidential candidate, André Janones, desisted from contesting the first magistracy in the elections of October 2.

The adhesion of Avante, with 2% in the polls of voting intention, “is essential for the movement we are building in defense of our democracy and our people,” declared the head of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann.

The PT leader emphasized the “broad” character of the alliance, including left-wing forces such as the PT and the Communist Party of Brazil to other center-right forces such as Avante and Solidarity.

This broad alliance is no stranger to crises such as the one that persisted on Friday night in the district of Rio de Janeiro.

The PT could not prevent Alessandro Molon of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB, center-left) from being a candidate for senator for the federal district of Rio de Janeiro, where there is a virtual fracture in the coalition.

Rio de Janeiro is Brazil’s third-largest electoral district by the number of voters but the second in political importance.

And above all, it is a political battleground of special importance because it is the stronghold of President Bolsonaro and two of his sons, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and Councilman Carlos Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro reiterated yesterday the realization of a military parade on September 7, Independence Day, in front of the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, to which he invited his thousands of Carioca supporters.

While Lula da Silva could not soothe the internal tensions between the PT and PSB in Rio de Janeiro, President Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL, right) achieved a solid coalition that will have as a senatorial candidate the ex-football star Romario, who appears at the top of the polls.

The fact is that with the end of the party conventions this Friday, da Silva’s ticket was confirmed, seconded by Geraldo Alckmin of the PSB, while Bolsonaro will have as vice-president the retired general and former Minister of Defense, Walter Souza Braga Netto, both from the PL.

The Bolsonaro-Braga Netto ticket will be supported by three right-wing forces, the PL, the Progressive Party (PP), and the Republican Party (PR).

Meanwhile, the former Minister of Finance and presidential candidate for the PDT, Ciro Gomes, presented today, just before the expiration of the legal deadline, the candidacy of vice-president Ana Paula Matos, who is the vice-mayor of Bahia state capital, Salvador.

Gomes, third in the polls, proposes a third way between Lula’s left and Bolsonaro’s right, as does the candidate Simone Tebet, placed fourth, and candidate for the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB, conservative) of former president Michel Temer.

Tebet heads the only all-female ticket, which will run Mara Gabrilli, from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB, center right), of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, as vice-presidential candidate.

With information from ANSA