Brazil: Ciro Gomes (center left) presidential candidate

The center-left party of Ciro Gomes announced on Friday January 21 its candidacy for the October presidential election in Brazil for which the polls predict a second round between the left-wing ex-president Lula and the far-right incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro. .

Read alsoBrazil: between Bolsonaro and Lula, little room for centrists

Gomes, 64, former governor of the state of Ceara (northeast) and leader of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), had climbed to 3rd place in the 2018 presidential election with 12.5% ​​of the vote.

in Brazil and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 620,000 lives there,

of the government, accused Gomes at the close of the national convention of the PDT, which appointed him to Brasília.

An extremely polarized Brazil

Nine months before the presidential election, the polls see a duel looming between Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president from 2003 to 2010 – credited by the Datafolha institute with 48% of voting intentions – and Jair Bolsonaro, at 22%.

Neither of the two sworn enemies has yet officially announced their candidacy.

In an extremely polarized Brazil, a third way that would see the emergence of a candidacy for a unified center does not currently exist.

Datafolha credited, still in December, Ciro Gomes with 7% of the voting intentions, behind the former anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro (center right, 9%) and ahead of the governor of Sao Paulo João Doria (also center right, 4%).

Read alsoBrazil heavily hit by the Covid ends the year down

Former Minister of National Integration of Lula (2003-2006) whose support he was before

, Gomes, an impulsive politician familiar with sensational declarations and member of a powerful family clan in the northeast, will participate in his fourth presidential race.

He wants to refocus his left-wing party and has already belonged to formations much more to the right on the political spectrum, such as the PSDB of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in the 1990s, or the MDB of Michel Temer, in the 1980s.