(São Bernardo do Campo) Lula in turn launched his official campaign for the October presidential election in Brazil on Tuesday by choosing, like his rival, outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, a place that has profoundly marked his political career: the factories where he embraced trade unionism.
Updated yesterday at 5:14 p.m.
Favorite in the polls, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 76, held his first meeting in an automobile factory in his stronghold of Sao Bernardo do Campo, near Sao Paulo (southeast), industrial zone where he was a turner-miller , before becoming a union leader in the 1970s.
“This is where it all began: here I acquired a political conscience […] On this important day in my life, at the start of the election campaign, I came here to tell you that we are going to win the election, ”said the poll favorite, dressed in a white shirt and perched on a plateau, surrounded by hundreds of metalworkers.
PHOTO ANDRE PENNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former president and candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Despite his age, he says he feels in him the same “energy as at 30” and that he intends to “take back the country” from Jair Bolsonaro whom he describes as “genocidal” and “negationist” for his management of the pandemic. which claimed 680,000 lives in Brazil.
“If there is anyone possessed by the devil, it’s Bolsonaro,” said the former president (2003-2010) to cheers.
“Lula is the hope of Brazilians to improve their conditions, he represents the power of the workers,” Mauricio Souza, 48, a welder, who greeted his candidate with a trumpet, told AFP.
This return to trade union sources, “Lula has always gone there during the key moments of his political career, to strengthen his image as a representative of the workers”, says Adriano Laureno, analyst at the Prospectiva firm.
“As for Bolsonaro, he wants to present himself as a ‘chosen one of God’ who survived the stabbing attack” in 2018, continues this specialist, for whom this election is “the most polarized” since the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985).
“God, country, family and freedom”
Jair Bolsonaro was earlier in Minas Gerais (southeast), in Juiz de Fora “the city where I was born again”, hoisted on a platform installed on the same crossroads where he had been stabbed by an unbalanced person there is four years, close to death.
Dressed in a black jacket buttoned up to the neck concealing the shapes of a bulletproof vest, the former army captain, 67, gave a speech loaded with patriotic declarations and allusions to God and to the Bible.
He reiterated his promise to fight double-digit inflation, abortion, drugs and defend ‘private property’, brandishing the ‘communist’ threat to Brazil if he loses the October election to rival Lula .
“Mito, mito” (myth), chanted the supporters of the far-right leader gathered around the slogan “God, fatherland, family and freedom”, many of whom were dressed in T-shirts in the colors of Brazil.
Jair Bolsonaro then gave the floor to the first lady, a fervent evangelical given as much, if not more, ovation than her husband. Michelle Bolsonaro invited the audience to close their eyes and recite the “Our Father”.
“It’s about the future of the family, of the homeland, most of the people who are here are faithful to God,” Marcio Bargiona, a 55-year-old former police officer, told AFP.
“The cleanup started four years ago, I want it to continue, I want the left to be rooted out of the country,” said Jaqueline Lopes, a 50-year-old teacher from Rio de Janeiro.
Gathered in Brasilia
Lula, who regained his political rights in 2021 after his convictions were overturned in a huge corruption suspicion case, is leading the polls although his opponent seems to be closing the gap.
Monday evening, a poll by the Ipec institute still gave a comfortable advantage to the former left-wing president, with 44% of voting intentions in the first round, against 32% for the current head of state.
The main concern of Brazilians, according to polls, is the economic situation, marked in recent years by high levels of unemployment and inflation, which have undermined Bolsonaro’s popularity.
On Tuesday evening, Lula and Bolsonaro attended together, a few meters apart, but without speaking to each other, the ceremony for Judge Alexandre de Moraes to take office as President of the Superior Court. election (TSE) in Brasilia.
This magistrate of the Supreme Court is one of the pet peeves of President Bolsonaro, against whom he ordered the opening of an investigation for the dissemination of false information on the electoral system.
The Head of State has constantly questioned the reliability of the electronic ballot boxes used in the country since 1996, citing “fraud” without providing evidence. Attacks that raise fears that he will not recognize the result of the ballot in the event of defeat.
In his inaugural address, Justice de Moraes praised electronic voting. “We are one of the largest democracies in the world […], but we are the only one that counts and discloses the results the same day, with agility, competence and transparency. It is a cause of national pride,” he said.