Lula explains why his popularity is languishing

There was a certain curiosity to know the reaction of the Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, to the news that all the polls registered a drop in his popularity even among those who had voted for him and among the categories of society that have always been most loyal to him. , such as women, young people and the poorest.

Lula did not wait 24 hours and responded in an interview with SBT television.

Against some who expected that the president could blame the negative results of his one-plus year in office on the media, as some members of his party, the PT, tend to do, Lula reacted with emotional intelligence.

He has not blamed anyone.

He even went so far as to say that he saw this decline in popularity as normal: “I am certain that the people of Brazil have no reason to give me one hundred percent popularity since we are still very far from what we promised.

“I know what I promised and the commitments I made.”

With a graphic image he explained: “Until now we have only prepared the land, we plowed it, we put manure on it and we buried the seeds.”

And continuing his optimism he added: “This is the year in which we will begin to reap what we sow.”

In the same interview, Lula addressed the other thorny issue of political polarization, which according to him, does not facilitate his government.

He was also optimistic: “I don't worry about the polarization of the country.

It was also like that in the past.

Now Brazil is polarized between two people, because in reality it is about two people and not two parties.”

He was referring to him and Bolsonaro, although emphasizing that in truth the far-right does not have and never had a party of his own.

He tried to create it in the first year of his government and did not succeed.

In his interview Lula was blunt: “The message I want to leave for the Brazilian people, regardless of who people vote for, what party or what religion they bet on, we are going to make this country a country where people live happily.

We are going to create more work, better salaries, more education, more culture and more pleasure.”

Lula gave a crutch and also recalled that the polarization that Brazil is experiencing and that somehow makes its Government difficult is no exception: “I think that the whole world is polarized today on all continents.”

An elegant way to indicate that their difficulty in starting with the promises made also depends on the increasing polarization of world politics between left and right, as the elections in Portugal have just demonstrated.

In his never-disguised optimism, Lula went so far as to say that today's polarization in Brazil can even be positive.

And he believes that Brazilians will soon realize that their Government will be capable of fulfilling its promises, especially in terms of economic improvements for those most in need.

In truth, Lula bases his optimism on the fact that society will soon understand that his Government is willing to demonstrate what the former president, Dilma Rousseff, had coined as: “Spending is life.”

Lula wants the country's wealth, which is a lot, to reach as soon as possible not only to those most mortified by inflation but also to the lower middle class that pushes not to be forgotten.

The most critical analysts, such as O Globo

newspaper columnist

Merval Pereira, current president of the Academy of Letters, emphasize, however, that Lula's slogan of spending at any cost can have a boomerang effect.

The academic writes: “Lula's concern with the poor who flee through his fingers in the direction of the religious right (the evangelicals) is healthy, but he fails to understand that the market, instead of being a hungry beast, is a marker of democracy as a transmitter of information and expression of public opinion.”

Lula, however, in his efforts to minimize the polls that indicate a drop in the appreciation of his Government, has gone so far as to say: "People should not forget a single word spoken in my electoral campaign."

But since no one is iron, in one of his promises, that of not trying for a new presidential term in 2026, Lula has now made it clear that, if his health and his age allow it, he will try his luck again. .

What no one can accuse the old, uneducated, union fighter of is political insight, since in his previous mandates he always ended up “eating the opposition,” as this newspaper wrote at the time.

Will he be able to digest it this time too so he can govern in peace?

Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on

Facebook

and

X

, or in our

weekly newsletter

.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_