Brazilian senator Simone Tebet, third in the presidential elections last Sunday with 4.16% of the vote, announced this Wednesday her support for former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the second round of elections.
“I will give my vote” to Lula because “I recognize his commitment to democracy and the Constitution,” Tebet said in a statement at a hotel in the city of Sao Paulo.
The standard-bearer of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB, center-right) was the big surprise in the first round and her votes (five million) could be decisive for Lulawhich will compete for the Presidency with the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, on October 30.
Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso also declared on Wednesday his express support for his historic rival, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the second round of the presidential elections.
“In this second round I am voting for a history of struggle for democracy and social inclusion. I am voting for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,” declared Cardoso, 91, who presided over Brazil between 1995 and 2002.
Lula and President Jair Bolsonaro, leader of the Brazilian extreme right, will face each other in a close second round on October 30after no candidate obtained more than 50% of the valid votes in the first round last Sunday.
Cardoso, a historic leader of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), which before Bolsonaro’s appearance was the great rival of Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), had already hinted at his support for the former president shortly before the first back, but he had not declared it openly.
On that occasion, without directly quoting Lula, Cardoso asked voters to vote for a candidate who was “committed to combating poverty and inequality, defending equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation, and be proud of the cultural diversity of the Brazilian nation”.
During decades, both former presidents were political rivals and symbols of the polarization between the PT and the PSDB.
In this second round I vote for a history of struggle for democracy and social inclusion
However, both leaders sealed their rapprochement in 2021, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, in a meeting that was captured in a photograph in which both appear wearing a mask while bumping fists.
In the last three days, politicians and parties have begun to move their chips ahead of the second presidential round.
Bolsonaro, a candidate for re-election, received on Tuesday the support of the governors of the three largest states in Brazil, including Sao Paulo, the country’s main electoral college, while Lula joined Ciro Gomes’ Labor Party, fourth placed in the first lap.
EFE
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