Lula embraces old foes ahead of race

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, has been keeping some strange company of late.

Throughout a recent corruption scandal in the Senate, he stuck firmly behind José Sarney, the Senate president and an epitome of the old-style Brazilian politics that the leftwing Mr Lula da Silva formerly railed against.

He was also seen to embrace, literally, Fernando Collar de Mello, unseated as Brazil’s president in 1992 in the middle of another corruption scandal, largely as the result of street protests led by Mr Lula da Silva and his Workers’ party (PT) – seen then as a beacon of probity on Brazil’s otherwise corrupt political landscape. Mr Lula da Silva used to deride such realpolitik. That he has indulged in it so freely this year is a sign, analysts say, of his determination to gather any support for Dilma Rousseff, expected to run to replace him as president in October next year.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ms Rousseff said she would not discuss whether she intended to run, “not even tied up”. But that she is Mr Lula da Silva’s chosen successor is Brazil’s most open secret.

It is tribute to the president’s personal charm and political skills that associating with old enemies has done no harm to his huge popularity among ordinary Brazilians. But his plans for Ms Rousseff have received their first setback just as next October’s presidential election looms on the political horizon.

“One thing’s for sure,” says Amaury de Souza, a consultant in Rio de Janeiro. “Lula’s strategy for the election to be a plebiscite on his government is not flying any longer.”

What may be about to upset the president’s plans is the defection last month to the Green party of Marina Silva, Mr Lula da Silva’s former environment minister and long-time PT stalwart. She resigned from the ministry in May last year after falling out with other ministers – especially Ms Rousseff, the government’s chief minister and architect of its plans for Brazil’s new-found oil wealth and other infrastructure investments – over what Ms Silva saw as her failure to get environmental issues taken seriously.

Ms Silva’s candidacy, expected to be announced soon, is likely to encourage others into the ring. Ciro Gomes, a former minister, and Heloisa Helena, another former PT left winger, are the most probable. “This definitely makes a difference,” says Luciano Dias, a political consultant in Brasília. “It will take the presidential contest to a second round.”

The government denies it, but its hurry to get plans to develop the pre-salt oilfields, located off the coast, approved in the next few months is seen by many as driven by the election. Although it will be years before the pre-salt oil starts to flow, the government is billing the wealth it will bring as the solution to inequality and other social ills.

Getting the government’s plans approved presents Mr Lula da Silva with a new dilemma. At first it seemed that all jobs on the parliamentary panels steering his plans through Congress would go to government supporters. But his deep distaste for confrontation may result in part of the work going to the centrist opposition. That might help pass the bills more quickly. But it would also relieve the opposition of the risk of appearing to be “against” the pre-salt oil plans – adding another twist to the election campaign.