Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday that he will likely only serve a single term in Brazil’s presidency if he is re-elected in October’s election.
“I am not going to be a president of the republic who is thinking about his re-election,” he said in an interview with Rádio Métrópole in the northern Brazilian state of Bahia. “I am going to be a president who is going to think about governing the country for four years and leaving it very well.”
Lula, who will be 77 years old before assuming the presidency if elected, said he would have “four years in which I want to spend every minute to see if we can do more in four years than we did in eight.”
He added later: “I dream that when we get to December 31, 2026, when we hand over the mandate to someone else, this country is prospering, growing.”
The leftist leader served two terms from 2003 to 2010, and leads current President Jair Bolsonaro in all opinion polls ahead of the elections. Some suggest that Lula could win in the first round, thus avoiding a second round between the first two candidates.
Bolsonaro often insists that the polls are flawed and significantly underestimate his real strength.
Lula was elected in 2002 and, despite speaking out on several occasions against reelection, won another term after four years. In 2010 he refused to seek a third term despite pressure from many lawmakers who wanted to amend the Brazilian Constitution to give him that opportunity.
When campaigning in 2018, Bolsonaro also hinted that he would only be president for one term, saying he opposed re-election. In an interview with Fox News broadcast Thursday night, the far-right leader said the left will “never leave power” if Lula wins the October election.
“And then this country will follow in the footsteps of Venezuela, Argentina, Chile and Colombia,” Bolsonaro assured, listing the South American nations where leftist candidates have recently won the presidency. “Brazil could become another car on that train.”
Lula also referred to the role of the country’s armed forces in the elections, something that has become an issue since Bolsonaro hinted that he might not accept the results if he lost. Military leaders close to the president have insisted — without offering evidence — that there are flaws in the country’s electronic voting system.
The left-wing presidential hopeful said that questioning the elections is not a military task.
“It is the electoral authority that takes care of the electronic voting system. It is our society that oversees it,” said Lula, who has largely avoided expressing opinions that might displease military leaders during his campaign.
Lula compared Bolsonaro’s statements about the Brazilian voting system with the also unfounded questioning of then US President Donald Trump after the 2020 elections.
“He wants to create confusion. He seeks to do the same thing that Trump did. In other words, a lie repeated a thousand times can seem like the truth,” Lula said.
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