Thursday, December 19, 2024

"Lula is going to win in the first round": Landless Rural Workers' Movement

Landless Rural Workers Movement
Nina Fideles (center) and Joao Stedile explain the Brazilian context a few days before the elections. Photo: Ingrid Sanchez P360P

Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva will win in the first round of the presidential elections in Brazil on October 2, says Jo?o Pedro Stedile, part of the national leadership of the Brazilian National Party for Democracy (PAN). Landless Rural Workers Movement MST. 

"We had the idea that at least in the second round we would win, however, in the last days of Sunday, that force that is behind the classes began to materialize in the voting intentions and today Lula is 7 points ahead of Bolsonaro and can even tell us mathematically that Lula will surely win in the first round," he said during a talk given to journalists from different parts of the continent. 

To explain this, Stedile's analysis is contextualized in the behavior of the three main classes in Brazil: bourgeoisie, middle class and popular class, the latter deeply affected by the measures promoted by the right wing that ruled the country with Michel Temer between 2012 and 2018 and then with Jair Bolsonaro from 2018 to date. 

For its part, the bourgeoisie is said to have reconsidered its support for the right-wing sectors, since in the last few weeks around 100 large businessmen from all over the country have met with Lula with the aim of negotiating and getting closer to what seems to be the next president of the country. 

Bolsonaro himself, who has waged a strong war against Lula and all those who support him, has stated that some businessmen, such as the owners of Globo TV station, have migrated their support and are currently a bastion of support for the former president. According to Stedile, the TV station, for example, was part of the fake news campaigns promoted in 2018 against the left by the ultra-right sectors so now we could talk about changes in the political position of these sectors of the bourgeoisie. 

With a strong but serene and clear voice, Stedile breaks down the class situation in Brazil with a perspective that confesses to be that of a "left-wing Christian", convinced that the State is no longer an answer for Brazilians, but being part of an intense electoral campaign of the left to remove Bolsonaro from the presidency. 

The efforts of leftist organizations, even those that declare themselves skeptical of electoral processes, have been focused on convincing people to vote for the left not only in the presidential process but also in local governments and deputies. 

The middle class, on the other hand, has also been affected by the measures implemented by the far-right, although some small groups still support Bolsonaro and are those who participate in demonstrations in support of the president. 

"There is a structural capitalist crisis all over the world and that crisis came with more force to Brazil because we are an economy totally dependent on foreign capital and the world market and when that crisis emerged, it affected all sectors of life, first in the economy, second in society," explained Stedile. 

One of Brazil's major problems, for example, since the crisis is the serious unemployment problem. According to MST figures, the country has a population of 220 million, with a labor force of 150 million Brazilians and of those, 72 million were laid off in recent years. 

"It is the second country in South America: the first is Brazil and the second are the dispossessed of Brazil, 70 million adults," the national leader of the MST stated forcefully. 

To the economic crisis is added the political crisis promoted by the bourgeoisie as a class with 4 blows against democracy and the Brazilian people: the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, Temer's measures to prohibit the creation of social programs in 20 years, the imprisonment of Lula and the election of Bolsonaro. 

Jo?o Pedro Stedile also denounced the participation of the United States in the process of imprisonment of Lula's former president because the FBI and the Justice Department would have guided the judge Sergio Moro, in charge of the case. 

According to the MST leader, Moro met monthly with them in the United States to receive guidance. 

"The whole process was a lie, based on that new tactic that the gringos are spreading throughout Latin America, which is the law fare," Stedile said. 

Likewise, the "fake news" campaign in 2018 promoted by the Brazilian ultra-right would have been organized and financed by the United States from the donation of two large computers one established in Israel and the other in Taiwan, from where 80 million messages were sent in 8 hours to create a campaign of harassment and defamation against the left. 

In relation to the international issue, according to the MST leader, Lula will not have an anti-imperialist rhetoric but will have two main interests: the strengthening of the BRICS to promote positions contrary to the United States, also promoting the entry of Indonesia, Turkey and Argentina, countries that have applied for membership; and on the other hand, the strengthening of Latin American integration through the recovery of mechanisms such as the UNSAR, Celae or the Bank of the South. 

Stedile conveys the possibility of an even soft and simple victory, as opposed to the violent discourse that Bolsonaro has promoted in recent weeks and in which he highlights the possibility of violence during Election Day. Stedile, on the other hand, kindly but firmly requests that the media not repeat this rhetoric because it is aimed at preventing the population from going out to vote and, therefore, hindering Lula's victory in the first round. 

"If Lula does not win, I call a new press conference on Monday to make my self-criticism," said the leader with a smile.

You may be interested in: Electoral bodies from all over the continent give certainty to Brazilian elections

Ingrid Sanchez
Ingrid Sanchez
Journalist and Latin Americanist. He has worked on issues of social movements, gender and violence.

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