Sao Paulo: On Tuesday, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appointed his vice president as vice president in the elections scheduled for October in Brazil, while opinion polls show that the veteran leftist president is sliding into an intense conflict with his main opponent.Lula, 80, will seek a fourth term as he faces Flavio Bolsonaro, the 44-year-old son of former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted of plotting a coup against Lula.Recent polls show Flavio Bolsonaro ahead and competing with Lula if they face each other in the runoff. In December, Lula led by 15 points.Lula’s running mate and running mate is Geraldo Alckmin, a moderate conservative and former rival of the president.
They teamed up in 2022 to take on the older Bolsonaro, who was then the incumbent. Besides being Vice President, Alkemin also currently holds the position of Minister of Industry.“My colleague Alckmin will have to leave the ministry because he is a candidate for vice president again,” Lula said during a public meeting with his government. Alckmin, a 73-year-old doctor, served four terms as governor of São Paulo, the richest and most populous state in Brazil.
He ran for president twice as a candidate for the conservative Brazilian Social Democratic Party.In 2006, he lost a runoff election to Lula.On Tuesday, Lula told his government the story of how he won re-election as head of Brazil’s metalworkers’ union in 1978, and told his family that he would serve one last term and then return to domestic life.“It’s been fifty years and I’ve never done that,” he joked.An opinion poll published by Datafolha on March 6 showed Lula receiving 46% of voters’ intentions compared to 43% for Bolsonaro, putting them in a tie with the gap remaining within the margin of error.The younger Bolsonaro, who serves in the Senate, was nominated for the presidency by his father after the Supreme Court sentenced the latter to 27 years in prison on charges of conspiring to remain in power after losing the 2022 elections to Lula.
