Lula of Brazil: The Story So Far

9. The Elections of 2006

Lula’s last big rally, on the eve of the first round of the presidential election on 1 October 2006, was a vintage occasion. He spoke to a crowd of more than three thousand people, the majority waving PT flags, at a big open space called the Area Verde in São Bernardo, his hometown where he himself voted. For an observer, buying a can of beer and watching with the excited crowd, it was a reminder that Lula and the PT were still a force to be reckoned with. Both had been seriously battered over the previous four years; both would survive. Lula’s voice was hoarse after speaking all over the country. Yet he marched up and down the stage, talking for thirty-five minutes, acting like a much younger man. He joked that the mayor was trying to sabotage the meeting, because the lights in the square had been switched off. He hugged José Alencar, his vice presidential colleague. He brought Marisa before the audience, and praised and thanked her. Women used to be prisoners; now they had equality. Marisa herself had never complained when he had gone to prison; she was part of the struggle . He had half the cabinet on stage with him and, at a certain point, asked Luiz Marinho, his minister of labor, to give the latest figures on job creation. He had even been patient when Eduardo Suplicy, running again to be PT senator in São Paulo, sang his traditional rendering of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” 196 9 TH E E LE CTI ON S OF 200 6 Lula’s speech was populist and nostalgic. He recalled the police and military helicopters flying over the Vila Euclides in the days of the dictatorship , his drinks with union colleagues at home, his vow that “Nothing can hold back the Brazilian worker,” even before he helped to start the PT. He attacked the elite; the press, which had run so many hostile articles against him;1 former president Cardoso, who he said would have preferred that only those who would vote for him should have the vote. The elite was so prejudiced it “would like to change the people.”2 He did not directly mention the crisis over the anti-Serra dossier, or why he had chosen not to take part in the final TV debate with Alckmin, Buarque, and Helena. Lula was not pronouncing policy, he was rallying the faithful. Other speakers from the platform said that he had done more in three and a half years than his predecessors had in five hundred. The slogan was “Lula de novo, com a força do povo” (Lula once more, with the support of the people), and the call was for Lula to win on the first round, and Mercadante, the PT candidate to govern São Paulo, on the second. The crowd let off firecrackers and sang, “Olé, olé ola, Lula, Lula!” Journalists noticed that on the platform were two federal deputies questionably absolved by the Chamber of Deputies as the mensalão scandal wound down, José Mentor and Luiz Carlos da Silva, always known as Professor Luizinho, and a businessman named Paulo Okamotto, who had paid off a debt for the president. Lula’s team seemed fairly confident at this point, three days before the election, that he would gain the 50 percent of votes plus one that would mean victory in the first round. It was already clear that Mercadante and the other candidates for the São Paulo governorship had little hope of stopping a runaway victory for José Serra. What would happen elsewhere was less predictable, although the PSDB was also coasting to victory in the big state of Minas Gerais, where Aécio Neves, the popular grandson of Tancredo Neves, was seeking reelection as governor . As usual, voting was compulsory, and in some states including São Paulo, there was a ban on alcohol sales during the hours the electronic election machines were running. The election campaign had been less hectic and participative than in previous years. In the city of São Paulo, for example, there were few t h e e l e c t i o n s o f 2 0 0 6 197 posters displayed in flats and houses. The limitations on free gifts and on the appearance of singers at rallies dampened enthusiasm. Even so...