Lula Consolidates Political Alliances Before Ballot in Brazil

On Thursday, Brazilian parties and politicians expressed their support for the Workers' Party (PT) presidential candidate Lula da Silva in the second round scheduled for October 30.

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“In this second round, I will vote in favor of a history of struggle for democracy and social inclusion. I will vote for Lula,” said the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) leader Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former President of Brazil (1995-2003) who was a traditional political rival of Lula da Silva.

The Democratic Labor Party (PDT) will support Lula's candidacy because current President Jair Bolsonaro is "an absolutely incompetent president, who left millions of Brazilians to their fate, and is responsible for the deaths of 700,000 people during the pandemic."

Simone Tebet, whom the Brazilian Democracy Movement (MDB) sponsored as a presidential candidate during the first round, publicly stated that she will support Lula due to "his commitment to democracy and the Constitution, a commitment that I do not observe in the current President".

Once the positions of the MDB and the PDT have been decided, the Workers' Party leader has obtained the support of the political forces that achieved the third and fourth place in number of votes in the presidential elections on Sunday, October 2.

On the other hand, Bolsonaro won the support of Romeu Zema, the re-elected governor of the state of Minas Gerais, and Rodrigo Garcia, the governor of the state of Sao Paulo.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the most recent IPEC survey shows that Lula da Silva already has 51 percent of the voting intentions, surpassing Bolsonaro by eight percentage points.