Lula Challenges Bolsonaro, Staking Out Position as Greatest Rival

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Ex-president Lula da Silva has returned to the political game and has already awakened his ranks while triggering reactions from his opponents. In his speech in São Bernardo do Campo, he sweetened the hearts of those who follow him with words of hope for a better country, including the warning that the left-wing will triumph over the extreme-right in 2022.

He also brought back the ghosts that feed Jair Bolsonaro’s government narrative and the mass of Brazilian anti-PT voters. After accusing President Bolsonaro of governing for the “militiamen of Rio de Janeiro,” and calling Minister Sérgio Moro a “scoundrel,” Lula mentioned the street protests that Chile has been facing for two weeks. He mentioned Chileans as an “example” of “resistance” and “struggle”.

It was the cue to accuse the ex-president of encouraging violence. “In his speech, Lula showed who he is and what he wants for the country. He encourages violence (he mentions the people of Chile as an example), attacks several institutions, offends the President of the Republic and shows his complete ignorance of the military career,” said General Augusto Heleno, Minister of Institutional Security, also alluding to the fact that Lula said that Bolsonaro retired early and is now taking away social welfare rights with the reform.

Claudio Couto, a political scientist and professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, says Lula’s inflammatory speech to his audience is a strategy to confront Bolsonaro and position himself as his main adversary. “It wasn’t radical, it was a strong speech that marks the distance from the extreme right-wing [of Bolsonaro],” he adds.

What will define the electoral game, however, are not acidic or docile speech words. “It is knowing whether he will look for Ciro Gomes or not, whether he will be an organizer or whether he will isolate himself,” he adds.

The left-wing in Brazil left the 2018 election fragmented after the split with the PDT, now ruled by Ciro Gomes, who never visited Lula in prison and does not waste an opportunity to tease him. Letting its guard down is a challenge for a right-wing that also split after an alliance for the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, but which gave indications this Saturday that it can also reconnect in the name of fighting the leftist who is back in the political arena.

“The left-wing has never been very united,” said political scientist Maria Hermínia Tavares, who does not believe in a radicalization of Lula or the PT. “He was not even radical in his most virulent speeches. Lula is a negotiating politician, and this can form a broad field of opposition if he reaches the ‘center’, the MDB, because he has already ruled with these people,” she says. But now, the PT needs to unite its forces first, she says. “The party was imprisoned in Curitiba and is now free”.

Couto agrees. “Today he has more supporters than detractors, although we will also see a strong mobilization of Bolsonarians”. The professor believes that if Lula acts as an organizer of the opposition, the left’s discourse will be strengthened. “He will only be able to capitalize on this advantage if he “fights less and talks more”. He has the ability to attract even leaders from the center, such as Renan Calheiros and Roberto Requião, even if their party has acted for Dilma’s impeachment,” he says.

But the leftist carries a cumbersome label after his arrest, even if his case is challenged in court, with the appeal of suspicion of former judge Sérgio Moro (to be voted on later this month, according to Justice Gilmar Mendes), which could overturn his case. “Lula was convicted and much of the population understands that he is a criminal. Most of Brazil did not celebrate his release and he no longer has the power to take so many people to the streets, despite his speech,” said Sergio Denicoli, director of big data of the AP Exata (data collection and analysis).

This is a flank that was exploited by Bolsonaro and Moro this Saturday. The president referred to Lula as a “scoundrel, momentarily free, but guilty”. Moro tweeted yesterday that he would not react to “criminals, imprisoned or released,” in reference to Lula’s attacks.

If the appeal of suspicion of then judge Moro, who was responsible for his conviction in the first instance in the triplex case, were accepted by the Supreme Court, it would have the power to change his status, says lawyer Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, who sees a chance of the ex-president winning the trial that may occur later this month in the Second Panel of the STF.

“He may restore himself politically, and all other cases for which he answers would be contaminated by Moro’s suspicion,” he says. In this case, Lula would have much greater potential for political regeneration, says Professor Claudio Couto. “If there is a mistrial, the game changes completely”.

Inflicted diversion

Couto believes that the antagonism between Lula and Bolsonaro provides a greater advantage for the latter. “The president works constantly as anti-PT. Lula out of jail provides him with a more effective speech. Now he can say that corruption is winning and that the STF is giving in to pressure from convicts,” he said.

The right-wing street demonstrations made use of precisely that on Saturday, encouraging support for the PEC that would reverse last week’s Supreme Court ruling that imprisonment can only occur after judgements are final, which led to the release of Lula and others, such as former minister José Dirceu.

For Bolsonaro, Lula’s return to the national stage helps redirect the debate to an ideological level, “removing the focus from the daily difficulties that his government has shown to be having,” says analyst Thiago de Aragão. “This is also what Lula wants, to take the focus away from Bolsonaro while seeking support from the center [parties] to increasingly hinder the president’s ability to form a strong alliance,” he said.

But the president’s move is limited. He also has skeletons in his own legal closet, through his son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, now under investigation for suspicious financial transactions by his former cabinet employee, Fabricio Queiroz, which overshadowed his role as an advocate in the fight against corruption.

Couto sees having Sérgio Moro as a cabinet minister, as a point in favor of the president’s pro-Lava Jato stance. “If Bolsonaro has lost that reputation of integrity, although he has no historical trajectory as an anti-corruption politician, he can regain it with Moro’s alliance,” he says. Hermínia Tavares sees no benefit or detriment to the president by Lula’s release. “This fact could establish a stronger link. But only for those who are already on his side”. It will be a game of resistance for both sides until 2022.

Source: El País

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