President Lula is having to deal with one of the most delicate problems of his new Government due to the climate tragedy in the rich region of Rio Grande do Sul, littered with corpses and with more than a million people affected, without light and without water. .
The Government has been quick to move all the buttons to alleviate so much pain and so much death precisely in the region that is most politically adverse to it. It is that rich part of the country where the largest contingent of faithful followers of the far-right Bolsonaro is concentrated.
Not only is one of the country’s greatest wealth concentrated in Rio Grande do Sul thanks to the strength of the agricultural business, but also the country’s extreme right, the center of enemies of everything that sounds left-wing. Among them is a large mass of evangelicals, who always resist Lula. It is the religion that best represents the right-wing motto of God, country and family.
And once again Lula has found himself between a rock and a hard place: forget about purely political calculations and devote himself to helping the victims of the tragedy by mobilizing all the forces of the Government or leave them to their fate.
The moment is doubly difficult because Lula is pushed by his people to make decisions that do not always respond to his idiosyncrasy, that of the left-wing politician, who already in his first Government changed his “bearded” unionist attire for Armani ties. and coined the historic phrase “Lula: peace and love.” This is what led him to say one day that he was a “walking metamorphosis.” And he was. In all his governments he knew how to adapt to the political climate of the moment: alongside the great leaders of right-wing politics and the more left-wing movements.
Now, in his third term, Lula finds himself at a crossroads and to get out of it he will need to dust off his metamorphosis skills. The problem is not easy and in some ways she seems to suffer a certain bewilderment, since her problems come to her from within her party, the Workers’ Party (PT), and from the official image advisor of she, Sidonio Palmeira. That could end up disconcerting you.
The most left wing, starting with the president of the party, Gleisi Hoffmann, would prefer a frontal confrontation with the opposition without half measures. They prefer open war against the right and fearless confrontation with Bolsonaro who continues, although ineligible, to be the undisputed center of the coup-mongering extreme right and even of the simple right. And he is still free and kicking, mobilizing thousands of followers in his street rallies.
The problem, according to Lula’s image advisors, is that, as all the polls reveal, it is not possible for the Government to be better in all economic and social indices compared to how society perceives it. And they are pushing him to forget about Bolsonaro, calling him a “coward” and trying to tear away from fascist Bolsonarism its flags of God, country and family.
Lula is somehow between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he hates and despises Bolsonaro as a character and would like to see him in jail as soon as possible, and at the same time he has to face a society that made him famous and successful with his slogan of “peace and love”, of being a kind of father of the poor although at the same time close to the rich. And now his desire is to win over that middle class that never tolerated him.
It is not known if it is due to the influence of his wife, Janja, a great activist and feminist who is not satisfied with being the simple first lady of the Presidency. Or because Lula is not satisfied with the paradox that everything is improving in the country and continues to slide in all the polls that do not seem to reflect what his new and third Government is really doing, where he is already thinking about running for a fourth term in 2026. The truth is that the former union member is making efforts to change.
An example that has been noted during the tragedy that afflicts the most Bolsonarist, most evangelical and most distant State has been his tender attitude revealed in the pain caused by the news that a horse had been trapped on a roof during the storms. unable to leave.
“I went to sleep restless with the image of a horse on a roof. I start to imagine what that poor horse was going through alone on that roof,” he commented. And he added: “I hope that for a while no one rides that horse because he deserves a good rest.” Meanwhile, her wife Janja had mobilized the Army to save the horse Caramelo, and appeared on the networks excited about a dog lost in the tragedy that she and her husband had just adopted.
Outside of petty politics, one sometimes wonders why it is precisely in tragedies that we bring out the best in ourselves. As is happening in this new misfortune in Brazil where the help to those in need by so many volunteers who do not ask themselves if they are Bolsonaristas or Lulistas is being exemplary. As Preto Zezé has written in his column Or Globe: “We do not need heroes, saviors of the country. “We need leaders and peace to feel close to each other.”
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