At the start of a new campaign that should be aggressive and polarized, the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, received this Wednesday two symbolic supporting tokens as he seeks new allies before the second round of elections on October 30 against current president Jair Bolsonaro.
Simone Tebet, the center-right senator who came in third place in the first round of the presidential elections last Sunday, with 4% of the vote, and former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was his tough opponent, have announced that they will support Lula.
“For my love for Brazil, for democracy and for the Constitution, for the courage that I have never lacked, I apologize to my friends and colleagues who have begged me to maintain neutrality in this second round”, he said Tebet at the press conference. St. Paul.
“The stakes are much greater than any of us,” he noted. It was after a meeting with Geraldo Alckmin, Lula’s vice presidential candidate, and a lunch with the former president himself.
The senator indicated that she will vote for Lula for “her commitment to democracy and the Constitution, that I do not know in the current President “.
Tebet and Cardoso thus joined Ciro Gomes, of the Democratic Workers’ Party, who came fourth on Sunday with 3.04% of the vote and was the first to anticipate his support for Lula.
The center-right MDB standard bearer was the big surprise of the first round, overtaking Gomes, third in the polls, and placing himself on the bottom step of the podium, behind Lula, who in the end scored 48.43%, against 43.2% of Bolsonaro.
Now the nearly 5 million votes of Tebet could be decisive for Lula, who bet all his chips to return to manage the reins of the country.
The arguments of Tebet
On Sunday evening, when the counting of the votes had not yet finished, the senator had already anticipated that she had made a decision in view of the second round of the presidential elections in Brazil.
“We will soon make the decision why mine is already taken; I have a position and I will speak at the right time “, she just said on that occasion.
The unknown was revealed this Wednesday, when Tebet sent a strong message in favor of Lula and against Bolsonaro.
Although he made it clear that in return he asked the leader of the Workers’ Party that, if he becomes president, he will include in his administration a number of points that have been included in the MDB government program.
She assured that, despite some party colleagues have asked her to remain neutral, she cannot be “unaware” of this “so serious” moment in the history of Brazil, a country “divided by incitements to hatred, ideology of polarization and controversies of power” .
This is why he stressed that until Sunday 30, the day of the ballot, he will continue “on the street, on alert”, since he believes that the country must be “rebuilt” after almost four years in which the country “was abandoned in bonfire of hatred and denial “ of the coronavirus pandemic. It was another clear criticism of the current president and his handling of the Covid crisis.
even done remarks to Lula: he criticized him for asking for a useful vote in the first round “without submitting proposals” to solve Brazil’s problems and asked that some of his initiatives be included in the platform.
In this sense, he cited his plan to eliminate the waiting list in early childhood education, also finish the list of examinations and surgeries delayed by Covid, and solve the problems of the most indebted families.
In addition, he asked to sanction a law of equal pay for men and womenwhich is now stuck in Congress.
In case of victory of Lula da Silva, he asked for the formation of a cabinet “plural, with men, women, blacks, people with disabilitieshaving competence, ethics and willingness to serve as requirements, “he suggested.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s message
Hours earlier this Wednesday, Cardoso, 91, said he will vote for Lula in the name of “a story of struggle for democracy and social inclusion” and posted old photographs of him appearing next to Lula handing out flyers in favor of democracy during the military dictatorship, which ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.
Political analyst Carlos Melo interpreted that the demonstrations of support were symbolic and could mean crucial votes to Lula.
“Tebet managed to get votes in the elections, she built her own political legacy, not that of her party,” said Melo, professor of political science at Insper University of Sao Paulo, who also highlighted the senator’s popularity among women.
While, Cardoso could help solidify Lula’s popularity among the economic and intellectual elites who are still reluctant to accept it.
Lula spent 19 months in prison as part of a massive corruption investigation known as Lava Jato, which targeted the Workers’ Party and disrupted Brazilian politics.
The Supreme Court then overturned Lula’s convictions amid allegations that the judge and prosecutors had rigged the case against him.
Former President Michel Temer and the influential agribusiness group in Congress on Wednesday joined the governors of three states in southeastern Brazil, the country’s richest and most populous region, in expressing their demonstrations of support for Bolsonaro.
Source: Agencies
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Source: Clarin
