Lula and Alckmin meet in first public event

Wesley Diego – from Cenarium

SÃO PAULO – The award night of the Prerrogativas Group, which took place this Sunday, 19th, in São Paulo, brought together the two most politically commented names of the last weeks: Lula and Geraldo Alckmin. The former governor of São Paulo, who has just left PSDB, the party he was part of for 33 years, is the name most likely to be Lula’s vice-president. The former president criticized the press for promoting the meeting of the two. 

“I want to thank former governor Alckmin who came. It’s funny why the Brazilian press is so nervous about a picture of me with Alckmin. I was president of the Republic, Alckmin governor… I had 600 times with Alckmin, nobody ever asked to take a picture with Alckmin,” said the former president, who governed the country between 2003 and 2010. Lula made it clear that he has not yet decided to be a candidate but is already speaking as one:  

“First, I haven’t decided my candidacy, because I’m in my senses. I know the responsibility that I have, when I say that I am a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. I know that the Brazil that I will get in 2023 is much worse than the Brazil that I got in 2003. Therefore, I have a lot of responsibility and I don’t want to play with the Brazilian people”, said Lula. 

About forming a slate with Alckmin, Lula tried to dismiss the possibility, but the tone used in the speech was of an already formed alliance: “I have to respect Alckmin, who left the PSDB. He still doesn’t have a party affiliation, he will join a political party. I don’t know which party he will join, and who will say if we can join or not is my party and his party. And he concludes by saying that “nothing happens for the vice-president before the president.”

Alckmin does not yet assume in which party he will disembark, but everything indicates that it will be the PSB, an acronym that has a strong tradition of supporting the Workers’ Party. When he quit PSDB, the former governor said in a post on Twitter that it is “time to trace a new path” and, in an event on the coast of São Paulo last week, Alckmin said that the first step towards this new path was to leave PSDB. The second, to join a new party, which will be done with tranquility and dialogue.