The Democrat’s exit from the presidential race should serve as a warning to the PT and the Brazilian president, who will turn 80 in 2026: it is time for the left and the center to prepare a successor for Lula. It is tragic that Joe Biden has withdrawn from the presidential elections. With his insistence on maintaining his candidacy and his not-so-voluntary resignation, he has devalued an admirable political career: he was a senator seven times, vice president twice and, finally, president of the United States.
His greatest political success to date was his victory over Donald Trump, after a single Republican term. Democrat Biden has stabilized the rule of law and America’s democratic institutions, once again becoming a reliable partner for democratic nations in Europe and Asia.
Yet Biden has put all that at risk and has now lost dramatically. He will go down in history as the image of the egocentric old man who for too long believed he was the only one capable of beating his opponent Trump again. A fatal error of judgment, in which his family, the Democrats and several media participated.
However, my fear is that a similar drama could occur in the Brazilian elections within two years.
Lula is following Biden’s script
I am referring to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Just under three years younger than Biden, he will turn 80 in 2026. So far he has not shown signs of senile weakness, like his counterpart, but even for the American until recently this was not a question.
I do not believe that ageism requires an individual fully capable of doing the hard work of leading the world’s largest democracy in these turbulent times. In the United States, however, Biden’s allies and supporters have ignored this requirement. And in Brazil, all signs point to the Workers’ Party, its followers, and Lula himself and his family following the same path.
Because, like Biden, Lula has so far failed, in his current term, to weaken the followers of his far-right predecessor and bridge the rift in society. On the contrary: the Bolsonarists in Congress and in society dominate the political debate with their populist bills.
Lula is increasingly less able to initiate important reforms, not even on the issues of the center-left has he managed to draw a line. His government acts as if it were pushed by the center-right majority in Congress and appears antiquated in a world that is changing at high speed.
It’s time to prepare the succession
However, the paradox is that the less the PT government manages to assert itself and the more it loses influence, the greater the chances that Lula will consider himself the only one capable of defeating a right-wing candidate. In the same way that, after his narrow victory over Trump in 2020, Biden was convinced that only he could defeat the right-wing populist again.
The Democrat’s thesis was now over: in 2016 he resigned from the presidential candidacy to make room for the presumed favorite Hillary Clinton – who then lost to Trump. If he had run, he would have won, is Biden’s assessment.
In the PT the picture is no different: it is said, even today, that Jair Bolsonaro only came to power in 2018 because Lula was in prison, which allowed the right-wing populist to defeat Fernando Haddad. Lula would have won for sure: this is the widespread opinion on the left until today.
The parallels between Lula and Biden go beyond their advanced age and the myth of their supposed superiority over the far right: their parties do not allow competition between possible candidates for succession; they are convinced that the political experience of the two leaders is an advantage; the environment constantly reminds them that the world has changed; criticism is a taboo.
Gross errors of judgment are accepted without criticism. Therefore, Biden hastily withdrew the US military from Afghanistan. The ensuing chaos in Kabul and the immediate seizure of power by the Taliban were a huge loss of prestige for the United States.
Lula’s spontaneous statements – on Ukraine, Israel, Venezuela – have damaged his previous international reputation, as well as that of Brazil. Therefore, it is time for the left and the center of Brazilian politics to prepare Lula’s succession. It is not easy, but there is no alternative.
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Journalist Alexander Busch has been a correspondent in South America for over 30 years. He works for Handelsblatt and the daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Born in 1963, he grew up in Venezuela and studied economics and politics in Cologne and Buenos Aires. Busch lives and works in Salvador. He is the author of several books on Brazil.
The text reflects the personal opinion of the author, not necessarily that of DW.
Source: Terra
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