When a Pope dies, another one is made. Outside Lula, for whom the judges confirmed the sentence and therefore the ineligibility in the next presidential elections on 7 October, his dolphin Fernando Haddad breaks into the Brazilian political scene, a lawyer of Lebanese origins and initially indicated as deputy by the leader of the Workers' Party, when he still thought he could run despite his imprisonment (sentenced to 12 years for corruption) in Curitiba prison. Haddad, 55, was a former minister under both Lula and Dilma Rousseff, as well as mayor of Brazil's largest city, São Paulo, until January 2017. First-round polls still place him behind the ultra-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, which also “benefited” from a attack with a lot of stabbing in the abdomen, from which he fortunately recovered, but he would win the runoff, a last-minute candidate after Lula's forced forfeit seemed to be able to open the way for other candidates from the left, from Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party to 'environmentalist Marina Silva, instead dropped to 5% in voting intentions, from the 12% of which she was accredited a month ago.
Bolsonaro, who rose from 20% to 28% in polls after the attack (compared to 19% of Haddad, who also grew from 6% at the beginning of September, when Lula was still hypothetically in the running), would still not have enough consensus to avoid the second round, and in that case the democratic front, including the candidate of the centre-right Geraldo Alckmin (today stopped at 7%), would compact in favor of Haddad, or rather against what is considered the "Brazilian Salvini". The ballot polls therefore give Haddad the favorite for the final victory, with Bolsonaro (who did not even spare explicitly homophobic intentions in the electoral campaign) which would remain below 40%. But who is the possible next president of Brazil, called to revive the most populated country in South America in its darkest hour, after the judicial scandals and economic growth that is only a distant memory? Paulist, orthodox Christian, Haddad is a professor of political science at the University of Sao Paulo. His education is of the Marxist type: he wrote two academic publications on Marx, socialism and the socio-economic system of the Soviet Union. In 2004 he wrote his latest book, entitled: "Work and language to renew socialism".
Haddad represents the moderate wing of the Workers' Party: precisely for this reason he is not entirely welcome to Lula, who would have preferred to give her hand to the former governor of Bahia Jacques Wagner, who however refused. Married with two children, Haddad started out as a banking analyst in 2001, then served as Minister of Education with both Lula and Dilma, although he did not complete his term in the latter case, before running for mayor of São Paulo in 2012. His experience as mayor of the most populated city in Brazil was controversial, even if in some ways innovative, especially in terms of experiments on the viability. Lula then names him coordinator of its government program and, since his incarceration, Haddad as a lawyer is among the few people allowed to meet with him on a regular basis. Direct contact with the historic leader, the president still most loved by Brazilians, earned him this unexpected challenge, with the realistic prospect of winning it.
But are there still people who believe in the advances of left-wing politicians, especially in South America? But not all are under the eyes of the glittering goals achieved in the redistribution of wealth in Venezuela (that is, all poor) or almost 15 years (but at least the judiciary has managed to put an end) of the Lula-Rousseff duo were not enough for the Brazilians to finish in canvas breeches?