It's Lula or Lula!

Despite the deafening silence of the mainstream media, the CUT/Vox Populi survey, released this Thursday (26), consolidates Lula's lead in the presidential elections next October. In this, the first survey after the partial and targeted action of Judge Sérgio Moro and his team, at the beginning of the month, when they trampled all the legal and judicial order to prevent the former president's freedom, Lula has grown significantly and now appears with a real prospect of victory in the first round.

In the spontaneous poll, Lula has 37% of voting intentions, followed by Jair Bolsonaro with 10%, Ciro Gomes with 3%, and Geraldo Alckmin and Marina Silva with 2%. In the prompted poll, Lula grows more than any opponent and leads with 41% of voting intentions. In this scenario, Jair Bolsonaro has 12%, Ciro Gomes 5%, and Geraldo Alckmin and Marina Silva are tied with 4%. The official candidate of the coup, Henrique Meirelles, doesn't even register any votes.

Despite all the legal and media persecution, and contrary to all the establishment's predictions, Lula's candidacy has not crumbled; on the contrary. This is because it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that the unjust imprisonment of the former president, incarcerated for over 100 days in a 15m² solitary confinement cell at the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba, is a continuation of the coup that removed President Dilma from office without her having committed any crime of responsibility.

Since all candidates somehow associated with the coup are disqualified from running electorally, the elite's strategy is to challenge Lula's sovereign and popular candidacy. Without him, the coup-plotting coalition intends to elect a government without any popular support to continue implementing a neoliberal agenda, defeated four times in a row in the last presidential elections, which prioritizes surrendering national sovereignty, stripping workers of their rights, and maintaining the privileges of the elite.

To try and confuse public opinion, the coup-plotting coalition is staging the candidacy of former Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles as the official representative of the Temer government, the most unpopular since the redemocratization, in an attempt to distance the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) from the legacy of the coup, which returned 1,5 million Brazilians to poverty. However, even with the goodwill of the traditional media and having more airtime in the free election broadcasts, it is evident that Geraldo Alckmin will have difficulty separating his image from the coup.

The political tripod that supported the coup and plunged Brazil into an unprecedented political, economic, and moral crisis is formed by the alliance between the illegitimate Michel Temer, the imprisoned Eduardo Cunha, leader of the so-called Centrão (center bloc), who is part of Geraldo Alckmin's presidential ticket, and the PSDB senator Aécio Neves, with the blessings of former PSDB president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Therefore, Alckmin is Temer and Temer is Alckmin.

This research also reaffirms that the PT is correct in pursuing Lula's candidacy to its ultimate consequences. At this historical moment, abandoning Lula would legitimize the coup and further fragment the progressive field. Lula is innocent and leads in all scenarios, the PT has a legacy and a national project to present to the nation, and our party is the most organic and has the most airtime in the free election broadcasts. Why, then, should Lula and the PT give up on the former president's candidacy?

Let the coup plotters bear the burden and consequences of disabling Lula through sheer force, in a scenario that would be a sham election. We all know that an election without Lula will result in a government lacking any legitimacy or popular support, a fact that will deepen the political, economic, and institutional crisis into which the coup has plunged Brazil.

For Brazil to be happy again, the struggle of all those who believe in the democratic rule of law must be for Lula's freedom, for Lula's right to be a candidate, and for the political defeat of the coup. Lula is the hope for a country with economic growth and stability, with social inclusion and democracy. It's Lula or Lula!