Former President Lula da Silva, during his speech at the electoral event this Saturday in São Paulo. CARLA CARNIEL (REUTERS)
Retirement never crossed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's mind.
Neither prison, nor his age nor his upcoming wedding have diminished his passion for doing politics.
The worker who made history by reaching the presidency of Brazil two decades ago made official yesterday in São Paulo his candidacy for the October elections in which he is the favorite to prevent the far-right Jair Bolsonaro from being re-elected.
Militants of the Workers' Party (PT), from the seven parties that have allied with him for these elections, representatives of the social movements that are so important to the Brazilian left, and trade unionists gathered to support the veteran politician and his
number two
Geraldo Alckmin.
"Without a cause, life loses meaning," Lula proclaimed in a speech that was read.
The leftist aspires to a third term to "end the irresponsible and criminal policy of this government, which puts our strategic companies up for sale, damages the environment and destroys public policies that changed the lives of millions of Brazilians."
Among those lives, that of Priscilla Rocha, 28, who arrived at the event from Pernambuco, Lula's home state, where she is an adviser to the Workers' Party (PT).
She said that the PT governments changed her life for her and her family.
“I managed to get into university.
My whole family, black, peripheral, is completely PT”, she assures and adds: “It's great that Lula has had the strength to come back”.
12 years after leaving power, Lula is making a comeback that was unthinkable a little over a year ago.
He led to the annulment of his convictions for corruption, which took him 580 days in prison.
"We are going to make the greatest peaceful revolution that the history of Brazil has seen," he promised his faithful.
But the years do not pass in vain.
Turned 76, the former president read the speech to avoid the slips that sometimes betray him.
The effects of the intense pace of recent months were noticeable, in which he has focused on forging alliances with other parties and in the States to forge a progressive front.
He now intends to embark on a tour of Brazil with a stop on the 18th to marry his girlfriend, a longtime PT militant, who accompanies him almost always.
Although the campaign won't officially start until August, the event held at a nondescript convention center a 30-minute drive from downtown São Paulo was the closest thing to an official announcement of Lula's candidacy.
Technically, it was the presentation of the Let's Go Together for Brazil
Movement
.
The former president (2003-2010) was greeted with shouts of “Lula,
guerreiro do povo brasileiro
” and “Brazil, urgently, Lula president”.
He asked his followers to seek allies, to campaign in all corners of Brazil so that "fascism is sent to the sewer of history, where it should never have been."
Restoring democracy and repairing what was destroyed by Bolsonaro are part of Lula's speech, but he dedicates the bulk of his speeches to the past.
They are nostalgic speeches with constant references to how wonderful life was when he ruled.
Of the future he speaks much less.
His main promise is to repeat the achievements of those years of economic boom in which the redistribution of income and the inclusion of the poor were the government's priority.
According to Lula, in October Brazilians will have to choose between "the Brazil of democracy or the one of authoritarianism, the Brazil of truth or the seven lies a day (as Bolsonaro says), the tolerant Brazil or the one of intolerance," he said. Lula to conclude: “Choosing has never been so easy”.
In his speech he included various nods to women, who have a very small presence in Brazilian politics, dominated by white and older men, like Lula.
She also promised to defend the environment, the blacks (who are the majority in Brazil although looking at their politicians nobody would say), the indigenous people, the LGBT movement...
Lula has been the favorite in all the polls for months, although Bolsonaro has reduced the distance in recent weeks to 15 points.
The former trade unionist is around 45% and the retired military, 30%.
Lula returns after being removed from the electoral race by the judges of the last elections in which he was also the favorite.
The UN Human Rights Committee ruled a few days ago that Lula's political rights had been violated.
Lula was this week on the cover of
Time
, but his words in the interview about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have raised blisters.
“This guy is as responsible for the war as Putin.
Because in wars there is no single culprit”, declared the politician, who promises that, if he wins the elections, “Brazil will be respected again and will once again speak face to face with powerful countries”.
Aware that only with the votes of the left it is impossible to win the elections, he has chosen a historical adversary to accompany him on that mission.
The vice-presidential candidate is conservative Geraldo Alckmin, a former governor of São Paulo and a practicing Catholic.
For decades he was one of the main figures of the great party of the Brazilian center, the PSDB, which he recently left to ally himself with Lula and other progressive parties in the name of defending democracy.
The “comrade Alckmin”, as Lula now calls him, had to intervene in the event from his home because on Friday he tested positive for covid, which raised fears that the electoral party would be delayed for the umpteenth time.
But no.
Seimour Souza, a 23-year-old from Rio de Janeiro, had this to say about the signing of Alckmin: “For me it is a bad choice from an ideological perspective, but from a practical perspective it prepares us for the next phase.
Because, if (Lula) wins, he will receive a country worse than any other government.
That is why it is very important to broaden the spectrum of political forces beyond the left.”
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