If there is a country in which the Biden case The one that is most affected by this is Brazil. For several reasons, such as the fact that a possible defeat of the Democrat against the ultra-Trump would be a boost to Bolsonarism, which is on the lookout to return to power.
In Brazil, the 2026 presidential elections are so important that they are already influencing much of political life right now. They are also influencing the municipal elections in October, which are considered the prelude to the presidential elections. In them, the current government will once again face Bolsonarism, which is trying to raise its head despite the fact that its leader Bolsonaro is disqualified from contesting the elections, but the far-right ideologue remains in the shadows and is already very active ahead of the upcoming municipal elections.
The dispute in the United States over whether Biden should run for president, given certain signs of senility that he seems to reveal, has immediately made Brazil think about what might happen in 2026: Lula plans to run for president again even though he will be 80 years old, the same age as Biden, or as the Brazilian president says: “one year younger.”
The issue that is worrying the political class and society has brought to light the idea that there should be an age limit for running for president, since there is a minimum age and there is a mandatory retirement age for workers. It would be a way of stopping a new candidacy by Lula, who will then be 80 years old.
It is true that there are professions in which age is not so important. Great literary works were written by people over 80 years old and politicians in full lucidity and energy, but there is no doubt that age plays a part and certain activities are limited by the weight of the years.
In Brazil, where there is no other candidate in the progressive camp with the strength to win an election on the right, no one doubts that Lula does not suffer for the moment from the limitations that Biden’s psyche seems to reveal in the United States. Even his political enemies recognize the lucidity of the old union fighter and that he is in his third presidential term and wants to remain in power.
All this raises the question of why on the Brazilian left, which is mainly centred on the PT, no young leader has emerged, or has not been allowed to emerge, who can successfully take over from Lula, who has now monopolised all power in the party. The old guard of the previous Lula and Dilma governments is still active, with no possibility of replacements.
Lula knows that if his government were to be defeated in the municipal elections in October, it would be much more difficult for him to win a fourth presidential term at 80 years of age. That is why he is insisting every day, and even more so now that he is in full physical and mental vigor. And he says it clearly and without hesitation. A few days ago, in an interview with a radio station and in full activity touring the country from north to south in support of his candidates for the municipal elections, he told his critics: “I can lie to you, but not to myself. I would not say that I am well if I were not. I have to be honest with myself and with the people of Brazil.” And he added: “I am 78 years old with the energy of a 30-year-old and the tenacity of a 30-year-old.” [sexual] from 20. I feel like a child and if not ask Janja [su joven esposa]He also says that he gets up every morning at 5:30 to do physical exercises.
According to Lula, his advisors get tired more than he does and he is “in a good spiritual moment and is happy with life.”
The reasons Lula gives, and he no longer hides them, for being a presidential candidate again is that, if necessary, he will return “to prevent the troglodytes who governed this country from returning.” And Lula knows that only he could continue to stop the struggle of the right and even the most extreme to return to power.
The other problem that Lula faces in trying to win the elections again has just been exposed by the critical columnist of the newspaper The State of São PauloWilliam Vaack. It is not so much age or any mental or health impediment, but that he sometimes seems stuck in his way of doing politics as he was 20 years ago, that of “us against them, the division of the world between rich and evil, between poor and rich”. His problem is to continue in a world in full transformation, stuck in the old economic policy of spending without worries to win the votes of the poorest, according to the slogan coined by his predecessor, the former president, Dilma Rousseff, that “spending is life”, which cost him being the victim of a impeachment.
Today, in fact, Lula’s Achilles’ heel in his government is the issue of the economy, in which he tries to use his spending policy to seek votes as in his days as a trade unionist, without taking into account the revolution taking place in the world on the issues of new jobs, new technologies, and the problems facing a healthy economic policy that takes into account that global society is in full development. Meanwhile, the gloomy bells of new world conflicts are beginning to ring, aggravated this time by the open or hidden threat of the danger of an atomic conflict.
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