Analysis: Lula turns to party’s old guard for Brazil election battle

Former Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will run the event in October, is organizing a Workers’ Day during Labor Day in Sao Paulo, Brazil May 1, 2022. REUTERS / Amanda Perobelli

SAO PAULO, May 6 (Reuters) – Brazil’s leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has returned to his Workers’ Party (PT) to run his presidential campaign, shoring up appearances after his base with center raised tensions. old guard.

Although Lula has lured moderate voters with a centrist running mate and calls for a broad center-left coalition in the October election, his most senior roles are as far-reaching as his longtime associates and former PT ministers, party sources told Reuters.

Political analysts say he is skeptical of slipping polls on the left wing of his party and empowering trusted campaign veterans to reassure experienced party operators.

An opinion survey showed last week that Lula’s advantage over his main opponent, President Jair Bolsonaro, has shrunk to five percentage points from 14 points three months ago.

Pollster PoderData found Lula would still win a potential second-round runoff, but his narrowing margin had stirred grubling among allies. If no wins a majority on Oct. 2, a run-off would be held four weeks later.

“Lula is hitting the brakes. He’s setting limits to his wide coalition, and these are old-timers who draw the line,” said Andre Cesar, an analyst at the political consultancy Hold Assessoria Legislativa. “It’s a show of strength, to make it clear that he is still in command.”

For a half dozen other parties, Lula has spent months in the midst of culminating in the choice of former Soo Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin – his rival in the 2006 election – as his running mate. That was a serious coalition, but he raised questions about what concessions he made.

Now Lula is calling on old workers party hands such as former minister Gilberto Carvalho to rally social movements in support of Lula’s presidential bid, party sources told Reuters.

“We cannot ignore the experience of the four successful elections,” said Lula’s campaign of organizing one person involved, which will be launched in August.

The group includes former PT President Rui Falcao, lawmakers Paulo Teixeira and Jose Guimaraes, and the party’s current hard-line president Gleisi Hoffmann, who will be the overall campaign manager, PT leadership sources said.

A PT spokesman did not respond to a request for comment immediately.

Other senior advisers for specific roles will be in the coming weeks, after a major rally over the weekend.

“Lula has had a move towards the center … but she must also nod to the left of the party that Rui Falcao, or else she will have problems later,” said Claudio Couto, a political scientist at the FGV think tank .

Another party veteran is a key campaign post by Aloizio Mercadante, head of a PT think tank charged with drawing up a new Lula government. Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff for Mercadante, was Lula’s hand-picked successor who was impeached in 2016 in an economic recession.

The campaign leadership is expected to announce next week a Saturday rally, called a “pre-launch” of his candidacy. Both Lula and Bolsonaro have been in campaign mode for months but are limited in their official campaigns by Brazilian election law.

Lula will then start traveling around Brasil, PT sources said. Alckmin will join him in the swinging state of Minas Gerais and his contested southern states focusing on his efforts in the interior of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state and home to the former governor’s political base.

Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu and Anthony Boadle Writing by Anthony Boadle Editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.