The sacrifice of Fernando Haddad

1.

Fernando Haddad is one of those cases where there is a mismatch between an individual's talents and the context in which he must operate.

He was a Workers' Party candidate who, under the circumstances prior to 2013, had everything it took to go far. A well-prepared politician, competent as an administrator, with unquestionable integrity. With a conciliatory and polite profile. Liberal enough not to scare off capital, but with the necessary social concern to establish himself as a continuation of Lula's legacy. The left would have liked someone further to the left, it's true, but didn't have many options.

"The most pro-PSDB of the PT members," it was said, in a biting tone. But at that time, that wasn't a handicap. It was something that positioned him favorably in Brazilian politics.

He left the Ministry of Education to run for mayor of São Paulo. From there, it was expected that he would rise to the governorship of São Paulo and, certainly, to the presidency.

But the scenario changed. At the end of his term, measures of an obviously civilizing nature, which under other circumstances would have encountered only marginal opposition, such as the implementation of bus lanes and the reduction of the maximum speed on some roads in the capital of São Paulo, served to stigmatize him.

It's not just the rise of an extreme right wing. Stupidity has become a asset (to use a word to the liking of its practitioners) important in Brazilian politics, which complicates things for someone like Fernando Haddad.

The problems began with the June 2013 protests. Fernando Haddad didn't know how to handle the street protests, just like other PT (Workers' Party) leaders. But this setback would probably have been overcome if that hadn't become the turning point in the pattern of political competition in Brazil.

No, not as the free public transport activists wanted, in the sense of radicalizing the popular struggle. The right wing used its many resources to capture the dissatisfaction that had surfaced – and we all know the result.

In addition to leveling down all terms of public debate, there was a campaign to criminalize the left, with the deliberate opening of a privileged space for far-right discourse. This campaign failed in its attempt to prevent the re-election of President Dilma Rousseff, but triumphed with the 2016 coup.

2.

Fernando Haddad was running for reelection and tried to adapt to the changing political climate. He avoided calling the coup a "coup," for example. Even so, he couldn't escape a humiliating defeat in the first round to a politically inexperienced, well-to-do candidate. The 2016 municipal elections, not only in São Paulo but throughout Brazil, were a clear indication that something was changing, and significantly, in politics. But the worst, as we now know, was yet to come.

With Lula unjustly imprisoned to prevent the PT from returning to power, Fernando Haddad became the presidential candidate in 2018. He ran a dignified campaign, facing fierce opposition from the media and the Brazilian state apparatus, including the electoral court. He suffered his second defeat (but, it's worth remembering, he received 47 million votes in the second round, which is far from insignificant).

In 2022, he ran for governor of São Paulo. Circumstances seemed more favorable. Brazil was already familiar with the Bolsonaro catastrophe. The PSDB power structure, which had controlled the state for decades, was fractured, with Geraldo Alckmin aligned with Lula, João Doria out of the race, and his vice-governor, Rodrigo Garcia, recently affiliated with the party, unsuccessfully trying to assume the position of heir.

Fernando Haddad was not only a former mayor, but also a former presidential candidate, making him a very well-known name among the population. Even so, he lost to an outsider with primitive rhetoric. The shift to the right in the São Paulo electorate was consolidated.

Lula made him his Finance Minister. In that position, he balances, as he himself likes to say, on the narrow line between left and right. I think he's much more to the right than to the left, but he certainly disagrees. He accepted the orthodoxy on controlling public accounts, stifling investments, tightening the purse strings of civil servants, the usual recipe. But he protected some of the compensatory programs that are the showcase of Lula's policies and initiated a timidly progressive reform of the tax system.

Now, he is under pressure to face a new candidacy for the Palácio dos Bandeirantes (São Paulo state government headquarters), which will almost certainly represent his fourth consecutive electoral defeat – especially if, as everything indicates, Tarcísio de Freitas does indeed run for reelection. But Lula needs a strong platform in the state that concentrates the largest electorate in the federation, and there is no better name within the PT (Workers' Party) and its allies than Fernando Haddad. Except, perhaps, Geraldo Alckmin, but I imagine Lula has no interest in reopening the discussion about the vice-presidential candidate on his ticket.

(And it is, it should be noted, a vice-presidential candidate of singular importance, given the candidate's advanced age. Geraldo Alckmin, who has always been a man of the right, has the great merit of having shown himself to be very loyal during these more than three years of government. Anyone who imagines that, if he is replaced, someone with more progressive political positions has a chance of taking his place is completely deluded.)

For Fernando Haddad, running for office in São Paulo has few attractions. An election campaign is always enormously exhausting from a personal standpoint. Politically, he has little chance of winning and gains nothing in terms of visibility that he doesn't already have. If he accepts the undertaking, it will be with a sense of sacrifice, for the greater project of preventing the right wing from returning to the Presidential Palace. A sacrifice that enhances his biography.