Lula without Marisa and the PT's plans

Lula's life without Marisa begins now. It began yesterday, after the overwhelming emotions of the funeral. It began with the return to the apartment where everything speaks of her within a definitive absence, which his comrades will try to fill by not leaving him alone. Mourning is a pause for pain that must be respected. The pain is his (and his family's), but Lula's life without Marisa is a question that interests all of Brazil.

Will he break down or will he return with more energy to the political struggle? Will he maintain his willingness to be a candidate in 2018, or perhaps in 2017, depending on the uncertainties surrounding the political landscape? All signs point to the second hypothesis, but the PT will have to readjust its calendar to reflect on the mourning period.

In his conversations with the dozens of people he received at the hospital during Marisa's hospitalization, and even in his funeral oration, that's what he indicated. He and Fernando Henrique have far more history together, stories that forged bonds, than the fervent supporters on both sides realize. They campaigned together against the dictatorship, drinking cheap brandy in the bars of the ABC region. They followed different paths, but they know they came from a shared dream. More than anyone else on the political scene, they are heirs to the democracy they helped build. That's why they embraced each other at the death of Dona Ruth and now at the death of Marisa.

But in their conversation, there was room for politics. Lula could have thanked Temer and dismissed the meeting with his entourage, as some would have liked. Refusing solidarity in death is an arrogant gesture that resentment does not excuse. And it subtracts, in a way, from the tribute paid to the other, to the one who departs. Even Dilma understood his gesture. But the fact that Lula made political remarks in the conversation – which in no way can be understood as a conciliatory intention – was also an indicator that without Marisa he will continue the fight. Everyone who was with him at the Sírio-Libanês Hospital gathered this impression.

But now comes the pause for mourning. The PT, which planned to launch its candidacy in April, to formalize it at the party congress scheduled for June, will have to wait for its painful assimilation of the loss. It will have to adjust to its emotional timeline before returning to the subject.