The point is not to give up on the people.

He was born into poverty, an outcast in Brazil. Like millions, he was born a "give-up" on his own country. He probably would have died before the age of 5, like many others like him. He survived. He fought against oppressive misery, the worst form of violence, as Gandhi said. He fought against the dictatorship, which abandoned the people in favor of a minority. He fought for a democracy for all, not a democracy for the few, which abandoned the majority. He founded a left-wing party in the midst of a military regime, which no one cared about, and fought for decades to reach the presidency. He led the best government in the country's recent history. He changed Brazil.

She did too. Anyone who is arrested and brutally tortured at 19 tends to give up. Even on life. But she persisted, and continued and deepened the work he began. Even in the midst of the worst global crisis since 1929, she governs for all Brazilians. She governs without giving up on anyone.

Lula and Dilma never gave up on Brazil. Despite everything. Despite the hatred directed at them by those who were never "abandoned" by the country.
But what does "not giving up on Brazil" really mean? It means not giving up on the Brazilian people. After all, without its people, Brazil is a mere abstraction.
This is a country that has historically given up on the majority of its population. Here, governance was for the few, excluding the many. They said that to grow, it was necessary to concentrate income and wealth. They even said that the poor were a problem. That the Northeast was a problem. We had governments that assisted the few and gave up on the many. We had governments that, in the face of any crisis, "adjusted" the economy by promoting unemployment and reducing wages, abandoning the workers.

This was a country where a perverse logic prevailed, according to which, for Brazil and its economy to thrive, it was necessary for the people to suffer. It was necessary to abandon the people in order not to abandon Brazil.

Lula and Dilma reversed this perverse logic. Now, Brazil is strengthened together with its people, especially the poorest population. In reality, today Brazil is strengthened thanks to the strengthening of its people. For the governments of Lula and Dilma, not giving up on Brazil truly means not giving up on its people.

Thus, not giving up on Brazil means lifting 36 million people out of absolute poverty, out of their historical "abandonment," and promoting the rise of another 42 million to the middle class. Not giving up on Brazil implies raising the minimum wage and workers' income, even amidst the global crisis. Not giving up on Brazil means not giving up on generating formal jobs for more than 20 million Brazilians. Not giving up on Brazil implies not renouncing opening the doors of public and private universities to the poor and Afro-descendants, as the Dilma government has been doing. Not giving up on Brazil means bringing 15 million people out of darkness who had been "abandoned" from having electricity. Not giving up on Brazil means insisting on bringing, through the Mais Médicos program, doctors to 50 million Brazilians who had been "abandoned" from having access to healthcare.
Not giving up on Brazil means, above all, not giving up on reducing Brazil's social and regional inequalities, because they are the root of all our historical "abandonments."

All our weaknesses and shortcomings as a country and as a nation stem essentially from the fact that, throughout 500 years of history, we have given up on our people. For a long time, we were a chronically fragile, vulnerable, and dependent country because we did not invest, as we should have, in the strength of our population. We did not invest in the immense potential of our domestic market. We did not invest in liberating our people from the clutches of misery. We did not invest in liberating our people from the shackles of ignorance.
We are not betting on the fact that this liberation would be the true liberation of Brazil.

Indeed, a Brazil that abandoned its people was a weak country, doomed to failure. The recent construction of this new, stronger, fairer, more resilient to crises, and more sovereign country, however, can only be achieved through the empowerment of its people. It can only be achieved through persistent investment in them.
This is a process that has barely begun, because you can't reverse 500 years of "giving up" in just 12 years.
Still, there are people who want to reverse this process. There are those who want to abandon the minimum wage increase, as it is considered "too high." There are those who want to abandon the creation of formal jobs, as it would be necessary to "adjust the economy." There are candidates who wish to "flexibilize" labor and social security rights to increase productivity and reduce costs. There are those who want to abandon the sovereign exploitation of the pre-salt oil reserves. There are forces that want to abandon Petrobras and implement Petrobrax. There are even those who want to abandon sustainable development in the name of a conservative and primitive environmentalism.

Above all, there are conservative economists who advise candidates who insist on presenting themselves as progressives, who want to promote here the same orthodox policies that have been "giving up" on jobs, income, established rights, and the welfare state in developed countries. Policies that insist on the concentration of income and wealth. The same policies that, according to Piketty and several others, tend to make capitalism "give up" on democracy.

Finally, there are political forces and candidates who want, once again, to abandon the Brazilian people. Deep down, they want to return to a past of exclusion. To return to the perverse logic that always presented us with the false dilemma of having to choose between the well-being of the people and the well-being of the market.
In these elections, the true and only battle, no matter what smokescreen is thrown up, no matter the chimeras imagined by the "third ways," will be the battle between those who refuse to give up on the Brazilian people and those who think that this is an "acceptable price" for not "giving up on Brazil."

To insist on the people or to give up on the people, that is the question.