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Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has proposed center-right Geraldo Alckmin as his vice-presidential ticket for the October elections. The announcement marks the course of the presidential elections in which the leftist will seek to defeat the current far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Despite criticism from some members of his own party, Lula hopes they will support the alliance between the two former rivals.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva showed a new facet of his long political career with the announcement of his vice-presidential formula this Friday. This is the center-right Geraldo Alckim, who was his old rival in the 2006 elections.
The meeting of the two politicians in a São Paulo hotel to announce their alliance was, for many, a surprise. However, their union has a clear objective: to defeat Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in the October elections.
“We need Alckmin’s experience and my experience to fix Brazil,” Lula said during a press conference.
The former president also reiterated his will to “rebuild the country” through his Twitter account.
For his part, Alckmin, 69, had to leave the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), of which he himself was a co-founder, to make his latest political move. One that responds to the alliance between the Workers’ Party (PT), led by the former president, and the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), which Alckmin recently joined.
The reactions were swift. President Jair Bolsonaro referred to the alliance through his Twitter account. “Relationship?” The president wrote with a mocking tone.
What is next to make Alckmin official as a vice-presidential formula?
“Alckmin, you will be received as an old comrade within our beloved Workers’ Party,” assured Lula.
And it is that the announcement of this Friday is the first step so that the alliance of the two old rivals is a fact.
In a letter addressed to the PT, the socialists assured that Alckmin “has the best conditions to articulate broad political forces, capable of giving the democratic resistance the scope that will allow it to confront Bolsonarism” and offered the politician as vice president.
Now it is the turn of the PT, which must accept the proposal. The announcement is expected next week.
Despite the fact that the official deadline to register the candidacies is scheduled for July 20 and the former president has not confirmed his candidacy, the alliance is part of multiple acts that have marked Lula’s pre-election campaign.
The PT leader regained his political rights after spending 580 days in prison after his corruption convictions were overturned.
Since then, Lula has sought to generate political strategies that allow him to defeat the extreme right.
At the moment the polls give him as the winner in the first round, but before a polarized country, the former president has opened himself to the possibility of forming broader coalitions through which to win new sectors of the electorate.
Who is Alckmin?
Like Lula, Alckmin is a familiar face in Brazilian politics. The politician has been a deputy and became the youngest mayor in Brazil when he was elected in 1977 to occupy that position in the municipality of Pindamonhangaba.
Alckmin was twice governor of the state of São Paulo and also had two attempts as a presidential candidate. In 2006 he took second place in the first round but was later defeated by Lula, who received 61% of the votes. While in the last elections he was also the leader of his old party, which obtained the worst result since its formation.
He is a Catholic, a doctor by profession and a father: he has three children.
A union between criticism and questioning
Despite Lula’s justifications, it is the members of his political party from the most leftist wing who have most questioned the former president’s decision.
However, the leftist assured this Friday that: “Two forces that have different projects, and that have the same principles, can come together at a time when the people need it.”
“Today we have a policy of hate, in which the adversary is the enemy, and it is not to win, but to bring down,” Lula added.
In the same line of ideas, Alckmin assured through his Twitter account that the two share the same goal, which is “to serve the Brazilian people well” and also invited citizens to join a union that, according to what he said, will work for the “defense of democracy in Brazil”.
We have a single goal: to serve or povo brasileiro. That is why I invite all of you to participate in this união with @LulaOfficial in defense of democracy and working in favor of Brazil!
📸: Paula Zwicker pic.twitter.com/jNqqkaFlFo
— Geraldo Alckmin (@geraldoalckmin) April 8, 2022
The new alliance will seek to open space among the voters of the center and also among those disappointed in Jair Bolsonaro’s administration. However, he will have to confront his divided positions on key issues such as abortion.
With EFE and AFP
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