Because Lula is Lula

The former president is not a messianic leader, as the Right claims. He is, above all, a representation of every ordinary Brazilian. This is the reason for his political strength. 

We are once again under attack. Fearful of former President Lula's political weight in the upcoming elections, conservative forces are once again attempting to stifle him. It would be ironic, if it weren't tragic, that this is happening after they invented a legal trick to keep the Workers' Party leader imprisoned. They believed that his detention would cause him to lose all his political capital, demoralizing him and leading to him being forgotten by his supporters. The opposite happened. 

Since April 7th of this year, Lula's popularity has only grown. Upon arriving in Curitiba that night, a crowd gathered in front of the Federal Police headquarters demanding true justice. These people – and this desire – continue to be represented through the Marisa Letícia Camp and the Vigil, meeting points of resistance against the political and judicial arbitrariness that is poisoning Brazilian democracy. 

Unreachable, Lula continues to practice his good politics: inspiring, proposing conciliations, offering efficient solutions focused on the real problems of ordinary Brazilians. He leads in the polls and is the most important name in the electoral game, with the capacity to redefine the landscape at any moment. There are politicians who, thanks to deep ties with power, have managed to escape legal proceedings. Aécio Neves and Geraldo Alckmin are the biggest examples. These, despite being free, are politically dead. Lula, despite being imprisoned, is omnipresent in the electoral process. 

Since it's impossible to neutralize Lula by attacking him directly, the Brazilian Right is now adopting the strategy of discrediting the support of the PT's militants and sympathizers. According to this new tactic, the 30% of Brazilians who declare their vote for Lula are all under a kind of ideological spell, for supporting a "convicted criminal." Lula, in turn, would be a self-generated myth, the character in a heroic narrative created to deceive the electorate and use this mass as a shield. 

The tactic itself is not new. But it gained new dimensions after the Workers' Party's courageous insistence on maintaining Lula's candidacy for the presidency. Risking a fierce and seemingly endless legal battle, the PT opted for the path of consistency, and made its main leader, and natural candidate, the head of the presidential ticket. 

In a moment of radical reflection on the country's future, the choice supposedly reveals that the PT (Workers' Party) is trapped in a dictatorship of single-minded thought, and that it cannot develop any project that does not rely on the charismatic figure of its leader. This type of superficial analysis overlooks several subtleties. The main one is that the relationship between Lula and Brazilians transcends mere political analysis and is better situated within the dynamics of affection. 

Lula is the rejection of the mythical leader figure, so common in dictatorships. The Brazilian dictatorship, for example, was prolific in creating these deceptive figures. Its generals in brushed uniforms represented a false idea of ​​order and progress, because in the corridors and basements what was produced was violent and corrupt chaos. Lula is far removed from all of that. He is, above all, the common man who represents the essence of every Brazilian man and woman. If politics is an art of the collective, few individuals manage to be as collectivizing as the former president. 

This characteristic didn't appear overnight, obviously. It was shaped by the very political work Lula has dedicated himself to over the last forty years. Listening, understanding, mediating. This made Lula himself a middle ground between the middle strata of the Brazilian population, capable of reconciling the interests of workers and businesses, producers and consumers, young people and adults, the city and the countryside. Lula is a candidate not for himself, but for the synthesis of democratic processes he is capable of producing.  

Therefore, Lula's candidacy is not a delusion, but rather the result of sobriety, maturity, and appreciation for democracy – characteristics that set the PT apart from many other parties. Unfortunately, our politics have been operating negatively since before the 2016 coup. Before we can even implement any national project, it is necessary to rebuild our democratic foundations. This work includes re-establishing the democratic process and freedom of political expression. Currently, both are imprisoned in a cell at the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba. 

They'll try to make you believe it's just one man.