Experts: Lula must fight for centre to win run-off
To prevail in Brazil’s tighterthan-expected presidential run-off, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to strike alliances with centrists, woo the business sector and offer voters more than just his legacy, analysts say.
The long-time front-runner may have won last Sunday’s first-round vote against Jair Bolsonaro, but the latter appears to have the momentum, having shattered pollsters’ forecasts of a rout to finish within five points of Lula and force a second round.
If Lula is to stymy Bolsonaro, analysts say, he will have to redouble his efforts to win back the political middle, still disillusioned over the devastating corruption charges – since annulled – that controversially sent him to jail in 2018.
The 76-year-old Workers’ Party (PT) founder acknowledged as much himself after Sunday’s result.
“We’ll have to spend less time preaching to the choir and more time talking to voters... those who appear not to like us,” he said Monday. “Little peace-and-love Lula is ready to talk to everyone.”
DEAL-MAKING TIME
Known as a deft politician, Lula will need to tap that acumen to strike alliances. “He will have to make some gestures and concessions” to the centre-left and centre-right, whose votes Bolsonaro will also be after, said political analyst Leandro Gabiati, head of consulting firm Dominium.
Lula already made a giant nod to centrists by picking centre-right veteran Geraldo Alckmin – the candidate he beat in the 2006 presidential race – as his running-mate.
Now he needs to chase the votes that went to Sunday’s third- and fourth-place finishers, centre-right candidate Simone Tebet (four percent) and centre-left candidate Ciro Gomes (three percent).
Lula got a clutch endorsement Tuesday from Gomes’ Democratic Labour Party (PDT), despite a long history of animosity between the two men. Gomes grudgingly went along, saying in a video he “supported” the endorsement as “the only exit, under the circumstances.”
Getting the backing of Tebet, an anti-abortion Catholic, could meanwhile be key to luring socially conservative women voters.
BIG SPENDING SHELVED
Lula will also have to sell the business sector on his plans for the economy. He presided over a watershed economic boom in the 2000s, blending market-friendly policy with ambitious social programmes.
But Bolsonaro has more backing from the market this time around – as seen when stocks surged Monday on his better-than-expected showing.
Lula will have to be “malleable” on economic policy to woo the business sector, said Arthur Ituassu, professor of political communication at Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro. The former president will likely have to renegotiate his plans to expand social spending and overhaul the tax system, he said.
“That’s going to be fundamental,” he said. “That’s how he wins the volatile centre.”