Aides try to make Lula follow the script after statements go wrong; understand
With his political trajectory marked by emotional, often spontaneous speeches, President Lula has demonstrated difficulty, in this third term, in following scripts previously agreed with his assistants. The result, in some cases, has been statements that end up having negative repercussions, affecting their popularity. Less than a year before the election, the behavior raised an alarm in the government, which has expressed concern about the slips of the President of the Planalto Palace.
Aides say they know that there is no way to completely control Lula’s speeches. They recognize that if he only follows the scripts, the president could lose his spontaneity, considered one of the strengths of his political activities.
Given this diagnosis, the plan, with an eye on next year’s election, is to try to control the PT member’s demonstrations by passing on information based on research to reduce mistakes.
READ MORE:
- Noam Chomsky’s wife denies that he brokered a connection between Lula and Epstein
- R$ 28 million: Organization that offered Janja a position closes an agreement for COP-30, says newspaper
The most recent case involved the police operation carried out by the Rio government in the Penha and Alemão complexes, at the end of October, which left 121 people dead. When speaking for the first time about the issue, a week after the event, the president treated the action as “disastrous” and even stated that there had been a “slaughter”. The statement was given in an interview with international agencies.
Until then, the government had been adopting a more careful line, without direct criticism of the operation, which, according to surveys, was mostly supported by the population. In a post on his social media profiles on the 29th, Lula said that “we cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents and spread drugs and violence throughout the cities”, and defended the need for integrated work that “reaches the backbone of drug trafficking without putting police officers, children and innocent families at risk”.
Lula’s subsequent change of tone was not agreed with his assistants. The plan was for the president to criticize the fact that the action promoted by the police of governor Cláudio Castro (PL) did not meet the objectives of arresting the main leaders of Comando Vermelho.
The argument was that the operation, even with the deaths and arrests, did not break the backbone of drug trafficking in the Alemão and Penha complexes. The desire was for Lula to say that the operation only served to “clear the ice”.
But the phrase about the “killing” was not aligned with the strategy of the Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom), led by Minister Sidônio Palmeira. Immediately, the president’s demonstration began to be used by the opposition to propagate that the government defends criminals.
READ ALSO: Alckmin: we had 23% of Brazilian products with zero tariffs for the USA and now 26%
Shortly after the statement, the PT’s communications team made a post on Lula’s social media with the aim of trying to reduce the impact of the speech. The message praised the federal government’s actions in the area of public security.
Genial/Quaest research released this week shows that 57% of the population disagrees with the statement in which Lula considers the operation in Rio “disastrous”.
Quaest assesses that the concern about public security raised by the police operation in Rio stopped the trend of improvement in Lula’s popularity that had been registered since July. Government approval, which was 48% in October, fluctuated to 47% in the survey released on Wednesday. Disapproval went from 49% to 50%.
In addition to controversial statements, Lula’s style has disrupted the political strategy defined to give more impact to his actions. On October 23, in Indonesia, the PT member announced that he will run for a new term and overrode all the planning that had been discussed by the government and the PT to give relevance to the decision. Although the reelection attempt had already been discussed previously, it was the first time he spoke about the subject without placing reservations, such as his health.
Electoral impact
The main concern is the fact that poorly placed speeches have a greater impact on government evaluations and voting intentions made by the portion of the electorate that does not declare itself to be either PT or Bolsonarist. In a scenario of polarization, this slice of the population is considered decisive next year.
The director of Quaest, Felipe Nunes, says that this electorate, which represents around 10% of the population, supported the government’s actions to defend national sovereignty against the tariffs imposed on Brazilian products by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in July: “When we look at the data (from the polls) from the inside, we realize that it is the independent voter who is changing their opinion. It was that voter who supported the government on sovereignty and is now against the president on the issue of violence. We have evidence that public security has had an effect.”
Before the operation in Rio, Lula had already faced wear and tear when he stated that drug traffickers are “victims of users”.
