Former President Lula da Silva, this Tuesday in a political act with athletes in São Paulo. Fernando Bizerra (EFE)
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the favorite to win Brazil’s presidential election next Sunday, with a background of half a century in politics but no government plan on paper. And that reaps an avalanche of allegations. Because the economic crisis is still wreaking havoc, despite slight signs of improvement, and the country’s best leader has not explained in detail how, for example, he intends to curb inflation – the priority of the poor – or create jobs or the interests of environmentalists with combine those of agriculture. Nor has he given any indication of who he would like to head the Economy Ministry.
Left Lula is a skilled negotiator. Now is the time to rally support across a very broad spectrum. Only if he wins will he take care of these matters. Five days before the elections, she keeps adding unexpected adhesions, such as that of Joaquim Barbosa, a former Supreme Court judge who judged the first major corruption scandal of the Workers’ Party (PT), the Mensalão, or of Xuxa, the former Queen of the Brazilian television.
A group of economists who describe themselves as unrelated to the PT released a manifesto this Tuesday in favor of the useful first-round vote, reports the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. The signatories claim that despite “serious discrepancies with the policies implemented by PT governments in the past, Lula is the only valid option to defeat the current government, which represents a greater backwardness”. A handful of former finance ministers from centre-right governments ahead of PT leaders have also announced their support for the progressive candidate.
But the ambiguity Lula is so comfortable with is causing uneasiness in certain quarters as Election Day approaches and polls show he’s holding a comfortable lead.
Lula leads a very broad coalition of ten parties, which he always portrays as a grand front for democracy and against the harm and threats posed by current President Jair Bolsonaro. So he recruited Geraldo Alckmin, one of his main opponents for much of his political career, as number two. The former governor of São Paulo belongs to the centre-right party and has very good ties to economic power and the most conservative sectors.
Many voters explain that if they have chosen to vote for Lula against Bolsonaro and ignore criticism of his management, it is because Alckmin is the guarantee that his economic policies and others will not break orthodoxy.
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Faced with a likely victory, the editorial board of the newspaper O Globo wondered last Sunday: “Which Lula will rule? The one who elected Geraldo Alckim as Vice President? (…) Or the one who turns back and torpedoes the reforms and privatizations? Eight days before the elections, no one knows,” says one of Brazil’s most widely read newspapers. Five days before the elections on Tuesday, Lula will star at a dinner in Sao Paulo with a hundred business people organized by the Sphere think tank.
Just days ago, the other major newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo, accused the candidate for a third term of wanting a “blank check” from the most reluctant electorate to climb to power without revealing key details about his plans. Indeed, the former president has insisted that the next Commerce Secretary will be a politician with the waist to negotiate with the powerful Congress. But he gave few details on labor reform, the spending ceiling, the role of the state in economic policy and other relevant issues. And sometimes he walks a fine line to avoid labor, like when he’s wooing environmentalists and farming entrepreneurs in the same week.
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