'He is very willing,' says Gleisi about Lula running for reelection in 2026
"We very much hope that he will be our candidate; regarding the opponent, it's not up to us to choose, we will have to face whoever he is," said the minister.
247 - Institutional Relations Minister Gleisi Hoffmann stated that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party) is "very willing" to run in the 2026 presidential election. "The president is very willing, energetic, and determined. He is launching a project... We very much hope that he will be our candidate; as for his opponent, it is not up to us to choose; we will have to face anyone," Gleisi told CNN Brazil this Friday (21).
The minister also came to Lula's defense in the face of criticism from Gilberto Kassab, national president of the PSD (Social Democratic Party). During a recent seminar at the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation, Kassab compared Lula's administration to that of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), stating that the current president was promoting an increasingly left-leaning government.
For Gleisi, the statement was unfair. "I think Kassab is being very unfair to President Lula, whom he has known so well and for so long. Lula has always been a person who listens to others, to various sectors; he has never been guided solely by the opinion of one party or another when he was in government," the minister said.
"I find Kassab's criticism completely unfair, and I also disagree that anyone would have won the 2022 election against Bolsonaro. There were ten candidates, and not just anyone won; it was Lula who won, in a very difficult election. (...) He would have to speak differently; no other candidate would have beaten Bolsonaro if it weren't for Lula," he concluded.
The PSD is part of the government's support base in the National Congress. Furthermore, three ministers appointed by the party hold strategic portfolios in the Esplanade of Ministries: Carlos Fávaro (Agriculture), Alexandre Silveira (Mines and Energy), and André de Paula (Fisheries).
The tensions between Kassab and Lula are not new. In January of this year, the PSD president had already said that the PT candidate's reelection in 2026 "is not easy." At the time, Lula responded sarcastically. "I started laughing when I heard Kassab's statement. I looked at the calendar and realized that, since the election is almost two years away, I wasn't worried," he stated.
