At 80, the left-wing Brazilian president Lula sets out on Sunday to seek re-election in October, presenting himself as a defender of his country’s ‘sovereignty’ against Donald Trump, whose shadow looms over
Returning to power in 2023 after two initial terms (2003-2010), Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be officially nominated as a candidate at a convention of his Workers’ Party in Sao Paulo, the economic capital of Latin America’s top power.
Running for the seventh time in his long career, the former worker and union leader, a major figure in Brazilian politics over recent decades, will be seeking a fourth term against Flavio Bolsonaro.
This 45-year-old senator is the son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who was detained for attempting a coup after trying to stay in power despite his 2022 defeat.The campaign is already being dominated by American President Donald Trump. An ally of the Bolsonaro family, he recently supported several victorious right-wing candidates in Latin America.
“In Brazil, we don’t accept anyone sticking their nose where they’re not wanted,” Lula warned.
In July, the United States imposed two waves of tariffs on Brazilian products, citing alleged unfair trade practices.
Last year, encouraged by another son of Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo, Washington had imposed an initial surtax in retaliation for the trial of the former head of state, before largely lifting it following a brief Lula-Trump thaw.Faced with this resurgence of the trade war, the Brazilian president has focused his strategy on defending ‘sovereignty.’
For him, Flavio Bolsonaro is a ‘traitor to the homeland’ who supposedly encouraged the United States to hit the Brazilian economy. The person in question denies it.
‘The talk about sovereignty is perfectly timed for Lula, at a moment when his popularity was dropping, and it manages to identify an external enemy to hold responsible for some of the troubles we are experiencing,’ Leonardo Paz, a political science professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, told AFP.
The standoff is also diplomatic.Last week, fearing a ‘political instrumentalization’ ahead of the election, Brazil refused visas to two American representatives who wanted to come and discuss ‘electoral integrity.’
- Crime and corruption –
According to a recent poll by the Datafolha institute, Lula has 48% of the vote intentions in the second round, against 43% for his opponent.
Even weakened by a series of crises, Bolsonaro’s heir is not losing ground. In 2022, the left’s champion had won by a hair, and the countryremains highly polarized.
Lula can boast solid growth and record employment. But families complain about the cost of living, and public deficits are worsening.
Above all, the outgoing president is on the defensive about Brazilians’ top concern: safety. In working-class neighborhoods, tens of millions of residents live under the control of organized crime.
Corruption is also a major issue. And two judicial investigations are putting rivals in a difficult spot.
The first concerns the funding of a film dedicated to Jair Bolsonaro, for which Flavio Bolsonaro had asked a banker accused of a huge financial fraud for money.The other one, opened this week, targets a son of Lula, nicknamed ‘Lulinha’, suspected of corruption and influence peddling.
Lula had spent 580 days in prison in 2018-2019 for corruption in a high-profile scandal. But his conviction was later overturned due to procedural reasons and because the judge was deemed biased.
