President Lula's speech at CUT forced Bolsonaro to adopt a more civilized stance in the face of the covid-19 pandemic

After a speech made by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, today, at the Workers' Union Central (CUT), the political chessboard in Brazil completely changed. The Workers Party lider defended vaccines, social isolation, sympathized with the families of the more than 260 thousand victims. On the same day, goverment members — including the president Jair Bolsonaro, a world-renowned denialist —, appeared all masked, defending vaccines, and promising to tackle the pandemic.

Now, the strategy of denialism as a policy adopted by Bolsonaro during the pandemic, with the trivialization of deaths and the naturalization of the cleavage between the economy and combating the pandemic —  as if they were opposite things — changed drastically.

The former Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, criticized the government of President Bolsonaro for not wearing the mask, drinking and going to celebrations, fighting with scientists. For Lula,  Bolsonaro committed a number of impeachable acts.

Lula da Silva practically forced Bolsonaro to adopt a more civilized stance in the face of the covid-19 pandemic.

Lula raises the tone of criticism of Jair Bolsonaro's government and asks Brazilian people to take to the streets as the people of Chile are doing

In his second speech after leaving prison, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said that current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro should “ govern for the Brazilian people and not for the militiamen of Rio de Janeiro”.

Speaking in the vicinity of the São Bernardo do Campo Metalworkers Union in the state of Sao Paulo, Lula said Bolsonaro had never worked in his life and that Bolsonaro should not interfere with investigations to find out who killed Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Mariele Franco.  Lula also said he began working in a metallurgical at the age of thirteen while Bolsonaro retired at the age of 33 in Brazilian military service.

According to the Professor of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Oliver Stuenkel, "most analysts believe that Lula's release from prison will make it harder for a centrist candidate to win in 2022 because the ideological spectrum will be dominated by the Workers Party and Bolsonaro. But Lula, at least for now, cannot run for office".

Even free, Lula cannot run for presidential succession. Under the Clean Record Law, the former president needs to have a sentence annulled by the Supreme Court to be entitled to officially apply for the 2022 election.