Brazil’s left forced to consider post-Lula future

For more than 30 years Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been the standard-bearer of the Brazilian left, forged as a strike leader during the country’s dictatorship and three times elected president of what became Latin America’s largest democracy. 

But a health scare has forced supporters of the 79-year-old to consider what might come after the end of his political career, which has taken a shoeshine boy born in rural poverty to the role of global statesman. 

Lula, as he is universally known, was rushed from Brasília by plane on Monday night to São Paulo for emergency surgery, after an MRI scan revealed a brain bleed caused by a fall at his home in October.

After the initial operation, which involved making a small hole into the skull to drain a haematoma, the leftwinger underwent a second, “low risk” procedure on Thursday to prevent further haemorrhages.

Doctors said Lula was talking and eating, mobile and recovering well, with no cerebral damage. He is expected to be discharged next week after leaving full intensive care on Friday. 

Still, the incident has stirred doubts over the physical condition of the divisive politician, who is equally loved and loathed in his homeland — along with a debate on whether he will, or should, stand for re-election in 2026.

“For at least the next two years, Brazil will need to deal openly and responsibly with the issue of [Lula’s] health — and his age,” read an editorial in the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.

“What will be at stake is whether Lula has the health and lucidity compatible with the immense challenges ahead of him.”

The situation has drawn comparisons with US President Joe Biden, 82, who abandoned a re-election bid this year following intense scrutiny over his age and medical fitness. Biden’s incoming successor, 78-year-old Donald Trump, has faced similar questions.

While Lula recently told CNN he would only decide on his electoral plans closer to the time, close allies insist he will be on the ticket for his Workers’ party, or PT, in 2026. 

“It was worrying of course, but today Lula is our candidate for 2026. There is no plan B,” Gleisi Hoffmann, PT president, told the Financial Times. “If we start to think about [alternatives], then it will send out the wrong signal.

“But clearly, the party has to start preparing, because in 2030 we’re going to need a qualified leader.”

Lula inspires deep reverence among his followers but has not cultivated any obvious successors, presenting the risk of a vacuum at the top of the movement he founded in the 1980s.

According to party insiders, options include finance minister Fernando Haddad, who lost the 2018 presidential race to far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro, and education minister Camilo Santana.

Yet none possess Lula’s popular appeal. Acclaimed internationally for reducing poverty during his first stint in power, from 2003 to 2011, the formal metalworker returned last year vowing to boost living standards and save the Amazon rainforest.

In a survey by Quaest/Genial conducted before Lula’s hospitalisation, more than half of respondents said they believed the president should not run again. However, the poll also found that Lula would defeat rightwing challengers for the presidency. 

In private, senior PT figures are downbeat about the party’s prospects if he is not on the ballot. That reflects the weakened state of Brazil’s left, following a conservative backlash in the wake of corruption controversies and an economic crisis the last time it was in power.

Lula’s narrow victory in 2022 over the incumbent Bolsonaro was only thanks to a big-tent coalition backed by moderate voters keen to kick out the brash Christian nationalist. 

Bruno Carazza, professor at the Dom Cabral Foundation, said past graft scandals had removed potential heirs to Lula.

“The PT has succession and generational problems,” he added. “And it has faced many difficulties to get big city mayors and state governors elected in the last decade.”

Lula ended his first presidency with record approval ratings. But the country went on to suffer its worst recession under his handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached.

In a dramatic downfall, Lula himself was found guilty of money laundering and corruption in 2017 and spent more than a year and a half in jail. The convictions were later overturned, paving the way for his comeback.

Since being admitted for the unplanned surgery, Lula has not taken formal leave from his role nor temporarily transferred the presidency to his deputy, Geraldo Alckmin. He has been in telephone contact with ministers and advisers, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said he was “not impeded” from carrying out his job.

“Every Brazilian is wondering whether the president is able to govern,” said Adriana Ventura, a lawmaker with the opposition Novo party. “If he is well, he should speak to the nation. If he is not, he should let the vice-president govern.”

Traditionally on the centre-right, Alckmin belongs to a different party and was once an adversary of Lula, who defeated him in the 2006 presidential election. Selected in a bid to broaden Lula’s appeal, he is considered business-friendly and has served as governor of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous and richest state. 

Following Lula’s slip in his bathroom, which required several stitches, the head of state had already scaled back a normally busy international travel agenda.

A former smoker and throat cancer survivor fond of physical exercise, Lula had a hip replacement last year. A person close to the president said he was in good health in spite of the latest episode.

The medical team described the risk of further bleeding as “statistically negligible” after the follow-up procedure, and recommended rest in the coming weeks.

“The guidance is to avoid any type of stress, which in his position is impossible,” said cardiologist Roberto Kalil, Lula’s personal doctor, in a press conference on Thursday. 

A short video was released on Friday showing the president, with a bandage on his head, walking and in conversation in a hospital corridor.

Eduardo Grin, professor of politics at Getúlio Vargas Foundation, said comparisons with Biden were “exaggerated”. “Most of the speculation about Lula’s health has come from the financial market, which is opposed to his economic policy.”

The issue comes at a delicate moment for the government, as investor concerns over Brazil’s public finances and inflation have hammered its exchange rate. Ministers are rushing to obtain parliamentary approval for spending cuts to balance the budget.

A push to eliminate the primary deficit — meaning before interest payments — by finance minister Haddad, who many consider the favourite to succeed Lula, has displeased more leftwing PT members who resist any austerity.

“The government’s decision-making structure is quite concentrated around Lula, especially on economic topics and critical negotiations with Congress. So the timing of his health issue is sensitive,” said Mario Braga, geopolitical analyst at consultancy Rane.

“Since Brazil’s fiscal situation has been the main domestic driver of financial volatility, Lula’s absence in Brasília could fuel uncertainty and sour investors’ mood further,” he added.

For the veteran leftist’s devotees, the episode has brought home his mortality. Denise Forganes, from an industrial suburb of São Paulo where Lula made his name as a trade unionist in the 1970s, said his eventual departure would be a “tragedy”. 

“I hope the Workers’ party can come together even without him. There are other possible names. But I don’t have much hope without Lula.”