The Workers’ Party (PT) and the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) would today seal the duo of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin for October’s elections.
Sources close to both political organizations confirmed that the PSB must officially announce Alckmin this Friday in Sao Paulo to serve as vice president at the election mass with Lula, who is still the PT’s presidential candidate.
“I’ve changed, Alckmin has changed and Brazil has changed. I was Alckmin’s opponent, not his enemy. Happy was the Brazil that had a dispute between two democratic parties because there was a civilized debate about the government program,” the former union leader said during a radio interview.
He specified that there will be a meeting this Friday where the PSB will propose Alckmin as vice president and “we will bring him to the PT to discuss it. If we are together, we will rebuild Brazil because we are two democrats,” he noted.
Recently Alckmin also praised his old adversary. At last month’s PSB membership, the former governor commented that Lula “represents democracy itself.”
Speaking to radio station T in the southern state of Paraná, the former mechanical woodworker also pointed out that the country does not currently have full democracy and President Jair Bolsonaro attacks it and the press every day.
«Brazil needs someone who harmonizes the country, promotes peace, unity, the small and micro-entrepreneur. This is what Brazil needs to become a great nation,” he reiterated.
Faced with other questions, Lula ruled out that former head of state Dilma Rousseff would join as a minister in a possible government of his.
“I don’t think appointing a president to be your minister will work, you’re going to put him lower on the authority scale than you are, tending to cause problems; I don’t work with that hypothesis,” he mused.
He insisted he wouldn’t be comfortable bossing him around. “It’s very difficult, she knows it,” he said.
The former president also warned that if he won the election, he would remove from the federal administration those military officers who hold commissioned positions.
We must lay off nearly 8,000 jobs from people who have not submitted contests, he said in a statement made during an event hosted by the Workers’ Unified Headquarters in Sao Paulo.
He clarified that “this can’t be a reason for showing off, it has to be construction,” he noted.
Likewise, Lula admitted that the campaign will be complicated and asked not to get carried away with optimism.
«It won’t be easy, it’s not a won war; It’s a war we can win,” said the man, who appears in all opinion polls as the favorite heading for the vote after regaining his political rights in March 2021. (Latin press)